Memories of a Theoretical Physicist PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Memories of a Theoretical Physicist PDF full book. Access full book title Memories of a Theoretical Physicist by Joseph Polchinski. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Joseph Polchinski
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262368900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Get Book
Book Description
A groundbreaking theoretical physicist traces his career, reflecting on the successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities of a life cut short by cancer. The groundbreaking theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski explained the genesis of his memoir this way: “Having only two bodies of knowledge, myself and physics, I decided to write an autobiography about my development as a theoretical physicist.” In this posthumously published account of his life and work, Polchinski (1954–2018) describes successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities, and the sheer persistence that led to his greatest discoveries. Writing engagingly and accessibly, with the wry humor for which he was known, Polchinski gives theoretical physics a very human face. Polchinski, famous for his contributions to string theory, may have changed the course of modern theoretical physics, but he was a late bloomer—doing most of his important work after the age of forty. His death from brain cancer at sixty-three cut short a career at its peak. Working on the memoir after his diagnosis, using a text-to-speech algorithm because he could no longer read words on a page, he was able to recapitulate his entire career, down to the details of problems he had worked on. For Polchinski, physics went deeper than words. This edition includes photographs from Polchinski’s professional and family life, as well as physics explainer boxes, other technical edits, and bibliographic notes by his former student Ahmad Almheiri, a foreword by Andrew Strominger, and an afterword by his wife Dorothy Chun and sons Steven and Daniel.
Author: Joseph Polchinski
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262368900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Get Book
Book Description
A groundbreaking theoretical physicist traces his career, reflecting on the successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities of a life cut short by cancer. The groundbreaking theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski explained the genesis of his memoir this way: “Having only two bodies of knowledge, myself and physics, I decided to write an autobiography about my development as a theoretical physicist.” In this posthumously published account of his life and work, Polchinski (1954–2018) describes successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities, and the sheer persistence that led to his greatest discoveries. Writing engagingly and accessibly, with the wry humor for which he was known, Polchinski gives theoretical physics a very human face. Polchinski, famous for his contributions to string theory, may have changed the course of modern theoretical physics, but he was a late bloomer—doing most of his important work after the age of forty. His death from brain cancer at sixty-three cut short a career at its peak. Working on the memoir after his diagnosis, using a text-to-speech algorithm because he could no longer read words on a page, he was able to recapitulate his entire career, down to the details of problems he had worked on. For Polchinski, physics went deeper than words. This edition includes photographs from Polchinski’s professional and family life, as well as physics explainer boxes, other technical edits, and bibliographic notes by his former student Ahmad Almheiri, a foreword by Andrew Strominger, and an afterword by his wife Dorothy Chun and sons Steven and Daniel.
Author: Joseph Gerard Polchinski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780262368919
Category : Cosmology
Languages : en
Pages :
Get Book
Book Description
"Breakthrough Prize recipient Joseph Polchinksi (now deceased) reveals details of his upbringing, his collaborations with major figures in physics, and his significant contributions to string theory and cosmology"--
Author: Joseph Polchinski
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543443
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Get Book
Book Description
A groundbreaking theoretical physicist traces his career, reflecting on the successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities of a life cut short by cancer. The groundbreaking theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski explained the genesis of his memoir this way: “Having only two bodies of knowledge, myself and physics, I decided to write an autobiography about my development as a theoretical physicist.” In this posthumously published account of his life and work, Polchinski (1954–2018) describes successes and failures, triumphs and insecurities, and the sheer persistence that led to his greatest discoveries. Writing engagingly and accessibly, with the wry humor for which he was known, Polchinski gives theoretical physics a very human face. Polchinski, famous for his contributions to string theory, may have changed the course of modern theoretical physics, but he was a late bloomer—doing most of his important work after the age of forty. His death from brain cancer at sixty-three cut short a career at its peak. Working on the memoir after his diagnosis, using a text-to-speech algorithm because he could no longer read words on a page, he was able to recapitulate his entire career, down to the details of problems he had worked on. For Polchinski, physics went deeper than words. This edition includes photographs from Polchinski’s professional and family life, as well as physics explainer boxes, other technical edits, and bibliographic notes by his former student Ahmad Almheiri, a foreword by Andrew Strominger, and an afterword by his wife Dorothy Chun and sons Steven and Daniel.
Author: Lawrence Maxwell Krauss
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145162445X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Get Book
Book Description
This is a provocative account of the astounding new answers to the most basic philosophical question: Where did the universe come from and how will it end?
