Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition free download online
Title: Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition Author(s): Peter T. Landsberg Pages: 328 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 1999 Language: English Format: PDF ISBN-10: 0750306572 ISBN-13: Description: American Journal of Physics, October 2000
I heartily recommend this book.
CHOICE Magazine
...conveys that physics is a meaningful human activity and that much enjoyment is possible through the contemplation of physics...
Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
1 What this book is about
1.1 Introduction
1.2 My story
1.3 Intuition
1.4 Incompleteness
1.5 Human aspects
1.6 Reasons for reading this book
1.7 Arrangement of the chapters
2 There is no free lunch. Temperature and energy: science for the environment (Hero: Count Rumford)
2.1 Introduction
2.2 How cold can we get?
2.3 Historical notes on thermodynamics
2.4 What is the highest temperature?
2.5 What is energy conservation?
2.6 A marriage of energy and mass
2.7 Perpetual motion?
2.8 Energy for mankind
2.9 Summary
3 Painting by numbers. Elements and particles: science as prediction (Hero: Dmitri Mendeleev) 29
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Chemistry in 1867
3.3 The Periodic Table and three predictions
3.4 Confirmations
3.5 The atom in the 1890s
3.6 The atom split
3.7 Incompleteness
3.8 Plum-pudding or planetary system?
3.9 A taxonomy of particles
3.10 Basic forces
3.11 Predictions of particles
3.12 Electrons yield modern electronics
3.13 Summary
4 Why you cannot unscramble an egg. Time and entropy: science and the unity of knowledge (Hero: Ludwig Boltzmann)
4.1 What is entropy?
4.2 How can we move in time?
4.3 The first problem: can all molecular velocities be reversed?
4.4 A second problem: coarse-graining
4.5 Time's arrow as an illusion
4.6 Different arrows of time
4.7 Entropy as metaphor
4.8 Summary
5 How a butterfly caused a tornado. Chaos and life: science as synthesis (Hero: Charles Darwin)
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Limits of predictability in Newtonian mechanics
5.3 Chemical and population chaos
5.4 Abrupt changes ('phase transitions')
5.5 Self-organization
5.6 Entropy is not always disorder
5.7 The origin of life
5.8 Summary
6 Now you see it, now you don't. Quantum theory: science and the invention of concepts (Hero: Max Planck)
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Quantum mechanics: the elimination of unobservables
6.3 Wave mechanics: the optics-mechanics analogy
6.4 A brief history of the new mechanics
6.5 Wavefunctions and probabilities
6.6 Attempts to understand quantum mechanics
6.7 Comments on quantum mechanics
6.8 Quantum effects
6.9 Can gravity affect temperature or light?
6.10 Matter drained of heat
6.11 A look at superconductivity
6.12 Summary
7 The galactic highway. Cosmology: science as history (Hero: Albert Einstein)
7.1 Ages
7.2 Hubble's law
7.3 Cosmological models
7.4 The 'relic' radiation
7.5 Olbers' Paradox
7.6 The oscillating universe
7.7 The origin of the elements
7.8 Black holes
7.9 Some problems
7.10 Time machines
7.11 Summary
8 Weirdness or purity. Mathematics: science as numbers (Hero: Arthur Eddington)
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Gdel's theorem: consistency and incompleteness
8.3 Complexity and randomness
8.4 Infinites
8.5 The physical constants
8.6 Cosmical coincidences
8.7 The anthropic principle
8.8 The Copernican principle
8.9 Summary
9 The last question. Does God exist? (Hero: Blaise Pascal)
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Goedelian statements
9.3 The evidence of thermodynamics
9.4 The evidence from cosmology
9.5 The evidence from quantum mechanics
9.6 Conclusions
10 Love of my life. Science as human activity (Hero: readers are invited to choose their own)
10.1 Happiness
10.2 Limits of science
10.3 Distortions: science and the public
10.4 Science wars?
10.5 Concluding remarks
Glossary
References
Name Index
Index
Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition free download links:
Title: Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition