Great Physicists

Great Physicists The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking William H. Cropper 1 2001 1 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota´ Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence HongKong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright q 2001 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cropper, William H. Great Physicists: the life and times of leadingphysicists from Galileo to Hawking/ William H. Cropper. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–19–513748–5 1. Physicists—Biography. I. Title. QC15 .C76 2001 530`.092`2—dc21 [B] 2001021611 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi I. Mechanics Historical Synopsis 3 1. How the Heavens Go 5 Galileo Galilei 2. A Man Obsessed 18 Isaac Newton II. Thermodynamics Historical Synopsis 41 3. A Tale of Two Revolutions 43 Sadi Carnot 4. On the Dark Side 51 Robert Mayer 5. A Holy Undertaking59 James Joule 6. Unities and a Unifier 71 Hermann Helmholtz 7. The Scientist as Virtuoso 78 William Thomson 8. The Road to Entropy 93 Rudolf Clausius 9. The Greatest Simplicity 106 Willard Gibbs 10. The Last Law 124 Walther Nernst III. Electromagnetism Historical Synopsis 135 11. A Force of Nature 137 Michael Faraday vi Contents 12. The Scientist as Magician 154 James ClerkMaxwell IV. Statistical Mechanics Historical Synopsis 177 13. Molecules and Entropy 179 Ludwig Boltzmann V. Relativity Historical Synopsis 201 14. Adventure in Thought 203 Albert Einstein VI. Quantum Mechanics Historical Synopsis 229 15. Reluctant Revolutionary 231 Max Planck 16. Science by Conversation 242 Niels Bohr 17. The Scientist as Critic 256 Wolfgang Pauli 18. Matrix Mechanics 263 Werner Heisenberg 19. Wave Mechanics 275 Erwin Schro¨dinger and Louis de Broglie VII. Nuclear Physics Historical Synopsis 293 20. OpeningDoors 295 Marie Curie 21. On the Crest of a Wave 308 Ernest Rutherford 22. Physics and Friendships 330 Lise Meitner 23. Complete Physicist 344 Enrico Fermi Contents vii VIII. Particle Physics Historical Synopsis 363 24. ig.]c 5 mc 365 Paul Dirac 25. What Do You Care? 376 Richard Feynman 26. Tellingthe Tale of the Quarks 403 Murray Gell-Mann IX. Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Historical Synopsis 421 27. Beyond the Galaxy 423 Edwin Hubble 28. Ideal Scholar 438 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar 29. Affliction, Fame, and Fortune 452 Stephen Hawking Chronology of the Main Events 464 Glossary 469 Invitation to More Reading478 Index 485 ... - tailieumienphi.vn