An unbending physicist


Book Description

This warm-hearted and funny love story captivates with its lively dialogues. In conjunction with an exciting conspiracy thriller it offers the reader an incomparable reading pleasure. Already with his first words, he underlined his reputation of a hard and always frank lecturer, “I don’t intend to remember your names. Not because I’m not able to, but because I don’t want to waste any brain capacity. It’s needed for more important things I can assure you of this. Most of you will not be able to follow me and the complex subject anyway, so you will soon leave the course.” Full of expectation, Theresa looked directly into the professor's eyes. He was around 6’1’ and rather skinny. His curly hair was tamed by a short haircut, which made his narrow face look younger. The professor seemed charming to her. That is he was charming until he opened his mouth. “What a nice guy”, Theresa thought when he introduced himself. Theresa Winter enrolls at the University of Berlin after a thirteen-year compulsory break from her studies. There she meets the Scottish guest lecturer Peter Calder. She takes a course in quantum physics with the ingenious but quite misanthropic professor. His cynical appearance does not put her off she falls in love with the extremely intelligent man. Two extraordinary people meet, who seem to be made for each other. If it wasn't for the big age difference. Thirty-one year old Theresa simply brushes aside the concerns of the not-so-young man calling them “bullshit". But is it really as simple as the young woman imagines? The young pretty woman, who is anything but rational, turns the quiet world of the perfectly rational physicist upside down so that he soon thinks he is going to lose his mind. Together with her professor, she takes quantum physics a big step forward. Exactly the field in which her parents had done research. When Theresa and Peter are kidnapped by the former boss of the Winters, Edward Barnes, Theresa wonders into what her parents and now she herself have gotten into. And what about the dangerous man-in-the-suit who seems to be everywhere? They receive help from Interpol agent David Connelly and his wife, investigative journalist Sarah Ritter. And what does the computer specialist from Europol Tom Bauer know?




Physics, Fractals and Flowers


Book Description

At the core of scientific thought lies a fundamental misconception, one that has kept humanity ensnared in what future generations will dub the ‘Aeons of Ignorance.’ This book unveils this profound oversight, introducing a ‘foundational grand narrative’ that harmonizes the realms of science. Dive into the exploration of a long-anticipated unifying theory, rooted in a singular, recurring pattern. “Surely underneath it all is something so beautiful, so simple, that when we find it in a decade, a century, or a millennium, we will all turn to each other and say, how can it have been otherwise, how can we have been so stupid?” – John Wheeler, physicist










Physicists


Book Description

The book is a collection of memoirs on famous Soviet physicists of the 20th century, such as Tamm, Vavilov, Sakharov, Landau and others. The narrative is situated within a remarkably well-described historical, cultural and social context. Of special interest are the chapters devoted to Soviet and German atomic projects.







L.I. Mandelstam and His School in Physics


Book Description

This biography of the famous Soviet physicist Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam (1889–1944), who became a Professor at Moscow State University in 1925 and an Academician (the highest scientific title in the USSR) in 1929, describes his contributions to both physics and technology. It also discusses the scientific community that formed around him, commonly known as the Mandelstam School. By doing so, it places Mandelstam’s life story in its cultural context: the context of German University (until 1914), the First World War, the Civil War, and the development of the Socialist Revolution (until 1925) and the young socialist country. The book considers various general issues, such as the impact of German scientific culture on Russian science; the problems and fates of Russian intellectuals during the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years; the formation of the Soviet Academy of Science, the State Academy; and the transformation of the system of higher education in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s. Further, it reconstructs Mandelstam’s philosophy of science and his approach to the social and ethical function of science and science education based on his fundamental writings and lecture notes. This reconstruction is enhanced by extensive use of previously unpublished archive material as well as the transcripts of personal interviews conducted by the author. The book also discusses the biographies of Mandelstam’s friends and collaborators: German mathematician and philosopher Richard von Mises, Soviet Communist Party official and philosopher B.M.Hessen, Russian specialist in radio engineering N.D.Papalexy, the specialists in non-linear dynamics A.A.Andronov, S.E. Chaikin, A.A.Vitt and the plasma physicist M.A.Leontovich. This second, extended edition reconstructs the social and economic backgrounds of Mandelstam and his colleagues, describing their positions at the universities and the institutes belonging to the Academy of Science. Additionally, Mandelstam’s philosophy of science is investigated in connection with the ideological attacks that occurred after Mandelstam’s death, particularly the great mathematician A.D.Alexandrov’s criticism of Mandelstam’s operationalism.




The World of Andrei Sakharov


Book Description

How did Andrei Sakharov, a theoretical physicist and the acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, become a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize? In his later years, Sakharov noted in his diary that he was "simply a man with an unusual fate." To understand this deceptively straightforward statement by an extraordinary man, The World of Andrei Sakharov, the first authoritative study of Andrei Sakharov as a scientist as well as a public figure, relies on previously inaccessible documents, recently declassified archives, and personal accounts by Sakharov's friends and colleagues to examine the real context of Sakharov's life. In the course of doing so, Gennady Gorelik answers a fascinating question, whether the Soviet hydrogen bomb was really fathered by Sakharov, or whether it was based on stolen American secrets. Gorelik concludes that while espionage did initiate the Soviet effort, the Russian hydrogen bomb was invented independently. Gorelik also elucidates the reasons that brought about the seemingly sudden transformation of the top-secret physicist into a public figure in 1968, when Sakharov's famous essay "Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" was distributed in samizdat in the USSR and smuggled out to the West. Recently declassified documents show that Sakharov's metamorphosis was caused by professional concerns, particularly regarding the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense. An insider's view of how the upper echelons of the Soviet regime functioned had led Sakharov to the conclusion that the goals of peace, progress, and human rights were inextricably linked. His free thinking and free feeling were manifested in his hope that scientific thought and religious perception would find a profound synthesis in the future.




The Nature of Science


Book Description

The ultimate science handbook for the home explains in everyday terms 200 of the most important laws and principles that define one's sense of the physical world. 100 full-color illustrations & photos.




Elements of Physics


Book Description