“A thrilling, fast-paced excursion through the history of physical discovery . . . from silly putty to string theory” (Dr. Paul Halpern, author of Collider).
Following his previous volumes, The Science Book and The Math Book, acclaimed science writer Clifford Pickover returns with a richly illustrated chronology of physics, containing 250 short, entertaining, and thought-provoking entries. In addition to exploring such engaging topics as dark energy, parallel universes, the Doppler effect, the God particle, and Maxwells demon, The Physics Book extends back billions of years to the hypothetical Big Bang and forward trillions of years to a time of “quantum resurrection.” Like the previous titles in this series, The Physics Book offers a lively and accessible account of major concepts without getting bogged down in complex details.
Author(s): Clifford A. Pickover
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 530
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
SETTING THE STAGE
13.7 Billion B.C. Big Bang
3 Billion B.C. Black Diamonds
2 Billion B.C. Prehistoric Nuclear Reactor
THE DISCOVERIES
30,000 B.C. Atlatl
20,000 B.C. Boomerang
3000 B.C. Sundial
2500 B.C. Truss
1850 B.C. Arch
1000 B.C. Olmec Compass
341 B.C. Crossbow
250 B.C. Baghdad Battery
250 B.C. Siphon
250 B.C. Archimedes’ Principle of Buoyancy
250 B.C. Archimedean Screw
240 B.C. Eratosthenes Measures the Earth
230 B.C. Pulley
212 B.C. Archimedes’ Burning Mirrors
125 B.C. Antikythera Mechanism
50 Hero’s Jet Engine
50 Gears
78 St. Elmo’s Fire
1132 Cannon
1150 Perpetual Motion Machines
1200 Trebuchet
1304 Explaining the Rainbow
1338 Hourglass
1543 Sun-Centered Universe
1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum
1600 De Magnete
1608 Telescope
1609 Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion
1610 Discovery of Saturn’s Rings
1611 Kepler’s “Six-Cornered Snowfake”
1620 Triboluminescence
1621 Snell’s Law of Refraction
1621 Aurora Borealis
1638 Acceleration of Falling Objects
1643 Barometer
1644 Conservation of Momentum
1660 Hooke’s Law of Elasticity
1660 Von Guericke’s Electrostatic Generator
1662 Boyle’s Gas Law
1665 Micrographia
1669 Amontons’ Friction
1672 Measuring the Solar System
1672 Newton’s Prism
1673 Tautochrone Ramp
1687 Newton’s Laws of Motion and Gravitation
1687 Newton as Inspiration
1711 Tuning Fork
1728 Escape Velocity
1738 Bernoulli’s Law of Fluid Dynamics
1744 Leyden Jar
1752 Ben Franklin’s Kite
1761 Black Drop Effect
1766 Bode’s Law of Planetary Distances
1777 Lichtenberg Figures
1779 Black Eye Galaxy
1783 Black Holes
1785 Coulomb’s Law of Electrostatics
1787 Charles’ Gas Law
1796 Nebular Hypothesis
1798 Cavendish Weighs the Earth
1800 Battery
1801 Wave Nature of Light
1803 Henry’s Gas Law
1807 Fourier Analysis
1808 Atomic Theory
1811 Avogadro’s Gas Law
1814 Fraunhofer Lines
1814 Laplace’s Demon
1815 Brewster’s Optics
1816 Stethoscope
1822 Fourier’s Law of Heat Conduction
1823 Olbers’ Paradox
1824 Greenhouse Effect
1824 Carnot Engine
1825 Ampère’s Law of Electromagnetism
1826 Rogue Waves
1827 Ohm’s Law of Electricity
1827 Brownian Motion
1829 Graham’s Law of Effusion
1831 Faraday’s Laws of Induction
1834 Soliton
1835 Gauss and the Magnetic Monopole
1838 Stellar Parallax
1839 Fuel Cell
1840 Poiseuille’s Law of Fluid Flow
1840 Joule’s Law of Electric Heating
1841 Anniversary Clock
1841 Fiber Optics
1842 Doppler Effect
1843 Conservation of Energy
1844 I-Beams
1845 Kirchhoff’s Circuit Laws
1846 Discovery of Neptune
1850 Second Law of Thermodynamics
1850 Ice Slipperiness
1851 Foucault’s Pendulum
1851 Stokes’ Law of Viscosity
1852 Gyroscope
1852 Stokes’ Fluorescence
