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Quantum legacy : the discovery that changed our universe / Barry Parker.
Van Pelt Library QC174.12 .P373 2002
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Parker, Barry R.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Quantum theory.
- Physical Description:
- 282 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2002.
- Summary:
- Parker introduces readers to all the major players in the history of quantum physics, offering interesting details that shed light on their important discoveries, in a book that "The New York Times" calls "physics for poets." Illustrations.
- Contents:
- 2. Early Ideas 21
- Dalton 22
- The Kinetic Theory of Gases 23
- Size of the Atom 24
- Cathode Rays 26
- The Discovery of X Rays 27
- Radioactivity 29
- The Electron 31
- Spectra 33
- Rutherford 34
- 3. The Lucky Guess 39
- Blackbody Radiation 39
- The Lucky Guess 42
- Einstein to the Rescue 46
- 4. The Bohr Atom 51
- Reaction to Bohr's Theory 59
- The Crazy Idea: Waves of Matter 63
- 5. Heisenberg's Arrays 69
- Heisenberg 70
- College Years 71
- Half-Integral Quantum Numbers 72
- Visit to Gottingen 74
- Max Born 75
- The Doctorate Exam 76
- To Copenhagen 78
- Heligoland 80
- The New Theory 82
- More Elegance 82
- 6. Schrodinger's Wave Equation 85
- Early Years 86
- Doctorate 88
- War Years 90
- Postwar Letdown 91
- Zurich 93
- The ETH-University of Zurich Colloquium 94
- The Breakthrough 95
- First Paper on Wave Mechanics 96
- The Second and Third Papers 97
- The Last Paper 98
- 7. What Did It All Mean? 101
- Reaction to Schrodinger's Theory 102
- Heisenberg and Schrodinger 103
- The Connection 104
- Physical Interpretation 105
- Born's Interpretation 107
- The Aftermath 108
- Visit to Copenhagen 109
- Trip to America 111
- Planck's Chair at Berlin 111
- The Fifth Solvay Conference 112
- Later Years 113
- 8. Uncertainty 115
- The Uncertainty Principle 116
- Bohr's Return 119
- Complementarity 121
- The Wave Packet 124
- The Como Conference 124
- The Solvay Conference 125
- Heisenberg and Bohr 126
- 9. Einstein's Objections and Quantum Weirdness 129
- The Double-Slit Experiment 131
- EPR 133
- The Schrodinger-Einstein Letters and Schrodinger's Cat 137
- Bell's Inequality 138
- Consequences 141
- 10. Extending the Theory 143
- The Breakthrough 151
- 11. Modern Developments: Lasers and Masers 159
- Einstein and the Laser 159
- The Maser Principle 161
- The First Maser 162
- The Soviet Maser 166
- Applications of Masers 167
- The Laser 168
- The Soviet Laser 170
- Maiman and the First Working Laser 171
- The Gas Laser 172
- Semiconductor Lasers 174
- Modern Applications of Lasers 175
- 12. Transistors and Superconductors 179
- Supermagnets
- Finally 193
- The BSC Theory 196
- High-Temperature Superconductivity 197
- The Race Was On 200
- The Spin-offs of Superconductivity 201
- 13. The Nuclear Age 203
- The Italian Navigator
- Fermi 207
- The Discovery of Fission 209
- The First Nuclear Reactor 216
- Bohr Meets Heisenberg 218
- Oppenheimer and Los Alamos 219
- The Spin-offs of Nuclear Energy 223
- 14. The Computer Revolution 225
- The First "Difference Machine" 229
- The Z Machines 230
- Stibitz and His Relays 232
- Mark I and ABC 233
- ENIAC 234
- Stored Programs 236
- The Turing Enigma 237
- Back to von Neumann 242
- Generations of Computers 244
- The Future 246.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-273) and index.
- ISBN:
- 157392993X
- OCLC:
- 49901930
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