J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the outstanding physicists of his generation. He was also an immensely gifted writer and speaker, who thought deeply about the way that scientific discoveries have changed the way people live and think. Displaying his subtlety of thought and expression as do few other documents, this book of his lectures discusses the moral and cultural implications of developments in modern physics. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This history of atomism, from Democritus to the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, chronicles one of the most successful scientific hypotheses ever devised. Originating separately in both ancient Greece and India, the concept of the atom persisted for centuries, despite often running afoul of conventional thinking. Until the twentieth century, no direct evidence for atoms existed. Today it is possible to actually observe atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope. In this book, physicist Victor J. Stenger makes the case that, in the final analysis, atoms and the void are all that exists. The book begins with the story of the earliest atomists - the ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, and the Latin poet Lucretius. As the author notes, the idea of elementary particles as the foundation of reality had many opponents throughout history - from Aristotle to Christian theologians and even some nineteenth-century chemists and philosophers. While theists today accept that the evidence for the atomic theory of matter is overwhelming, they reject the atheistic implications of that theory. In conclusion, the author underscores the main point made throughout this work: the total absence of empirical facts and theoretical arguments to support the existence of any component to reality other than atoms and the void can be taken as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that such a component is nowhere to be found.
In 1900 many eminent scientists did not believe atoms existed, yet within just a few years the atomic century launched into history with an astonishing string of breakthroughs in physics that began with Albert Einstein and continues to this day. Before this explosive growth into the modern age took place, an all-but-forgotten genius strove for forty years to win acceptance for the atomic theory of matter and an altogether new way of doing physics. Ludwig Boltz-mann battled with philosophers, the scientific establishment, and his own potent demons. His victory led the way to the greatest scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Now acclaimed science writer David Lindley portrays the dramatic story of Boltzmann and his embrace of the atom, while providing a window on the civilized world that gave birth to our scientific era. Boltzmann emerges as an endearingly quixotic character, passionately inspired by Beethoven, who muddled through the practical matters of life in a European gilded age. Boltzmann's story reaches from fin de siècle Vienna, across Germany and Britain, to America. As the Habsburg Empire was crumbling, Germany's intellectual might was growing; Edinburgh in Scotland was one of the most intellectually fertile places on earth; and, in America, brilliant independent minds were beginning to draw on the best ideas of the bureaucratized old world. Boltzmann's nemesis in the field of theoretical physics at home in Austria was Ernst Mach, noted today in the term Mach I, the speed of sound. Mach believed physics should address only that which could be directly observed. How could we know that frisky atoms jiggling about corresponded to heat if we couldn't see them? Why should we bother with theories that only told us what would probably happen, rather than making an absolute prediction? Mach and Boltzmann both believed in the power of science, but their approaches to physics could not have been more opposed. Boltzmann sought to explain the real world, and cast aside any philosophical criteria. Mach, along with many nineteenth-century scientists, wanted to construct an empirical edifice of absolute truths that obeyed strict philosophical rules. Boltzmann did not get on well with authority in any form, and he did his best work at arm's length from it. When at the end of his career he engaged with the philosophical authorities in the Viennese academy, the results were personally disastrous and tragic. Yet Boltzmann's enduring legacy lives on in the new physics and technology of our wired world. Lindley's elegant telling of this tale combines the detailed breadth of the best history, the beauty of theoretical physics, and the psychological insight belonging to the finest of novels.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leading physicist in the Manhattan Project, recognized that scientific inquiry and discovery could no longer be separated from their effect on political decision-making, social responsibility, and human endeavor in general. He openly addressed issues of common concern and as a scientist accepted the responsibility brought about by nuclear physics and the atom bomb. In this collection of essays and speeches, Oppenheimer discusses the shift in scientific awareness and its impact on education, the question of openness in a society forced to keep secrets, the conflict between individual concerns and public and political necessity, the future of science and its effects on future politics---in short, the common and uncommon sense we find in our modern day reality.
