From Quanta to Quarks: More Anecdotal History of Physics

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World Scientific, 2007 - Science - 157 pages
This enlightening book, a sequel to QUIPS, QUOTES, AND QUANTA, helps readers to understand how physicists think about and look at the world. Starting with the discovery and investigation of cosmic rays, the book proceeds to cover some major areas of modern physics in laymen's terms. Unlike other books that deal with the history of physics, this volume concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists who created the new ideas, with a heavy emphasis on personal incidents and quotes. At the same time it presents, in every day language, the ideas created by these physicists. Both thematic and biographical in nature, readers will be entertained with humorous events in the lives of some famous scientists. Readers will also learn quite a lot about modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts intact.

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Contents

1 Prologue
1
2 The Birthcry of Atoms
5
3 The Dirac Equation
15
4 Quantum Field Theory
22
5 The Strongest Force
50
The Atom Bomb
70
7 Elementary Particles
87
8 Of Matter Liquid and Solid
100
9 Cosmology
119
10 Black Holes
132
11 Epilogue
141
12 Glossary and Timeline
145
Index
153
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