Short Physics

Physics, the fundamental science of matter and energy, encompasses all levels of nature from the subatomic to the cosmic, and underlies much of the technology around us. Understanding the physics of our universe is an essential aspect of humanity's quest to understand our environment and our place within it. Doing physics enables us to explore the interaction between environment and human society, and can help us to work towards the future sustainability of the planet.

Philosophy of Physics is concerned with the deepest theories of modern physics - notably quantum theory, our theories of space, time and symmetry, and thermal physics - and their strange, even bizarre conceptual implications. A deeper understanding of these theories helps both physics, through pointing the way to new theories and new applications, and philosophy, through seeing how our worldview has to change in the light of what we learn from physics.

Following the discovery of the Higgs boson, Frank Close has produced this major revision to his classic and compelling introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe. Frank Close takes us on a journey into the atom to examine known particles such as quarks, electrons, and the ghostly neutrino, and explains the key role and significance of the Higgs boson. Along the way he provides fascinating insights into how discoveries in particle physics have actually been made, and discusses how our picture of the world has been radically revised in the light of these developments.

How does the physics we know today - a highly professionalized enterprise, inextricably linked to government and industry - link back to its origins as a liberal art in Ancient Greece? What is the path that leads from the old philosophy of nature and its concern with humankind's place in the universe to modern massive international projects that hunt down fundamental particles and industrial laboratories that manufacture marvels? This audiobook introduces us to Islamic astronomers and mathematicians calculating the size of the Earth while their caliphs conquered much of it and more.

Nuclear physics began long before the identification of fundamental particles, with J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron at the end of the nineteenth century, which implied the existence of a positive charge in the atom to make it neutral. In this Very Short Introduction, Frank Close gives...

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. He takes subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry, and particle physics, and aims to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, Bill Bryson reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Physics: A Quick Read is an engaging book designed to make learning physics fun and easy. It features short, simple articles covering a wide range of topics in physics. The book starts with the basics of motion, including scalars, vectors, and Newton's laws. Readers will explore energy concepts like kinetic and potential energy, along with work, power, and momentum. It also covers electricity and magnetism, discussing circuits, Ohm's Law, and electric motors. There's a section on waves and sound, explaining how musical notes work and how we hear. Light and optics are explored, including ...

In this Very Short Introduction, John Heilbron draws on sources never before presented in English to cover the life and work of one of the most creative physicists of the 20th century. In addition to his role as a scientist, Heilbron considers Bohr as a statesman and Danish cultural icon, who built scientific institutions and pushed for the extension of international cooperation in science to all nation states. As a humanist he was concerned with the cultivation of all sides of the individual, and with the complementary contributions of all peoples to the sum of human culture.

Akari is Outlander meets Farewell to Manzanar from New York Times bestselling authors Andrews & Wilson. Applied quantum physicist Akari Sato is working late at Los Alamos National Laboratory one night when she hears commotion from her lab. She finds intruders dressed in dated clothing rifling...

Fritjof Capra and the Systems View of Life (Great Minds, Book 3): 2017 Revised, Updated, and Reformatted Edition is a passionate study about the great contemporary physicist and a review of all of his published books, including extensive quotes. The author considers Fritjof Capra as one of the most important authors on new science and systems research and considers as genius Capra's unique gift to formulate and explain complex scientific and philosophical insights and interrelations in a way that the educated listener can understand.

Augustin Fresnel (1788–1827) shocked the scientific elite with his unique understanding of the physics of light. The lens he invented was a brilliant feat of engineering that made lighthouses blaze many times brighter, farther, and more efficiently. Battling the establishment, his own poor health, and the limited technology of the time, Fresnel was able to achieve his goal of illuminating the entire French coast. At first, the British sought to outdo the new Fresnel-equipped lighthouses as a matter of national pride.

From the stars they came to study us. Instead, they discovered what it truly means to be human. When five advanced alien scientists crash-land on Earth, their mission of passive observation becomes a desperate year-long struggle to understand humanity's true nature. Disguised as humans and embedded in key positions across society—a political consultant, an environmental researcher, a university professor, a military contractor, and a hospital doctor—they discover that Earth's inhabitants are far more complex than their data suggested. Led by Captain Zara, the youngest commander in her ...

Embark on a gripping journey to the edges of the known universe with "The Prometheus Protocol." When the starship Astarte arrives at Kepler-186f, Captain Zara Vega and her team find more than an alien landscape—they discover a mysterious artifact pulsing with otherworldly energy. As they delve into its secrets, the artifact unlocks a power that transforms one crew member and forces them to confront the boundaries of human morality, knowledge, and survival. Racing against time, the crew faces a pivotal choice: harness the artifact’s power to elevate humanity or risk annihilation. In this...

She built a machine to bend time. She never meant to break it. When Professor Philippa Harris publicly demonstrates her revolutionary time device, the impossible happens. She dies. Twenty-three years later, her son Isaac receives a mysterious inheritance: a metal device that should not exist—and a chance to step into the past. One impulsive decision sends him face to face with the mother he barely remembers… one week before the experiment that killed her. Together, they uncover a horrifying truth: her death was no accident. But saving her creates a paradox that could twist reality ...

The Sun, as our nearest star, is of enormous importance for life on Earth, providing the warm radiation and light which allowed complex life to evolve. The Sun plays a key role in influencing our climate, while solar storms and high-energy events can threaten our communication infrastructure and satellites.  

The beauty of fractal patterns and their relation to chaos, as well as the history of chaos, and its uses in the real world and implications for the philosophy of science are all discussed in this Very Short Introduction audiobook. 

If you move at high speed, time slows down, space squashes up, and you get heavier. Travel fast enough and you could weigh as much as a jumbo jet, be flattened thinner than a CD without feeling a thing - and live forever! As for the angles of a triangle, they do not always have to add up to 180 degrees. And then, of course, there are black holes. These are but a few of the extraordinary consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity. 

What if reality isn't what we think it is—and someone found a way to prove it? When brilliant physicist Dr. Marcus Emerson demonstrates a technology capable of altering the fabric of reality itself, he feels he has invented humanity's next big leap forward. However, as test subjects begin to experience vivid other worlds that refuse to remain contained in the laboratory, perception psychologist Dr. Aria Vance learns a horrifying truth: the machine isn't simply altering how people perceive the world; it's fragmenting existence itself. Following the strange disappearance of their most ...

Brought to you by Penguin. Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future: The Inventions that will Transform our Lives is a hypothetical journey through the next 100 years of scientific innovation, as told by the scientists who are making it happen. We all wish we could predict the future, but most of us...

Scientist, resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi was one of Italy's greatest writers and an internationally renowned chronicler of human nature. In his masterpiece The Periodic Table, he charts his incredible life story through the medium of chemistry, using the titular list of...