"A biography of ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, who believed that all matter was made up of indivisible and indestructible particles called atoms moving around in a void"--Provided by publisher.
Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) is one of the few American scientists who have become public and controversial figures in the twentieth century. This book adds a new dimension to the Oppenheimer story by offering a look at the private man behind the public figure. It consists of letters spanning the period from his Harvard student days in 1922 to his departure from Los Alamos in 1945. The letters are supplemented by recollections of those who knew Oppenheimer and by his own recollections from an interview a few years before his death. 'A beautifully organized collection of letters and reminiscences ... The editors have interviewed those who knew and worked with him, stirred in the necessary explanatory background, and produced an account, both scholarly and highly readable, which throws fresh light on a man who will probably always remain something of an enigma. Amid devotional defense and almost rabid attack, their book is a model of objectivity.' New York Times Book RevieW 'An intimate, carefully documented, and honest book.'
Science, religion, philosophy: these three categories of thought have organized humankind’s search for meaning from time immemorial. Reality’s Fugue presents a compelling case that these ways of understanding, often seen as competing, are part of a larger puzzle that cannot be rendered by one account of reality alone. This book begins with an overview of the concept of reality and the philosophical difficulties associated with attempts to account for it through any single worldview. By clarifying the differences among first-person, third-person, and dualist understandings of reality, F. Samuel Brainard repurposes the three predominant ways of making sense of those differences: exclusionist (only one worldview can be right), inclusivist (viewing other worldviews through the lens of one in order to incorporate them all, and thus distorting them), and pluralist or relativist (holding that there are no universals, and truth is relative). His alternative mode of understanding uses Douglas Hofstadter’s metaphor of a musical fugue that allows different “voices” and “melodies” of worldviews to coexist in counterpoint and conversation, while each remains distinct, with none privileged above the others. Approaching reality in this way, Brainard argues, opens up the possibility for a multivoiced perspective that can overcome the skeptical challenges that metaphysical positions face. Engagingly argued by a lifelong scholar of philosophy and global religions, this edifying and accessible exploration of the nature of reality addresses deeply meaningful questions about belief, reconciliation, and being.
This volume highlights the latest developments and trends in advanced materials and their properties, the modeling and simulation of non-classical materials and structures, and new technologies for joining materials. It presents the developments of advanced materials and respective tools to characterize and predict the material properties and behavior.
What is 'the void'? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space - 'nothing' - exist? This little book explores the science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle's theories to black holes and quantum particles, and why our very latest discoveries about the vacuum can tell us extraordinary things about the cosmos. - ;What is 'the void'? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space - 'nothing' - exist? This little book explores the science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle who insisted that the vacuum was impossible, via the theories of Newton and Einstein, to our very latest discoveries and why they can tell us extraordinary things about the cosmos. Frank Close tells the story of how scientists have explored the elusive void, and the rich discoveries that they have made there. He takes the reader on a lively and accessible history through ancient ideas and cultural superstitions to the frontiers of current research. He describes how scientists discovered that the vacuum is filled with fields; how Newton, Mach, and Einstein grappled with the nature of space and time; and how the mysterious 'aether' that was long ago supposed to permeate the void may now be making a comeback with the latest research into the 'Higgs field'. We now know that the vacuum is far from being 'nothing' - it seethes with virtual particles and antiparticles that erupt spontaneously into being, and it also may contain hidden dimensions that we were previously unaware of. These new discoveries may provide answers to some of cosmology's most fundamental questions: what lies outside the universe, and, if there was once nothing, then how did the universe begin? - ;It covers very complicated concepts in a mostly accessible way. - Lawrence Rudnick, Nature;A fascinating subject covered by a fascinating book. - Marcus Chown, Focus
The concept of the atom is very close to scientific bedrock, the deepest and most fundamental fact about the nature of reality. This book presents the whole panorama of the atomic hypothesis, and its place in Western civilization, from its origins in early Greek philosophy 2500 years ago to the definitive proof through direct microscopic imaging of since atoms, about ten years ago.
