Synopses & Reviews
The first edition of this book was born in the fire of youth. In the thirty-two years since then, much has changed in physics, in higher education, and needless to say in my own outlook.
In physics, there was the triumph of the Standard Model of particles and fields, a development recongized in the second edition by the addition of a nineteenth chapter. But particle physics has now been on somewhat of a plateau for two decades, while cosmology has burgeoned, rescued from scientific marginality by a number of theoretical and instrumental advances, some of which were byproducts ofg particle research.
In recognition of this, I have chosen in this edition to give greater emphasis to the close interaction between fundamental physics and our picture of the universe, and added a twentieth chapter describing the current cosmological consensus. I fully recognize that any such narrative is vulnerable to rapid obsolescence. I have also added new worked examples and additional exercises.
Robert March
Synopsis
Very accessible, brief, introduction to physics for the non-science major. A text written for the curious, non-scientist who wants to know how modern physics came to be, and figure out what lies behind the stories in the science columns of their newspapers.
Table of Contents
1 A Vast and Most Excellent Science 2 Toward a Science of Mechanics 3 The Denouement: Newton's Laws 4 The Moon and the Apple 5 The Romance of Energy 6 One Last Part for the Machine 7 Waves 8 Does the Earth Really Move? 9 The Birth of Relativity 10 The Wedding of Space and Time 11 E=mc2 and All That 12 Did God Have Any Choice? 13 The Atom Returns 14 Rutherford Probes the Atom 15 The Atom and the Quantum 16 Particles and Waves 17 Does God Play Dice? 18 Schrodinger's Cat 19 The Dreams Stuff Is Made Of 20 The Whole Shebang