Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.48 (713 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195173244 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 512 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-05-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg.Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. In addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and others--each section beginning with a historical overview. William H. Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.
But Cropper has obviously won any arguments on that score in this work profiling 30 scientists; although he incorporates nothing beyond the ken of high-school calculus students, the chapter on Paul Dirac is titled "igreek characters=mgreek characters." That equation describes the behavior of the electron, and in the late 1920s it reconciled competing interpretations of the spooky quantum world: Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrodinger's wave mechanics. Market-savvy publishers merely request that the math be confined to iconic equations, an f=ma here, an e=mc2 there. From Booklist Although genuine understanding of physical principles eludes the mathematically
Donald E. Fulton said Highly recommended. This is an excellent book. Cropper must have put an enormous effort into researching and writing this 500 page, large format paperback, which has been nicely printed on white paper. At its current price of $1"Highly recommended" according to Donald E. Fulton. This is an excellent book. Cropper must have put an enormous effort into researching and writing this 500 page, large format paperback, which has been nicely printed on white paper. At its current price of $12.97 an incredible bargain. At first glance this book appears to be sort of a strange hybrid of biography and science, but the combo works. Cropper generally starts a chapter on a scientist wit. .97 an incredible bargain. At first glance this book appears to be sort of a strange hybrid of biography and science, but the combo works. Cropper generally starts a chapter on a scientist wit. Five Stars Wonderfully written. frank snyder said Five Stars. fine
Lawrence University. William H. Cropper is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at St. He lives in Saugerties, New York.