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Preface | |
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Introduction | |
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The physicists' world in 1895 | |
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New horizons | |
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Pieter Zeeman | |
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Joseph John Thomson | |
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Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen | |
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H. Becquerel, the Curies, and the Discovery of Radioactivity | |
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Becquerel's "predestined" discovery | |
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The Curies and a great leap forward | |
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Rutherford in the New World: The Transmutation of Elements | |
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Rutherford's early career | |
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Investigations in radioactivity | |
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Disciples and the discovery of transmutation | |
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Planck, Unwilling Revolutionary: The Idea of Quantization | |
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The theoretical pillars of physics. An encompassing problem: the blackbody | |
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Max Planck | |
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Einstein-New Ways of Thinking: Space, Time, Relativity, and Quanta | |
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An unconventional youth | |
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Relativity | |
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Grains of light and molecular hits | |
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From patent office to world fame | |
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The world order collapses and space is curved | |
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The later years and Einstein's solitude | |
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Sir Ernest and Lord Rutherford of Nelson | |
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Back to England | |
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New light on alpha particles | |
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The atomic nucleus | |
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The planetary atom | |
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Same but different: the concept of isotopism | |
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The disintegration of the nucleus | |
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Director of the Cavendish Laboratory | |
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Bohr and Atomic Models | |
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The young Bohr and the hydrogen atom | |
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X-rays come into their own | |
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The quantized atom established | |
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Weimar and Copenhagen physics | |
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The exclusion principle | |
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A True Quantum Mechanics at Last | |
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Louis de Broglie: matter waves | |
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Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli: magic matrices | |
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Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: abstraction and mathematical beauty | |
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Erwin Schrodinger | |
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The meaning of the equations | |
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A new look at reality: complementarity | |
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Mysteries explained, but doubts remain | |
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The Wonder Year 1932: Neutron, Positron, Deuterium, and Other Discoveries | |
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The discovery of the neutron | |
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The discovery of deuterium | |
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The positron. The new nuclear physics | |
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Enrico Fermi and Nuclear Energy | |
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Discoveries at Rome | |
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The discovery of fission | |
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The steps to the atomic bomb | |
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Transuranic elements | |
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Physics mobilized | |
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Consequences of the bomb | |
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Fermi's final work | |
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E. O. Lawrence and Particle Accelerators | |
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Large-scale physics | |
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The first accelerators | |
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Lawrence and the cyclotron | |
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Policies and personalities | |
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Racing for ever-higher energies | |
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Beyond the Nucleus | |
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The elementary particles | |
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The new science in Japan | |
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Discovery of the pion | |
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A horde of new particles | |
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Antinucleons | |
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The downfall of parity | |
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The bubble chamber | |
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Order in the wilderness | |
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New Branches from the Old Stump | |
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Quantum electrodynamics | |
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Laser and maser | |
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Nuclear physics | |
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The Mossbauer effect | |
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Superconductivity | |
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Other macroscopic quantum effects | |
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At the boundaries of physics: astrophysics, biology | |
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The perplexed scientist | |
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Conclusions | |
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Future trends | |
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The innards of physics | |
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Appendixes | |
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Stefan's law. Wien's law | |
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Planck's hunt for the blackbody radiation formula | |
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Einstein's heuristic argument for postulating the existence of light quanta | |
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Brownian motion | |
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Blackbody energy fluctuations according to Einstein | |
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Specific heat of solids according to Einstein | |
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A and B of Einstein | |
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J. J. Thomson's parabola method for finding elm of ions | |
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Bohr's hydrogen atom | |
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Quantum mechanics in a nutshell | |
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Bibliography | |
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Name Index | |
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Subject Index | |