From atoms to Higgs boson : voyages in quasi-spacetime / Chary Rangacharyulu, Christopher Polachic.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rangacharyulu, Chary, author.

Polachic, Christopher, author.

Contributor:

Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Particles (Nuclear physics).

Physical Description:

xxii, 250 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Singapore : Jenny Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd., [2019]

Contents:

1 The Reductionist Vision of Physics p. 1

1.1 Reductionism p. 1

1.2 Our View of the World p. 2

1.3 Democritus' Atoms p. 5

1.4 Properties of Atoms in Early Physics p. 8

1.5 The Descent into the Quark Model p. 12

1.6 Contemporary Catalogue of Physical Things p. 16

1.7 Have We Reached the Bottom? p. 17

1.8 Defining the Bottom Rung of the Ladder p. 21

1.9 Are Quarks Really at the Bottom? p. 23

2 Quasirealism p. 27

2.1 Common Sense p. 27

2.2 Mathematics at the Centre p. 29

2.3 Quasiparticles p. 31

2.4 Quasirealism Defined p. 33

2.5 Against Quasirealism p. 37

2.6 Quasirealism and the Theory of Everything p. 41

3 Space, Time, and Relativity p. 45

3.1 Ancient Concepts of Space and Time p. 46

3.2 Philosophizing on Space and Time p. 47

3.3 Newton's Absolute Space p. 49

3.4 Lines of Force and Fields p. 54

3.5 The Aether p. 59

3.6 Lorentz-FitzGerald Contraction p. 63

3.7 Special Relativity p. 64

3.8 General Relativity p. 67

4 Mathematical Spaces p. 73

4.1 Space and N-Dimensional Spaces p. 73

4.2 Space and Geometry p. 75

4.3 Complex Numbers and Imaginary Planes p. 80

4.4 Minkowski Spacetime p. 83

4.5 Phase Space p. 85

4.6 Hilbert Space p. 88

4.7 String Theories and Multidimensional Space p. 90

5 Mass p. 95

5.1 Mass and Weight p. 95

5.2 Mass and Relativity p. 98

5.3 Mass of Small Things p. 101

5.4 Modern Mass Measurements of Subatomic Particles p. 104

5.5 Mass of Short-Lived Particles p. 106

5.6 Mass of Resonances p. 111

5.7 Mass of Quarks p. 116

5.8 Mass of Higgs Boson p. 120

5.9 Concluding Remarks on Mass p. 122

6 Quantum Physics p. 125

6.1 Statistical Microphysics and Waves p. 125

6.2 Quantum Theory of the Atom p. 127

6.3 What Evolves in Quantum Theory? p. 130

7 When Is an Atom? p. 133

7.1 The Classical Atom p. 133

7.2 The Divisible Chemical Atom p. 135

7.3 Protons and Neutrons Are Particles, but Are They Fundamental? p. 137

7.4 The Electron Is Fundamental, but Is It Still a Particle? p. 139

7.5 The Electron of Wave Mechanics p. 140

7.6 Niels Bohr's Instrumentalist View p. 143

7.7 Electrons in Quantum Electrodynamics p. 145

7.8 Electrons in Bulk Matter p. 150

7.9 In Summary: We May Still Have Atoms p. 154

8 Elementary Quanta p. 155

8.1 Fermions, Bosons, Quarks, and Leptons p. 155

8.2 Quarks and Leptons Are Really Very Different p. 163

8.3 On the Reality of Neutrinos p. 165

8.4 On the Reality of Quarks p. 167

8.5 The Gauge Bosons p. 169

9 What Is a Photon? p. 173

9.1 Problem of Blackbody Radiation p. 174

9.2 Photoelectric Effect p. 176

9.3 Waves and Particles, Real and Virtual p. 177

9.4 Other Lives of Photons p. 182

9.5 Photons and Electroweak Unification p. 184

9.6 Are Photons Phoenixes? p. 186

9.7 Finally, What Are Photons? p. 188

10 Symmetries, Conservation Laws, and Gauge Bosons p. 191

10.1 Symmetry and Gauge p. 191

10.2 Gauge Invariance and Electromagnetism p. 193

10.3 Symmetry and Isospin p. 194

10.4 Mixing of Matter and Interactions p. 196

11 Higgs Boson p. 203

11.1 Knowing What We Cannot See p. 203

11.2 Searching for the Higgs Boson p. 204

11.3 Higgs Discovery p. 213

11.4 Particle or Resonance? p. 215

11.5 What Does the Higgs Boson Contribute? p. 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9789814800242

9814800244

OCLC:

1060580413

Publisher Number:

99981526016