1. Classical foundations -- 2. Special relativity -- 3. Quantum mechanics -- 4. Elementary particles -- 5. Cosmology.

The conceptual changes brought by modern physics are important, radical and fascinating, yet they are only vaguely understood by people working outside the field. Exploring the four pillars of modern physics – relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles and cosmology – this clear and lively account will interest anyone who has wondered what Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger and Heisenberg were really talking about. The book discusses quarks and leptons, antiparticles and Feynman diagrams, curved space-time, the Big Bang and the expanding Universe. Suitable for undergraduate students in non-science as well as science subjects, it uses problems and worked examples to help readers develop an understanding of what recent advances in physics actually mean.

"The conceptual changes brought by modern physics are important, radical and fascinating, yet they are only vaguely understood by people working outside the field. Exploring the four pillars of modern physics - relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles and cosmology - this clear and lively account will interest anyone who has wondered what Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger and Heisenberg were really talking about. The book discusses quarks and leptons, antiparticles and Feynman diagrams, curved space-time, the Big Bang and the expanding Universe. Suitable for undergraduate students in non-science as well as science subjects, it uses problems and worked examples to help readers develop an understanding of what recent advances in physics actually mean"--

The Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of "unification" with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out to find the "theory of everything."

The first systematic study of the aesthetic evaluations that scientists pass on their theories.

For 300 years, Trinh Xuan Thuan writes, since the time of Isaac Newton, scientists saw reality as a giant clock--a sterile mechanism in which one part acts on another in a deterministic fashion. But the discoveries of the last few decades have changed all that, conjuring up instead a universe brimming with unpredictability, creativity, and chance. Writing with exceptional grace and clarity, Thuan vividly describes these important scientific discoveries, intriguing new theories about chaos, gravity, strange attractors, fractals, symmetry, superstrings, and the strangeness of atoms. Equally important, he reveals how these discoveries have shaped our view of the universe--for instance, how quantum mechanics brought indeterminism to the subatomic universe. Thuan deftly describes quantum mechanics, discusses its relationship to the theories of relativity (which deal inability to accept it. Indeed, throughout Chaos and Harmony, he makes clear as never before the mind-bending ideas of modern physics, such as the effect of gravity on time (it slows it down), the impossibility of crossing the speed-of-light barrier (it would actually reverse time), the role of fractals as "the language of nature," and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in understanding the universe. From the subatomic world to the vast realm of quasars and galaxies, from the nature of mathematics to the fractal characteristics of the human circulatory system, Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us on a breathtaking tour of the universe. With striking examples and clear, plain language, he shows how science has actually restored mystery to the world around us--a world of symmetry and chaos, contingency and creativity.

'Einstein's Generation' offers a new approach to the origins of modern physics by exploring both the material culture that stimulated relativity and the reaction of Einstein's colleagues to his pioneering work.

Many of the scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century were first reported in the journal Nature. A Century of Nature brings together in one volume Nature's greatest hits—reproductions of seminal contributions that changed science and the world, accompanied by essays written by leading scientists (including four Nobel laureates) that provide historical context for each article, explain its insights in graceful, accessible prose, and celebrate the serendipity of discovery and the rewards of searching for needles in haystacks.

Written in an clear and informal style, this text explores the most accessible of the 20th century revolutions in physics. It allows readers to build up physical intuition for what is going on, before presenting concise mathematical descriptions. It contains many applications, ten appendices, and numerous illustrations, examples and problems.

At the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists believed that the basic principles underlying their subject were already known, and that physics in the future would only consist of filling in the details. They could hardly have been more wrong. The past century has seen the rise of quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology, particle physics, and solid-state physics, among other fields. These subjects have fundamentally changed our understanding of space, time, and matter. They have also transformed daily life, inspiring a technological revolution that has included the development of radio, television, lasers, nuclear power, and computers. In Quantum Generations, Helge Kragh, one of the world's leading historians of physics, presents a sweeping account of these extraordinary achievements of the past one hundred years. The first comprehensive one-volume history of twentieth-century physics, the book takes us from the discovery of X rays in the mid-1890s to superstring theory in the 1990s. Unlike most previous histories of physics, written either from a scientific perspective or from a social and institutional perspective, Quantum Generations combines both approaches. Kragh writes about pure science with the expertise of a trained physicist, while keeping the content accessible to nonspecialists and paying careful attention to practical uses of science, ranging from compact disks to bombs. As a historian, Kragh skillfully outlines the social and economic contexts that have shaped the field in the twentieth century. He writes, for example, about the impact of the two world wars, the fate of physics under Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, the role of military research, the emerging leadership of the United States, and the backlash against science that began in the 1960s. He also shows how the revolutionary discoveries of scientists ranging from Einstein, Planck, and Bohr to Stephen Hawking have been built on the great traditions of earlier centuries. Combining a mastery of detail with a sure sense of the broad contours of historical change, Kragh has written a fitting tribute to the scientists who have played such a decisive role in the making of the modern world.