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General Info |
A Universe Of Atoms, An Atom In The Universe
(Springer-Verlag, 2002)
ISBN 0-387-95437-6, hardcover
ISBN 0-000-00000-0 (softcover)
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Publisher's Commentary |
The essays in this book are based on researches the author has undertaken
on a wide range of topics, some using equipment no more elaborate than what
one can find in an ordinary kitchen, others making elegant use of
sophisticated experimental apparatus. Presenting a personal odyssey in
physics, Silverman investigates processes for which no visualizable
mechanism can be given, or that seem to violate fundamental physical laws
(but do not), or that appear to be well understood but turn out to be
subtly devious. Written in an engagingly personal style, the essays will be
of interest to students of physics and related disciplines as well as
professional physicists. Though they deal with subtle concepts, the
discussions use little mathematics, and anyone with a little college
physics will be able to read the book with pleasure.
Silverman's researches deal with in quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear
physics, electromagnetism and optics, gravity, thermodynamics, and the
physics of fluids, and these essays address .such questions as: How does
one know that atomic electrons move? Would an "anti-atom" fall upward? How
is it possible for randomly emitted particles to arrive at a detector
preferentially in pairs? Can one influence electrons in London by not
watching them in New York? Can a particle be influenced by a magnetic field
through which it does not pass? A basketball is not changed by turning it
once around its axis, but what about an electron? Can more light reflect
from a surface than is incident upon it?
"A Universe of Atoms" is the second edition of Silverman's "And Yet It Moves"; each essay in the earlier collection has been revised and updated, and new essays have been included concerning the uncommon physics of common objects, the random decay of radioactive nuclei, and the nature of dark matter in the Universe.
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Reviewer's Commentary |
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