Faust in Copenhagen A Struggle for the Soul of Physics

Name: Faust in Copenhagen A Struggle for the Soul of Physics
Price: 3.59 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780143113737

ISBN-10: 0143113739

ISBN-13: 9780143113737

Edition: N/A

Authors: Gino Segre

List price: $24.00

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Description:

A physicist himself, Gino Segr writes about what scientists doand why they do itwith intimacy, clarity, and passion. In Faust in Copenhagen, he evokes the fleeting, magical moment when physicsand the worldwas about to lose its innocence forever. Known by physicists as the miracle year, 1932 saw the discovery of the neutron and antimatter, as well as the first artificially induced nuclear transmutations. However, while scientists celebrated these momentous discoverieswhich presaged the nuclear era and the emergence of big scienceduring a meeting at Niels Bohrs Copenhagen Institute, Europe was moving inexorably toward totalitarianism and war.

Book details

List price: $24.00
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 5/27/2008
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 336
Size: 5.50" wide x 8.40" long x 0.77" tall
Weight: 0.682
Language: English

Gino Segre is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an expert in high-energy elementary-particle theoretical physics. Segre has served as director of Theoretical Physics at the National Science Foundation. He lives in Philadelphia.



Introduction



Munich Then and Now



The Changing Times


The 1920s


The Birth of the Quantum


Why Copenhagen?


The Meetings Begin


The 1932 Meeting



Goethe and Faust


In the Glow of Goethe


The "Copenhagen Faust"



The Front Row: The Old Guard


Niels Bohr


Paul Ehrenfest


Lise Meitner



The Front Row: The Revolutionaries


Old Age Is a Cold Fever


Werner Heisenberg


Wolfgang Pauli


Paul Dirac


Classical Mechanics versus Quantum Mechanics



The Front Row: The Young Ones


The Curse of the Knabenphysik


Max Delbruck



The Coming Storm


The Periodic Table


The New Kepler


Gottingen in 1922


Triumph and Crisis


The New Optimism



The Revolution Begins


Helgoland


Another Sleepless Night


Waves or Particles


Heisenberg versus Schrodinger


Uncertainty and Complementarity



The King in Decline


The Crucial Solvay Conference


Einstein-The King



The Great Synthesis


Dirac's Equation


How Max Delbruck Joined Knabenphysik


Physics Begins to Split


Delbruck's Choices



Conservation of Energy


The Mysteries of the Nucleus


The Barrier Is Too High


Heaven and Earth


The Revolutionary Proposals


The Three Young Geniuses Each Write a Book



The New Generation Comes of Age


The Apprenticeship


Copenhagen 1932


The "Blegdamsvej Faust"


Delbruck's Dilemma



The Miracle Year


The Discovery of the Neutron


Copenhagen and the Neutron


The Miracle Year


Big Science Is Born


The Hammer and the Needle



Ehrenfest's End


Epilogue: Or What Happened Afterward to the Front Row's Other Six


How Meitner Discovered Nuclear Fission


How Bohr Lived Happily Ever After


How Dirac Got Married


How Heisenberg Inspired His Friend to Paint Like Titian


How Pauli's Anima Made Him Leave the United States


How Delbruck Became a Biologist


Coda


Acknowledgments


Notes


Bibliography


Index