The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-century PhysicsThe Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of "unification" (a description of how matter behaves that can apply equally to everything) with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schr dinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out to find the "theory of everything." The Second Creation tells the story of some of the most talented and idiosyncratic people in the world--many times in their own words. Crease and Mann conducted hundreds of interviews to capture the thinking and the personalities as well as the science. The authors make this complex subject matter clear and absorbing. |
Contents
Beginnings and Ends | 1 |
The Man Who Talked | 20 |
A Childrens Crusade | 34 |
Uncertaintys Triumph | 52 |
The Man Who Listened | 75 |
Infinity | 92 |
The Shift | 110 |
Killing the Hydra Part I | 129 |
Broken Symmetry | 231 |
The Eightfold Way | 253 |
The King and His Quarks | 280 |
Killing the Hydra Part II | 311 |
Neutral CurrentsAlternating Currents | 337 |
Charm and Parity | 359 |
The Beginning of Time | 393 |
The End of Physics | 410 |
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accelerator AHQP alpha asked atom baryons beam beta decay Bjorken Bohr Brookhaven calculations Caltech CERN charm colleagues conference cosmic rays detector Dirac discovered Einstein electromagnetic electron elementary particle energy equations experiment experimenters February Fermi Fermilab Feynman force gauge Gell-Mann Georgi Goldhaber hadrons Harvard Heisenberg Hooft hydrogen idea Iliopoulos infinities isotopic spin knew laboratory later leptons letter look magnetic mass mathematical meson Millikan muon Murray Gell-Mann Musset Nambu Ne'eman neutral currents neutrino neutron Nobel November nuclear nucleus Oppenheimer paper parity particle physics Pauli Physical Review physicists pion predicted problem proton quantum electrodynamics quantum field theory quantum mechanics quarks renormalization Rutherford Salam Samios Schrödinger Schwinger scientists self-energy Serber Sheldon Glashow SLAC standard model strong interactions Stueckelberg symmetry talk Telephone interview theoretical theorists thing thought Ting tion told unification unified University vector bosons Veltman Victor Weisskopf wave weak interactions Weinberg Weisskopf Yang-Mills York Yukawa