Author: Stanley Deser
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811234205
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Get Book
Book Description
Stanley Deser is a preeminent theoretical physicist who made monumental contributions to general relativity, quantum field theory and high energy physics; he is a co-creator of supergravity. This is his personal story, intended for a broad, scientifically curious audience, with emphasis on the historic figures that defined the modern aspects of the field.Beginning with an account of his early life in Europe during the fateful period leading up to WW2, it continues with his family's dramatic escape from the Nazis through their arrival to the US. His education at public institutions including Brooklyn College nurtured his love of physics from an early age. He earned his PhD at Harvard and spent fruitful postdoc years at the Institute for Advanced Study and the Niels Bohr Institute, where he met many of the luminaries of the field. Then followed a long career at Brandeis University and many visits to foreign institutions.His work earned him many awards and led to exotic experiences detailed in the later chapters. The appendices contain semi-technical descriptions of some essential physics, as well as a more general commentary about the role of physics and physicists in understanding the universe.
Author: Rudolf Peierls
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140085461X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Get Book
Book Description
Here is the intensely personal and often humorous autobiography of one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of his generation, Sir Rudolf Peierls. Born in Germany in 1907, Peierls was indeed a bird of passage," whose career of fifty-five years took him to leading centers of physics--including Munich, Leipzig, Zurich, Copenhagen, Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford, and J. Robert Oppenheimer's Los Alamos. Peierls was a major participant in the revolutionary development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s and 1930s, working with some of the pioneers and, as he puts it, "some of the great characters" in this field. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Author: Walter M. Elsasser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Get Book
Book Description
This is the autobiography of Walter Maurice Elsasser (1904-1991), a Johns Hopkins University geophysicist who won a National Medal of Science in 1987 for his research in planetary magnetism, the movement of the earth's crust and other fields. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he came to the United States in 1936. He taught and did research at various institutions, joining the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1975. He is one of the first to recognize that fluid motions within the earth's iron core arising from its cooling might be responsible for the earth's magnetic field. He is also known for work in quantum physics, theory of radioactive nuclei, theoretical biology, logical classes in mathematical biology and systems biology.
Author: S. James Gates,
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541762231
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Get Book
Book Description
A thrilling adventure story chronicling the perilous journey of the scientists who set out to prove the theory of relativity--the results of which catapulted Albert Einstein to fame and forever changed our understanding of the universe. In 1911, a relatively unknown physicist named Albert Einstein published his preliminary theory of gravity. But it hadn't been tested. To do that, he needed a photograph of starlight as it passed the sun during a total solar eclipse. So began a nearly decade-long quest by seven determined astronomers from observatories in four countries, who traveled the world during five eclipses to capture the elusive sight. Over the years, they faced thunderstorms, the ravages of a world war, lost equipment, and local superstitions. Finally, in May of 1919, British expeditions to northern Brazil and the island of Príncipe managed to photograph the stars, confirming Einstein's theory. At its heart, this is a story of frustration, faith, and ultimate victory--and of the scientists whose efforts helped build the framework for the big bang theory, catapulted Einstein to international fame, and shook the foundation of physics.
Author: J B Sykes
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483286886
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Get Book
Book Description
The name of Lev Davidovich Landau is widely known as that of one of the greatest twentieth-century physicists. A brilliant teacher to those pupils he carefully chose, notoriously controversial in his outlook and opinions, the combination of his outstanding intellect and striking personality brought him almost legendary fame. This volume contains letters, papers and recollections by friends and pupils, describing Landau's views of science, culture and life, and provides the reader with a vivid portrait of a remarkable man.
Author: Mikhail Shifman
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814436585
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Get Book
Book Description
This invaluable collection of memoirs and reviews on scientific activities of the most prominent theoretical physicists belonging to the Landau School — Landau, Migdal, Zeldovich, Smorodinsky, Ter-Martirosyan, Kirzhnits, Gribov, Larkin and Anselm — are being published in English for the first time. The main goal is to acquaint readers with the life and work of outstanding Soviet physicists who, to a large extent, shaped theoretical physics in the 1950s–70s. Many intriguing details have remained unknown beyond the “Iron Curtain” which was dismantled only with the fall of the USSR. Contents:Lev LandauArkady MigdalYakov ZeldovichYakov SmorodinskyKaren Ter-MartirosyanDavid KirzhnitsVladimir GribovAnatoly LarkinAlexei AnselmTime and DestiniesSome Details for Experts Readership: Students and teachers of physics in high schools and colleges. Keywords:Theoretical Physics;Landau and His Circle;Soviet UnionReviews: “This volume is filled with fascinating reminiscences of the Landau school of theoretical physics that flourished in the then Soviet Union. Life was often difficult but the science was top-notch. We can all be grateful that these reminiscences have been written down and collected and are now being published in English.” Professor Edward Witten Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton “In this book we get to know about not only Landau but many from his circle, persons who are now gone. People who are still active give very personal and detailed narrations of the masters of the Landau circle. They come back to life for us and we get a very good understanding of how these people worked and lived. We can follow the history of theoretical physics through the achievements of these people. In this sense the book is a must for anyone interested in the history of science.”(See Full Review) Professor Lars Brink Chalmers Univ. of Tech., Sweden “The presented material is highly interesting for all those, who had the chance to take part in seminars and conferences in the Soviet Union or even to cooperate with Soviet colleagues.” Zentralblatt MATH