1857 Buys-Ballot’s Weather Law
1859 Kinetic Theory
1861 Maxwell’s Equations
1864 Electromagnetic Spectrum
1866 Surface Tension
1866 Dynamite
1867 Maxwell’s Demon
1868 Discovery of Helium
1870 Baseball Curveball
1871 Rayleigh Scattering
1873 Crookes Radiometer
1875 Boltzmann’s Entropy Equation
1878 Incandescent Light Bulb
1879 Plasma
1879 Hall Effect
1880 Piezoelectric Effect
1880 War Tubas
1882 Galvanometer
1882 Green Flash
1887 Michelson-Morley Experiment
1889 Birth of the Kilogram
1889 Birth of the Meter
1890 Eötvös’ Gravitational Gradiometry
1891 Tesla Coil
1892 Thermos
1895 X-rays
1895 Curie’s Magnetism Law
1896 Radioactivity
1897 Electron
1898 Mass Spectrometer
1900 Blackbody Radiation Law
1901 Clothoid Loop
1903 Black Light
1903 Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation
1904 Lorentz Transformation
1905 Special Theory of Relativity
1905 E = mc2
1905 Photoelectric Effect
1905 Golf Ball Dimples
1905 Third Law of Thermodynamics
1906 Vacuum Tube
1908 Geiger Counter
1909 Bremsstrahlung
1910 Cosmic Rays
1911 Superconductivity
1911 Atomic Nucleus
1911 Kármán Vortex Street
1911 Wilson Cloud Chamber
1912 Cepheid Variab154les Measure the Universe
1912 Bragg’s Law of Crystal Diffraction
1913 Bohr Atom
1913 Millikan Oil Drop Experiment
1915 General Theory of Relativity
1919 String Theory
1921 Einstein as Inspiration
1922 Stern-Gerlach Experiment
1923 Neon Signs
1923 Compton Effect
1924 De Broglie Relation
1925 Pauli Exclusion Principle
1926 Schrödinger’s Wave Equation
1927 Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
1927 Complementarity Principle
1927 Hypersonic Whipcracking
1928 Dirac Equation
1928 Quantum Tunneling
1929 Hubble’s Law of Cosmic Expansion
1929 Cyclotron
1931 White Dwarfs and Chandrasekhar Limit
1931 Jacob’s Ladder
1932 Neutron
1932 Antimatter
1933 Dark Matter
1933 Neutron Stars
1934 Cherenkov Radiation
1934 Sonoluminescence
1935 EPR Paradox
1935 Schrödinger’s Cat
1937 Superfuids
1938 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
1942 Energy from the Nucleus
1943 Silly Putty
1945 Drinking Bird
1945 Little Boy Atomic Bomb
1946 Stellar Nucleosynthesis
1947 Transistor
1947 Sonic Booms
1947 Hologram
1948 Quantum Electrodynamics
1948 Tensegrity
1948 Casimir Effect
1949 Time Travel
1949 Radiocarbon Dating
1950 Fermi Paradox
1954 Solar Cells
1955 Leaning Tower of Lire
1955 Seeing the Single Atom
1955 Atomic Clocks
1956 Parallel Universes
1956 Neutrinos
1956 Tokamak
1958 Integrated Circuit
1959 Dark Side of the Moon
1960 Dyson Sphere
1960 Laser
1960 Terminal Velocity
1961 Anthropic Principle
1961 Standard Model
1962 Electromagnetic Pulse
1963 Chaos Theory
1963 Quasars
1963 Lava Lamp
1964 The God Particle
1964 Quarks
1964 CP Violation
1964 Bell’s Theorem
1965 Super Ball
1965 Cosmic Microwave Background
1967 Gamma-Ray Bursts
1967 Living in a Simulation
1967 Tachyons
1967 Newton’s Cradle
1967 Metamaterials
1969 Unilluminable Rooms
1971 Supersymmetry
1980 Cosmic Infation
1981 Quantum Computers
1982 Quasicrystals
1984 Theory of Everything
1985 Buckyballs
1987 Quantum Immortality
1987 Self-Organized Criticality
1988 Wormhole Time Machine
1990 Hubble Telescope
1992 Chronology Protection Conjecture
1993 Quantum Teleportation
1993 Stephen Hawking on Star Trek
1995 Bose-Einstein Condensate
1998 Dark Energy
1999 Randall-Sundrum Branes
1999 Fastest Tornado Speed
2007 HAARP
2008 Blackest Black
2009 Large Hadron Collider
CLOSING THE CURTAIN
36 Billion Cosmological Big Rip
100 Billion Cosmic Isolation
100 Trillion Universe Fades
>100 Trillion Quantum Resurrection
Notes and Further Reading
Index
Photo Credits
About the Author
