An introductory text in nonlinear dynamics and chaos, emphasizing applications in several areas of science, which include vibrations, biological rhythms, insect outbreaks, and genetic control systems. Contains a rich selection of illustrations, with many exercises and examples. Softcover.

- Presents the life's work of a Nobel Laureate and internationally recognised leader in the field
- Builds new bridges between physics and biology
- Provides a physical basis for Darwin's principle of natural selection
- Presents a new theory of information including semantics
This book presents a vivid argument for the almost lost idea of a unity of all natural sciences. It starts with the "strange" physics of matter, including particle physics, atomic physics and quantum mechanics, cosmology, relativity and their consequences (Chapter I), and it continues by describing the properties of material systems that are best understood by statistical and phase-space concepts (Chapter II). These lead to entropy and to the classical picture of quantitative information, initially devoid of value and meaning (Chapter III). Finally, "information space" and dynamics within it are introduced as a basis for semantics (Chapter IV), leading to an exploration of life and thought as new problems in physics (Chapter V).
Dynamic equations - again of a strange (but very general) nature - bring about the complex familiarity of the world we live in. Surprising new results in the life sciences open our eyes to the richness of physical thought, and they show us what can and what cannot be explained by a Darwinian approach. The abstract physical approach is applicable to the origins of life, of meaningful information and even of our universe.

"If Ms. Frizzle were a physics student of Stephen Hawking, she might have written THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HAND, a wild tour through the reaches of time and space, from the interior of a proton to the Big Bang to the rough suburbs of a black hole. It's friendly, excitable, erudite, and cosmic."
—Jordan Ellenberg, New York Times besteselling author of How Not To Be Wrong
Quantum physics, black holes, string theory, the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes: even if we are interested in these fundamental concepts of our world, their language is the language of math. Which means that despite our best intentions of finally grasping, say, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, most of us are quickly brought up short by a snarl of nasty equations or an incomprehensible graph.
Christophe Galfard's mission in life is to spread modern scientific ideas to the general public in entertaining ways. Using his considerable skills as a brilliant theoretical physicist and successful young adult author, The Universe in Your Hand employs the immediacy of simple, direct language to show us, not explain to us, the theories that underpin everything we know about our universe. To understand what happens to a dying star, we are asked to picture ourselves floating in space in front of it. To get acquainted with the quantum world, we are shrunk to the size of an atom and then taken on a journey. Employing everyday similes and metaphors, addressing the reader directly, and writing stories rather than equations renders these astoundingly complex ideas in an immediate and visceral way.
Utterly captivating and entirely unique, The Universe in Your Hand will find its place among other classics in the field

Distinguished physicist examines emotive significance of time, time order of mechanics, time direction of thermodynamics and microstatistics, time direction of macrostatistics, and time of quantum physics. Analytic methods of scientific philosophy in investigation of probability, quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, causality. 1971 edition.

From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in.
Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses.
Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body.
West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.

Drawing on the lives of five renowned scientists, Mario Livio shows how even these geniuses made major mistakes and how their errors were an essential part of the process of achieving scientific breakthroughs. We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. And that includes five of the greatest scientists in history—Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein. But the mistakes that these great luminaries made helped advance science. Indeed, as Mario Livio explains, science thrives on error, advancing when erroneous ideas are disproven.

As a young scientist, Einstein tried to conceive of a way to describe the evolution of the universe at large, based on General Relativity—his theory of space, time, and gravity. Unfortunately he fell victim to a misguided notion of aesthetic simplicity. Fred Hoyle was an eminent astrophysicist who ridiculed an emerging theory about the origin of the universe that he dismissively called “The Big Bang.” The name stuck, but Hoyle was dead wrong in his opposition.

They, along with Darwin (a blunder in his theory of Natural Selection), Kelvin (a blunder in his calculation of the age of the earth), and Pauling (a blunder in his model for the structure of the DNA molecule), were brilliant men and fascinating human beings. Their blunders were a necessary part of the scientific process. Collectively they helped to dramatically further our knowledge of the evolution of life, the Earth, and the universe.

This is the most comprehensive introductory graduate or advanced undergraduate text in fluid mechanics available. It builds up from the fundamentals, often in a general way, to widespread applications, to technology and geophysics. New to this second edition are discussions on the universal dimensions similarity scaling for the laminar boundary layer equations and on the generalized vector field derivatives. In addition, new material on the generalized streamfunction treatment shows how streamfunction may be used in three-dimensional flows. Finally, a new Computational Fluid Dynamics chapter enables compulations of some simple flows and provides entry to more advanced literature. This book gives basic introduction to the subject of fluid mechanics, intended for undergraduate and beginning graduate students of science and engineering. It includes topics of special interest for geophysicists and to engineers. It presents new and generalized treatment of similar laminar boundary layers, streamfunctions for three-dimensional flows, vector field derivatives, and gas dynamics, along with a new generalized treatment of boundary conditions in fluid mechanics, and expanded treatment of viscous flows.

A lucid presentation of statistical physics and thermodynamics which develops from the general principles to give a large number of applications of the theory.

Covers the theory of electromagnetic fields in matter, and the theory of macroscopic electric and magnetic properties of matter. There is a considerable amount of new material particularly on the theory of the magnetic properties of matter and the theory of optical phenomena with new chapters on spatial dispersion and non-linear optics.

This volume is mainly concerned with a systematic development of the theory of plasmas, the authority being firmly rooted in the pioneering work of Landau. Corresponding results are also given for partially ionized plasmas, relativistic plasmas, degenerate or non-ideal plasmas and solid state plasmas.

For one-semester/-year, junior-/senior-level courses in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Chemistry. This text first teaches students how to do quantum mechanics, and then provides them with a more insightful discussion of what it means. Fundamental principles are covered, quantum theory presented, and special techniques developed for attacking realistic problems. Two-part coverage organizes topics under basic theory, and assembles an arsenal of approximation schemes with illustrative applications.

因为精确预测以及在科技领域的广泛应用，量子力学被认为是最成功的科学理论之一，但也是最被误解的理论之一。在被创立后的近一个世纪，量子力学仍旧充满了争议。通过量子贝叶斯理论（QBism）解释量子理论中的悖论和谜题，本书为非专业的读者阐述了量子力学深远的含义、如何理解量子力学和量子力学如何与这个世界相互作用。QBism用对概率的全新理解去改造量子力学中的传统特征。贝叶斯概率与标准的“频率概率”不同的是，它是观察者对未来将要发生的一个事件或者一个命题的信任程度的数值测量。相比于频率主义，量子贝叶斯理论的优势在于它能够处理单个事件，它的概率估计可以根据获得的新信息去更新，并且可以包含“频率概率”的结果。但最重要的还是与量子理论相关的奇怪之处——如两个原子可以同时在不同的位置，信号可以传播得比光更快，以及薛定谔的猫可以同时处于死和活的状态的想法。
用直白的语言而不是方程，贝耶尔用一种通俗的方式，揭示了量子力学的意义，发现了认识物理学的新途径。

What are time and space made of?
Where does matter come from?
And what exactly is reality?
Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli has spent his whole life exploring these questions and pushing the boundaries of what we know. Here he explains how our image of the world has changed over the last few dozen centuries.
In elegant and accessible prose, Rovelli takes us on a wondrous journey from Aristotle to Albert Einstein, from Michael Faraday to the Higgs boson, and from classical physics to his own work in quantum gravity. As he shows us how the idea of reality has evolved over time, Rovelli offers readers a deeper understanding of the theories he introduced so concisely in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. His evocative explanations invite us to imagine, beyond our ever-changing idea of reality, a whole new world that has yet to be discovered.