A Cultural History Of Physics

Author : Karoly Simonyi
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1439865116
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Cultural History of Physics written by Karoly Simonyi and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-01-25 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the physical sciences are a continuously evolving source of technology and of understanding about our world, they have become so specialized and rely on so much prerequisite knowledge that for many people today the divide between the sciences and the humanities seems even greater than it was when C. P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture,

Author : Crosbie Smith
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226764207
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Science of Energy written by Crosbie Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although we take it for granted today, the concept of "energy" transformed nineteenth-century physics. In The Science of Energy, Crosbie Smith shows how a North British group of scientists and engineers, including James Joule, James Clerk Maxwell, William and James Thomson, Fleeming Jenkin, and P. G. Tait, developed energy physics to solve practical problems encountered by Scottish shipbuilders and marine engineers; to counter biblical revivalism and evolutionary materialism; and to rapidly enhance their own scientific credibility. Replacing the language and concepts of classical mechanics with terms such as "actual" and "potential" energy, the North British group conducted their revolution in physics so astutely and vigorously that the concept of "energy"—a valuable commodity in the early days of industrialization—became their intellectual property. Smith skillfully places this revolution in its scientific and cultural context, exploring the actual creation of scientific knowledge during one of the most significant episodes in the history of physics.

Author : Helge Kragh
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691095523
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Quantum Generations written by Helge Kragh and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-24 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists believed that the basic principles underlying their subject were already known, and that physics in the future would only consist of filling in the details. They could hardly have been more wrong. The past century has seen the rise of quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology, particle physics, and solid-state physics, among other fields. These subjects have fundamentally changed our understanding of space, time, and matter. They have also transformed daily life, inspiring a technological revolution that has included the development of radio, television, lasers, nuclear power, and computers. In Quantum Generations, Helge Kragh, one of the world's leading historians of physics, presents a sweeping account of these extraordinary achievements of the past one hundred years. The first comprehensive one-volume history of twentieth-century physics, the book takes us from the discovery of X rays in the mid-1890s to superstring theory in the 1990s. Unlike most previous histories of physics, written either from a scientific perspective or from a social and institutional perspective, Quantum Generations combines both approaches. Kragh writes about pure science with the expertise of a trained physicist, while keeping the content accessible to nonspecialists and paying careful attention to practical uses of science, ranging from compact disks to bombs. As a historian, Kragh skillfully outlines the social and economic contexts that have shaped the field in the twentieth century. He writes, for example, about the impact of the two world wars, the fate of physics under Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, the role of military research, the emerging leadership of the United States, and the backlash against science that began in the 1960s. He also shows how the revolutionary discoveries of scientists ranging from Einstein, Planck, and Bohr to Stephen Hawking have been built on the great traditions of earlier centuries. Combining a mastery of detail with a sure sense of the broad contours of historical change, Kragh has written a fitting tribute to the scientists who have played such a decisive role in the making of the modern world.

Author : Jed Z. Buchwald
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019969625X
Total Pages : 956 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics written by Jed Z. Buchwald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 956 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a history of physics, examining the theories and experimental practices of the science.

Author : J. L. Heilbron
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019968412X
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The History of Physics written by J. L. Heilbron and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 2015 as: Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks.

Author : Stephen Kern
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400826233
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Cultural History of Causality written by Stephen Kern and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering work is the first to trace how our understanding of the causes of human behavior has changed radically over the course of European and American cultural history since 1830. Focusing on the act of murder, as documented vividly by more than a hundred novels including Crime and Punishment, An American Tragedy, The Trial, and Lolita, Stephen Kern devotes each chapter of A Cultural History of Causality to examining a specific causal factor or motive for murder--ancestry, childhood, language, sexuality, emotion, mind, society, and ideology. In addition to drawing on particular novels, each chapter considers the sciences (genetics, endocrinology, physiology, neuroscience) and systems of thought (psychoanalysis, linguistics, sociology, forensic psychiatry, and existential philosophy) most germane to each causal factor or motive. Kern identifies five shifts in thinking about causality, shifts toward increasing specificity, multiplicity, complexity, probability, and uncertainty. He argues that the more researchers learned about the causes of human behavior, the more they realized how much more there was to know and how little they knew about what they thought they knew. The book closes by considering the revolutionary impact of quantum theory, which, though it influenced novelists only marginally, shattered the model of causal understanding that had dominated Western thought since the seventeenth century. Others have addressed changing ideas about causality in specific areas, but no one has tackled a broad cultural history of this concept as does Stephen Kern in this engagingly written and lucidly argued book.

