From the Author of 'The Invisible Creation', Shuvadip Ganguli Physics My Love: The Story of Physics for Everyone (2nd Edition) About the Book: This is an elementary introduction to the fascinating world of Physics. The primary purpose of this book is to increase students' interest in Physics. Through it, I want to emphasize what is truly interesting about Physics. The subject matter is presented in a very simple way without mathematical calculations, so that, everyone can understand it easily. * This is the latest updated Edition.
“YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote one such fan. When Lewin’s lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.” For more than thirty years as a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,” writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don’t approach like a physicist—yet.” Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions. Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy—arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy—he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes. “For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing—the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute—as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.
This is an elementary introduction to the fascinating world of Physics. The primary purpose of this book is to increase students' interest in Physics. Through it, Shuvadip wants to emphasize what is truly interesting about Physics. The subject matter is presented in a very simple way without mathematical calculations, so that, everyone can understand it easily.
Everything around us - trees, buildings, food, light, water, air and even ourselves - is composed of minute particles, smaller than a nanometre (a billionth of a metre). Quantum physics is the science of these particles and without it none of our electronic devices, from smartphones to computers and microwave ovens, would exist. But quantum physics also pushes us to the very boundaries of what we know about science, reality and the structure of the universe. The world of quantum physics is an amazing place, where quantum particles can do weird and wonderful things, acting totally unlike the objects we experience in day-to-day life. How can atoms exist in two places at once? And just how can a cat be dead and alive at the same time? Find out more with this entertaining illustrated guide to the fascinating, mysterious world of quantum physics.
This special book is a compilation of essays on a remarkable but little-known story that lasted over half a century of world-renown physicist, the late Sir Rudolf Peierls and his wife Genia Kannegiser. Peierls collected a lot of prestigious awards in his lifetime, and in the beginning of WW2, he and Otto Frisch were responsible for the inception of the Anglo-American nuclear program (1940). He was also one of the key contributors in the research at Los Alamos during those turbulent times. Most previous books on Peierls have focused on his scientific research, while the contents for this volume sheds light on his private life in dramatic circumstances. The extensive contributions were not only gathered from the relatives of Genia, the couple's daughters, Landau's students, and from Russian and English archives, but they also include the unique perspectives of the author who is a professional theoretical physicist and is also fluent in Russian, his native language. So, this fascinating story of love, friendship and physics between Rudolf and Genia is being told for the first time from a surprisingly new angle through correspondence between Genia and Rudolf, memoirs and other documents, interesting and informal excerpts from Peierls' private "diary" covering the years 1979-1994 that will take the reader on a journey through communism, world war, the trials and tribulations of the loving couple with distinctly very different personalities.
A modern, graduate-level introduction to many-body physics in condensed matter, this textbook explains the tools and concepts needed for a research-level understanding of the correlated behavior of quantum fluids. Starting with an operator-based introduction to the quantum field theory of many-body physics, this textbook presents the Feynman diagram approach, Green's functions and finite-temperature many-body physics before developing the path integral approach to interacting systems. Special chapters are devoted to the concepts of Fermi liquid theory, broken symmetry, conduction in disordered systems, superconductivity and the physics of local-moment metals. A strong emphasis on concepts and numerous exercises make this an invaluable course book for graduate students in condensed matter physics. It will also interest students in nuclear, atomic and particle physics.
The mesmerizing bestseller that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock—A New York Times Ten Best Book of the Year Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit. At the center of the novel is clever, deadpan Blue van Meer, who has a head full of literary, philosophical, scientific, and cinematic knowledge. But she could use some friends. Upon entering the elite St. Gallway School, she finds some—a clique of eccentrics known as the Bluebloods. One drowning and one hanging later, Blue finds herself puzzling out a byzantine murder mystery. Nabokov meets Donna Tartt (then invites the rest of the Western Canon to the party) in this novel—with visual aids drawn by the author—that has won over readers of all ages.
In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Henry Grayson shares his breakthrough techniques for creating deeper and more lasting connections with our loved ones. Henry Grayson, a psychologist, relationship counselor, psychoanalyst, and former minister who has been working with couples and individuals to improve their relationships for over thirty years, has found that most people are actually more unhappy after marriage counseling or couples therapy. In Mindful Loving he sets aside the traditional methods of therapy to show you how to look at your relationships from a completely different perspective. By getting to the root of our relationship problems, which stem from our thoughts and beliefs and mistaken ideas about our own identities, Grayson creates a whole new framework—one where psychology, spirituality, and science meet—in which to view intimacy.
In this, the second volume in an important new series presenting core concepts across a range of critical areas of human knowledge, author Joanne Baker unravels the complexities of 20th-century scientific theory for a general readership. From Hubble's law to the Pauli exclusion principle, and from Schrodinger's cat to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, she explains ideas at the cutting-edge of scientific enquiry, making them comprehensible and accessible to the layperson.
This extraordinarily comprehensive text, requiring no special background, discusses the nature of sound waves, musical instruments, musical notation, acoustic materials, elements of sound reproduction systems, and electronic music. Includes 376 figures.
