How do you choose your first telescope? Or build one from first principles? What can the deep sky offer you season-by-season? How do you get started in astrophotography? And progress to CCD imaging? The Guide to Amateur Astronomy answers the questions of the novice and the experienced amateur astronomer in one easy-to-use and comprehensive account. Throughout the emphasis is on practical methods to get you started and then develop your skills; with lavish illustrations to show you just what is possible. This second edition of the highly successful Guide has been fully revised and updated. It now takes you from basic 'piggyback' astrophotography, through the use of a cold camera to state-of- the-art CCD imaging; from studies of the planets to the most distant objects in the Universe. From guidelines for the care and adjustment of your telescope through to lists of the spectral classification of stars, amateur astronomy societies and clubs, all the information you need for your voyage of discovery and revelation is provided in this self-contained, helpful guide.

Quantum field theory provides the theoretical backbone to most modern physics. This book is designed to bring quantum field theory to a wider audience of physicists. It is packed with worked examples, witty diagrams, and applications intended to introduce a new audience to this revolutionary theory.

Megumi is an all-star athlete, but she's a failure when it comes to physics class. And she can't concentrate on her tennis matches when she's worried about the questions she missed on the big test! Luckily for her, she befriends Ryota, a patient physics geek who uses real-world examples to help her understand classical mechanics—and improve her tennis game in the process! In The Manga Guide to Physics, you'll follow alongside Megumi as she learns about the physics of everyday objects like roller skates, slingshots, braking cars, and tennis serves. In no time, you'll master tough concepts like momentum and impulse, parabolic motion, and the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. You'll also learn how to: –Apply Newton's three laws of motion to real-life problems –Determine how objects will move after a collision –Draw vector diagrams and simplify complex problems using trigonometry –Calculate how an object's kinetic energy changes as its potential energy increases If you're mystified by the basics of physics or you just need a refresher, The Manga Guide to Physics will get you up to speed in a lively, quirky, and practical way.

A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics -- a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Gell-Mann, and Weinberg, is knit together in a thorough and accessible exposition of the revolutionary notions that underlie our current view of the fundamental nature of the physical world. Schumm, who has spent much of his life emmersed in the subatomic world, goes far beyond a mere presentation of the "building blocks" of matter, bringing to life the remarkable connection between the ivory tower world of the abstract mathematician and the day-to-day, life-enabling properties of the natural world. Schumm leaves us with an insight into the profound open questions of particle physics, setting the stage for understanding the progress the field is poised to make over the next decade or two. Introducing readers to the world of particle physics, Deep Down Things opens new realms within which are many clues to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

More than seventy years ago, American forces exploded the first atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing great physical and human destruction. The young scientists at Los Alamos who developed the bombs, which were nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man, were introduced to the basic principles and goals of the project in March 1943, at a crash course in new weapons technology. The lecturer was physicist Robert Serber, J. Robert Oppenheimer's protégé, and the scientists learned that their job was to design and build the world's first atomic bombs. Notes on Serber's lectures were gathered into a mimeographed document titled TheLos Alamos Primer, which was supplied to all incoming scientific staff. The Primer remained classified for decades after the war. Published for the first time in 1992, the Primer offers contemporary readers a better understanding of the origins of nuclear weapons. Serber's preface vividly conveys the mingled excitement, uncertainty, and intensity felt by the Manhattan Project scientists. This edition includes an updated introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes. A seminal publication on a turning point in human history, The Los Alamos Primer reveals just how much was known and how terrifyingly much was unknown midway through the Manhattan Project. No other seminar anywhere has had greater historical consequences.

Long-listed for the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "An important book that provides insight into key new developments in our understanding of the nature of space, time and the universe. It will repay careful study." --John Gribbin, The Wall Street Journal "An endlessly surprising foray into the current mother of physics' many knotty mysteries, the solving of which may unveil the weirdness of quantum particles, black holes, and the essential unity of nature." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time: nonlocality-the ability of two particles to act in harmony no matter how far apart they may be. It appears to be almost magical. Einstein grappled with this oddity and couldn't come to terms with it, describing it as "spooky action at a distance." More recently, the mystery has deepened as other forms of nonlocality have been uncovered. This strange occurrence, which has direct connections to black holes, particle collisions, and even the workings of gravity, holds the potential to undermine our most basic understandings of physical reality. If space isn't what we thought it was, then what is it? In Spooky Action at a Distance, George Musser sets out to answer that question, offering a provocative exploration of nonlocality and a celebration of the scientists who are trying to explain it. Musser guides us on an epic journey into the lives of experimental physicists observing particles acting in tandem, astronomers finding galaxies that look statistically identical, and cosmologists hoping to unravel the paradoxes surrounding the big bang. He traces the often contentious debates over nonlocality through major discoveries and disruptions of the twentieth century and shows how scientists faced with the same undisputed experimental evidence develop wildly different explanations for that evidence. Their conclusions challenge our understanding of not only space and time but also the origins of the universe-and they suggest a new grand unified theory of physics. Delightfully readable, Spooky Action at a Distance is a mind-bending voyage to the frontiers of modern physics that will change the way we think about reality.

This is an introductory book on elementary particles and their interactions. It starts out with many-body Schrödinger theory and second quantization and leads, via its generalization, to relativistic fields of various spins and to gravity. The text begins with the best known quantum field theory so far, the quantum electrodynamics of photon and electrons (QED). It continues by developing the theory of strong interactions between the elementary constituents of matter (quarks). This is possible due to the property called asymptotic freedom. On the way one has to tackle the problem of removing various infinities by renormalization. The divergent sums of infinitely many diagrams are performed with the renormalization group or by variational perturbation theory (VPT). The latter is an outcome of the Feynman-Kleinert variational approach to path integrals discussed in two earlier books of the author, one representing a comprehensive treatise on path integrals, the other dealing with critial phenomena. Unlike ordinary perturbation theory, VPT produces uniformly convergent series which are valid from weak to strong couplings, where they describe critical phenomena.The present book develops the theory of effective actions which allow to treat quantum phenomena with classical formalism. For example, it derives the observed anomalous power laws of strongly interacting theories from an extremum of the action. Their fluctuations are not based on Gaussian distributions, as in the perturbative treatment of quantum field theories, or in asymptotically-free theories, but on deviations from the average which are much larger and which obey power-like distributions.Exactly solvable models are discussed and their physical properties are compared with those derived from general methods. In the last chapter we discuss the problem of quantizing the classical theory of gravity.

While theoretical particle physics is an extraordinarily fascinating field, the incredibly fast pace at which it moves along, combined with the huge amount of background information necessary to perform cutting edge research, poses a formidable challenge for graduate students. This book represents the first in a series designed to assist students in the process of transitioning from coursework to research in particle physics. Rather than reading literally dozens of physics and mathematics texts, trying to assimilate the countless ideas, translate notations and perspectives, and see how it all fits together to get a holistic understanding, this series provides a detailed overview of the major mathematical and physical ideas in theoretical particle physics. Ultimately the ideas will be presented in a unified, consistent, holistic picture, where each topic is built firmly on what has come before, and all topics are related in a clear and intuitive way. This introductory text on quantum field theory and particle physics provides both a self-contained and complete introduction to not only the necessary physical ideas, but also a complete introduction to the necessary mathematical tools. Assuming minimal knowledge of undergraduate physics and mathematics, this book lays both the mathematical and physical groundwork with clear, intuitive explanations and plenty of examples. The book then continues with an exposition of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, the theory that currently seems to explain the universe apart from gravity. Furthermore, this book was written as a primer for the more advanced mathematical and physical ideas to come later in this series.