Author : M. Mamone Capria
Publisher : IOS Press
ISBN 13 : 1607501066
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Physics Before and After Einstein written by M. Mamone Capria and published by IOS Press. This book was released on 2005-04-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is now a century ago that one of the icons of modern physics published some of the most influential scientific papers of all times. With his work on relativity and quantum theory, Albert Einstein has altered the field of physics forever. It should not come as a surprise that looking back at Einstein's work, one needs to rethink the whole scope of physics, before and after his time. This books aims to provide a perspective on the history of modern physics, spanning from the late 19th century up to today. It is not an encyclopaedic work, but it presents the groundbreaking and sometimes provocative main contributions by Einstein as marking the line between ‘old’ and ‘new’ physics, and expands on some of the developments and open issues to which they gave rise. This presentation is not meant as a mere celebration of Einstein’s work, but as a critical appraisal which provides accurate historical and conceptual information. The contributing authors all have a reputation for working on themes related to Einstein’s work and its consequences. Therefore, the collection of papers gives a good representation of what happened in the 100 years after Einstein’s landmark Annalen der Physik articles. All people interested in the field of physics, history of science and epistemology could benefit from this book. An effort has been made to make the book attractive not only to scientists, but also to people with a more basic knowledge of mathematics and physics.

Author : P. C. W. Davies
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684818221
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book About Time written by P. C. W. Davies and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1996-04-09 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the ramifications of Einstein's relativity theory, exploring the mysteries of time and considering black holes, time travel, the existence of God, and the nature of the universe.

Author : Adrian Bejan
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466891343
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Physics of Life written by Adrian Bejan and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Physics of Life explores the roots of the big question by examining the deepest urges and properties of living things, both animate and inanimate: how to live longer, with food, warmth, power, movement and free access to other people and surroundings. Bejan explores controversial and relevant issues such as sustainability, water and food supply, fuel, and economy, to critique the state in which the world understands positions of power and freedom. Breaking down concepts such as desire and power, sports health and culture, the state of economy, water and energy, politics and distribution, Bejan uses the language of physics to explain how each system works in order to clarify the meaning of evolution in its broadest scientific sense, moving the reader towards a better understanding of the world's systems and the natural evolution of cultural and political development. The Physics of Life argues that the evolution phenomenon is much broader and older than the evolutionary designs that constitute the biosphere, empowering readers with a new view of the globe and the future, revealing that the urge to have better ideas has the same physical effect as the urge to have better laws and better government. This is evolution explained loudly but also elegantly, forging a path that flows sustainability.

Author : Brian Clegg
Publisher : Icon Books
ISBN 13 : 1785787489
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ten Days in Physics that Shook the World written by Brian Clegg and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The breakthroughs that have had the most transformative practical impacts, from thermodynamics to the Internet. Physics informs our understanding of how the world works – but more than that, key breakthroughs in physics have transformed everyday life. We journey back to ten separate days in history to understand how particular breakthroughs were achieved, meet the individuals responsible and see how each breakthrough has influenced our lives. It is a unique selection. Focusing on practical impact means there is no room for Stephen Hawking's work on black holes, or the discovery of the Higgs boson. Instead we have the relatively little-known Rudolf Clausius (thermodynamics) and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (superconductivity), while Albert Einstein is included not for his theories of relativity but for the short paper that gave us E=mc2 (nuclear fission). Later chapters feature transistors, LEDs and the Internet.