The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics - 2 volumes

Selected Essays

Jagdish Mehra

1408 pages, parution le 07/12/2001

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Résumé

The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics brings together 37 selected essays. Many of these essays were first presented as lectures at various universities in Europe and the USA, and then published as reports or articles. Their enlarged, final versions were published in the joint work of Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, while the other essays were published as articles in scientific journals or in edited books. Here they are published together as a tribute to the Mehra–Rechenberg collaboration sustained for several decades, and cover various aspects of quantum theory, the special and general theories of relativity, the foundations of statistical mechanics, and some of their fundamental applications. Two essays, 'Albert Einstein's "First" Paper' (Essay 1) and 'The Dream of Leonardo da Vinci' (Essay 37), lie outside the major themes treated in this book, but are included here because of their historical interest. The origin of each essay is explained in a footnote.

This book deals with the most important themes developed in the first 40 years of the twentieth century by some of the greatest pioneers and architects of modern physics. It is a vital source of information about what can veritably be described as 'the golden age of theoretical physics'.

Contents

Volume 1: Albert Einstein's 'First' Paper

Max Planck and the Law of Blackbody Radiation
Planck's Half-Quanta: A History of the Concept of Zero-Point Energy
Josiah Willard Gibbs and the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
Einstein and the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics
Albert Einstein and Marian von Smoluchowski: Early History of the Theory of Fluctuation Phenomena
The Historical Origins of the Special Theory of Relativity
The Historical Origins of the General Theory of Relativity
Albert Einstein and the Origin of Light-Quantum Theory
Niels Bohr and the Quantum Theory of the Atom
Arnold Sommerfeld and Atoms as Conditionally Periodic Systems
The Göttingen Tradition of Mathematics and Physics from Gauss to Hilbert and Born and Franck
The Bohr Festival in Göttingen: Bohr's Wolfskehl Lectures and the Theory of the Periodic System of Elements
Satyendra Nath Bose, Bose–Einstein Statistics, and the Quantum Theory of an Ideal Gas
Louis de Broglie and the Phase Waves Associated with Matter
Wolfgang Pauli and the Discovery of the Exclusion Principle
The Discovery of Electron Spin
The Discovery of the Fermi–Dirac Statistics

Volume 2: Werner Heisenberg and the Birth of Quantum Mechanics

'The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics': PAM Dirac's Scientific Work from 1924 to 1933
Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. I. Schrödinger's Scientific Work Before the Creation of Wave Mechanics
Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. II. The Creation of Wave Mechanics
Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. III. Early Response and Applications
Niels Bohr's Discussions with Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger: The Origins of the Principles of Uncertainty and Complementarity
Eugene Paul Wigner: Aspects of His Life Work, and Personality
Lev Davidovich Landau: Some Aspects of His Life and Personality
The Origin of Quantum Field Theory
The Solvay Conferences of 1927 and 1930 and the Consistency Debate
Relativistic Electrons and Quantum Fields
New Elementary Particles in Nuclear and Cosmic-Ray Physics
Between Hope and Despair: Quantum Electrodynamics in the 1930s
Universal Nuclear Forces and Yukawa's New Intermediate Mass Particle (1933–1937)
New Fields Describing Elementary Particles, Their Properties and Interactions
Energy Generation in Stars and the Origins of Nuclear Fission
The Einstein–Bohr Debate on the Completion of Quantum Mechanics and Its Description of Reality (1931–1936)
The Quantum Principle: Its Interpretation and Epistemology
The Dream of Leonardo da Vinci

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	World Scientific
Auteur(s)	Jagdish Mehra
Parution	07/12/2001
Nb. de pages	1408
Format	17,8 x 26
Couverture	Relié
Poids	2900g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9789810243425