Published by: opinio (Karma: 106.56) on 27 February 2008 | Views: 3108
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Book Description
The essays in this book are based on
researches the author has undertaken on a wide range of topics, some
using equipment no more elaborate than what one can find in an ordinary
kitchen, others making elegant use of sophisticated experimental
apparatus. Presenting a personal odyssey in physics, Silverman
investigates processes for which no visualizable mechanism can be
given, or that seem to violate fundamental physical laws (but do not),
or that appear to be well understood but turn out to be subtly devious.
Written in an engagingly personal style, the essays will be of interest
to students of physics and related disciplines as well as professional
physicists. Though they deal with subtle concepts, the discussions use
little mathematics, and anyone with a little college physics will be
able to read the book with pleasure. Silverman's researches deal with
in quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, electromagnetism and
optics, gravity, thermodynamics, and the physics of fluids, and these
essays address .such questions as: How does one know that atomic
electrons move? Would an "anti-atom" fall upward? How is it possible
for randomly emitted particles to arrive at a detector preferentially
in pairs? Can one influence electrons in London by not watching them in
New York? Can a particle be influenced by a magnetic field through
which it does not pass? A basketball is not changed by turning it once
around its axis, but what about an electron? Can more light reflect
from a surface than is incident upon it? "A Universe of Atoms" is the
second edition of Silverman's "And Yet It Moves"; each essay in the
earlier collection has been revised and updated, and some new essays on
the uncommon physics of common objects have been added
Book Info
Presenting a personal odyssey in
physics, Silverman investigates processes for which no visualizable
mechanism can be given, or that seen to violate fundamental physical
laws, or that appear to be well understood but turn out to be subtly
devious.
