E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation
David Bodanis
Language: English
Pages: 337
ISBN: 0425181642
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Already climbing the bestseller lists-and garnering rave reviews—this "little masterpiece" sheds brilliant light on the equation that changed the world.
Bodanis begins by devoting chapters to each of the equation's letters and symbols, introducing the science and scientists forming the backdrop to Einstein's discovery—from Ole Roemer's revelation that the speed of light could be measured to Michael Faraday's pioneering work on energy fields. Having demystified the equation, Bodanis explains its science and brings it to life historically, making clear the astonishing array of discoveries and consequences it made possible. It would prove to be a beacon throughout the twentieth century, important to Ernest Rutherford, who discovered the structure of the atom, Enrico Fermi, who probed the nucleus, and Lise Meitner, who finally understood how atoms could be split wide open. And it has come to inform our daily lives, governing everything from the atomic bomb to a television's cathode-ray tube to the carbon dating of prehistoric paintings.
Active Plasmonics and Tuneable Plasmonic Metamaterials
Quantum Physics: A Beginner's Guide
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 3
Quantum Mechanics for Mathematicians (Graduate Studies in Mathematics)
in France? They got to work, and Voltaire soon wrote to a friend that Mme. du Châtelet . . . is changing staircases into chimneys and chimneys into staircases. Where I ordered the workmen to construct a library, she tells them to place a salon. . . . She's planting lime trees where I'd planned to place elms, and where I only planted herbs and vegetables . . . only a flowerbed will make her happy. Within two years it was complete. There was a library comparable to that of the Academy of
solitude play Bach with eloquent fury on the organ. The atomic reactions had gone well beyond the old Leipzig work. By the end, the German researchers had reached about half the rate of nucleus splitting needed for a sustained chain reaction. Heisenberg knew he wouldn't get further. When a U.S. snatch squad did reach him in the Alps, even while Wehrmacht troops were still fighting in adjacent towns, he accepted surrender as if he'd been expecting it. Heisenberg would be welcomed as a hero in
sun burns. About one year after Hoyle returned to school, his class was assigned to collect wildflowers. Back in the classroom the teacher read out the list of flowers, describing one as having five petals. Hoyle examined the sample he'd collected, now in his hand. It had six petals. This was curious. If it had been a petal less than described, that would have been understandable, he might have torn one off in carrying it. But how could there be more? He was puzzling over it, and vaguely heard
particular date, there would be no chance to see how that rich field of stars gets their light bent around the sun. The glare from the daytime sun would overwhelm that small effect. But in 1919 there was going to be an eclipse, precisely on May 29. As Eddington innocently noted: "Attention was called to this remarkable opportunity by the Astronomer Royal [Frank Dyson] in March 1917; and preparations were begun. . . ." What Eddington neglected to mention was that he would have been thrown into
University of Chicago Press, 1967). "Our address is . . . room at the end": Letter from Lavoisier to his wife, November 30,1793 (10 Frimaire, Year II); in Jean-Pierre Poirier, Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist (College Park, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), p. 356. The trial itself was on May 8: It's common to read that when Lavoisier was condemned to death, the presiding judge declared, "The Revolution has no need for savants." But it's very unlikely that the president of
