The Physicist's World

The Story of Motion and the Limits to Knowledge
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4214-0083-9
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 540 g

How do students learn about physics without picking up a 1,000-page textbook chock-full of complicated equations? The Physicist’s World is the answer. Here, Thomas Grissom explains clearly and succinctly what physics really is: the science of understanding how everything in the universe moves.

From the earliest efforts by Presocratic philosophers contemplating motion to the principal developments of physics through the end of the twentieth century, Grissom tells the unfolding story of our attempt to quantify the material world and to conceptualize the nature of physical laws.

Through the centuries, questions about why things move proved to be unanswerable in any absolute, satisfying way. Instead the question became how things move, a direction of thought that led to the rise of modern science. Physics emerged as a mathematical description of the motion of matter and energy, a description believed to be complete and exact, limited only by the precision of measurement. Grissom shows that in one of the great intellectual ironies, advancements in twentieth-century physics affirmed instead that this quantitative theory was capable of discovering its own limits. There is only so much that physics can reveal about the world.

This is physics for the thinking person, especially students who enjoy learning concepts, histories, and interpretations without becoming mired in complex mathematical detail. A concise survey of the field of physics, Grissom’s book offers students and professionals alike a unique perspective on what physicists do, how physics is done, and how physicists view the world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grissom, Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Naturwissenschaften Astronomie Astronomie: Allgemeines
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Physik Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

A Note to the Reader
1. The Ancient Quarrel
2. Motion
3. To Be or Not to Be
4. Atoms and the Void
5. Motion Constrained
6. How versus Why
7. Enter Newton
8. The Laws of Motion
9. Action at a Distance
10. Matter and Light
11. Heat and the Arrow of Time
12. Who's Really Moving and What's the Correct Time?
13. Curved Space and the New Gravity
14. What You See Is What You Get
15. A Footnote on Quantum Gravity
16. Equations That Go Berserk
17. The Physicist's World
Suggested Readings
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Grissom, Thomas
Thomas Grissom is an emeritus member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College. A writer and a physicist, he has published several collections of poetry and short stories, a novel, and more than forty-five technical papers and reports.