Huygens: The Man Behind the Principle
Huygens: The Man Behind the Principle

Author: C. D. Andriesse

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-08-25

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 9780521850902

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Huygens: The Man Behind the Principle is the story of the great seventeenth-century Dutch mathematician and physicist, Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695). As the first complete biography ever written this book describes in detail how Huygens arrived at discoveries and inventions that are often wrongly ascribed to Newton. Huygens played a key role in the 'scientific revolution', and the Huygens Principle on the wave theory of light helped establish his reputation. The discovery of Saturn's rings and the invention of the pendulum clock made him so famous that he was invited to be the first director of the French Academy of Science, but his life as director teetered on the edge of powerlessness. Despite Huygens' many achievements no complete biography has previously been published in English. This book gives scientists and historians the opportunity to learn more about all aspects of Huygens' life while bringing his story to a wider audience.

Lenses and Waves
Lenses and Waves

Author: Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-01-20

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1402026986

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In 1690, Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) published Traité de la Lumière, containing his renowned wave theory of light. It is considered a landmark in seventeenth-century science, for the way Huygens mathematized the corpuscular nature of light and his probabilistic conception of natural knowledge. This book discusses the development of Huygens' wave theory, reconstructing the winding road that eventually led to Traité de la Lumière. For the first time, the full range of manuscript sources is taken into account. In addition, the development of Huygens' thinking on the nature of light is put in the context of his optics as a whole, which was dominated by his lifelong pursuit of theoretical and practical dioptrics. In so doing, this book offers the first account of the development of Huygens' mathematical analysis of lenses and telescopes and its significance for the origin of the wave theory of light. As Huygens applied his mathematical proficiency to practical issues pertaining to telescopes – including trying to design a perfect telescope by means of mathematical theory – his dioptrics is significant for our understanding of seventeenth-century relations between theory and practice. With this full account of Huygens' optics, this book sheds new light on the history of seventeenth-century optics and the rise of the new mathematical sciences, as well as Huygens' oeuvre as a whole. Students of the history of optics, of early mathematical physics, and the Scientific Revolution, will find this book enlightening.

University Physics
University Physics

Author: OpenStax

Publisher:

Published: 2016-11-04

Total Pages: 622

ISBN-13: 9781680920451

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University Physics is a three-volume collection that meets the scope and sequence requirements for two- and three-semester calculus-based physics courses. Volume 1 covers mechanics, sound, oscillations, and waves. Volume 2 covers thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and Volume 3 covers optics and modern physics. This textbook emphasizes connections between between theory and application, making physics concepts interesting and accessible to students while maintaining the mathematical rigor inherent in the subject. Frequent, strong examples focus on how to approach a problem, how to work with the equations, and how to check and generalize the result. The text and images in this textbook are grayscale.

Treatise On Light
Treatise On Light

Author: Christiaan Huygens

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 3752308168

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Reproduction of the original: Treatise On Light by Christiaan Huygens

Galileo Unbound
Galileo Unbound

Author: David D. Nolte

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-12

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0192528505

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Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

The Tests of Time
The Tests of Time

Author: Lisa M. Dolling

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2003-02-16

Total Pages: 762

ISBN-13: 9780691090856

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The development of physical theory is one of our greatest intellectual achievements. Its products--the currently prevailing theories of physics, astronomy, and cosmology--have proved themselves to possess intrinsic beauty and to have enormous explanatory and predictive power. This anthology of primary readings chronicles the birth and maturation of five such theories (the heliocentric theory, the electromagnetic field theory, special and general relativity, quantum theory, and the big bang theory) in the words of the scientists who brought them to life. It is the first historical account that captures the rich substance of these theories, each of which represents a fascinating story of the interplay of evidence and insight--and of dialogue among great minds. Readers sit in with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo as they overturn the geocentric universe; observe the genius of Faraday and Maxwell as they "discover" the electromagnetic field; look over Einstein's shoulder as he works out the details of relativity; listen in as Einstein and Bohr argue for the soul of quantum mechanics in the Completeness Debate; and watch as Hubble and others reveal the history of the universe. The editors' approach highlights the moments of discovery that rise from scientific creativity, and the presentation humanizes the scientific process, revealing the extent to which great scientists were the first to consider the philosophical implications of their work. But, most significantly, the editors offer this as their central thesis: although each was ushered in by a revolution, and each contains counterintuitive elements that delayed its acceptance, these five theories exhibit a continuous rational development that has led them to a permanent place in the worldview of science. Accessible to the general reader yet sufficiently substantive that working scientists will find value in it, The Tests of Time offers an intimate look into how physical theory has been developed, by the brilliant people who have developed it.

Huygens' Principle and Hyperbolic Equations
Huygens' Principle and Hyperbolic Equations

Author: Gunther Paul

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 908

ISBN-13: 1483262227

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Huygens' Principle and Hyperbolic Equations is devoted to certain mathematical aspects of wave propagation in curved space-times. The book aims to present special nontrivial Huygens' operators and to describe their individual properties and to characterize these examples of Huygens' operators within certain more or less comprehensive classes of general hyperbolic operators. The materials covered in the book include a treatment of the wave equation for p-forms over a space of constant sectional curvature, the Riesz distributions, the Euler-Poisson-Darboux-equations over a Riemannian manifold, and plane wave manifolds. Physicists will find the book invaluable.

Making Waves
Making Waves

Author: Roger Lewin

Publisher: Rodale Books

Published: 2005-09-29

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1623362407

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The biography of a medical maverick who is challenging scientific convention with his astounding approach to achieving and maintaining health. Dr. Irving Dardik's radical notions about how all matter moves in interconnected waves has drawn deep skepticism from physicists, and his early attempts to put his theory into practice in the field of health care got him banned from practicing medicine in the 1990s. But now, after a decade's worth of rigorous research that seems to support Dardik's SuperWave theory, scientists at such esteemed institutions as MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Research International are signing on with Dardik's team to probe the possibilities. For example, Dardik's unique approach to physical exercise, based on his Principle, has achieved some remarkable successes in reversing symptoms of chronic disease. Making Waves weaves together two fascinating stories: Dardik's personal progression from vascular surgeon to scientific iconoclast and pioneer, chronicling his struggle to convince the scientific community to take him seriously; and the evolution of his mind-expanding SuperWave Principle. Colleagues--skeptics as well as supporters--consider the impact of SuperWave theory on current thinking about nature on all scales, from the universe to the subatomic world, and in the realms of biology, applied science, and medicine. The resulting read will interest those concerned with their own health and vitality as well as those curious about the fundamental workings of nature.