Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking |  | Author: William H. Cropper
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $12.22
as of 11/21/2009 17:07 CST details
You Save: $9.73 (44%)
New (27) Used (15) from $11.70
Seller: books-n-gifts
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 321735
Media: Paperback
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7 x 1.1
ISBN: 0195173244
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.0922
EAN: 9780195173246
ASIN: 0195173244
Publication Date: September 16, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and others--each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg. Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Excellent Overview of the History of Physics August 10, 2009
William Xanthos (ca.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As others have stated this is an excellent summary of the history of physics. The mix of biographical background and technical overview is very well done.
I was disappointed only in the section on relativity which diminished the roles of Lorentz, Poincare and Minkowski. Unlike the section on thermodynamics, which traces the development of key ideas among several important players, Cropper seems to present Einstein as having developed the ideas of special relativity in a historical vacuum. For example, the key equation of relativity, the Lorentz transformation, is mentioned only in passing as having been developed by Lorentz. The mathematical structure of special relativity, developed by Minkowski, is also mentioned in passing. I would liked to have learned a little more about the lives of these important contributors. In general, these three figures (Lorentz, Poincare and Minkowski) deserved more attention than provided by Cropper.
The sections on the development of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics provide as good a historical summary as I have ever read.
Wow - Great Book! May 8, 2009
Solomon (Colorado)
This is a great book. It is part biography and part physics (mostly the evolution of different disciplines). It is divided into sections covering: Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electromagnetism, Statistical Mechanics, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Nuclear Physics, and Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology. Each of the 29 chapters focuses on a different Physicist, with additional biographical information on others who interacted with the subject of the chapter.
I have read several other books on "Great Scientists" but this is far and away the best. Most of the others were largely superficial, focusing on the man (or in a few cases women). These other books generally had a lot of illustrations that added very little to the text and provided few details about the scientific work of the person being profiled. This book is different; its focus is more on physics, with the illustrations limited to a portrait or photograph of the subject of the chapter and any figures are limited to diagrams that support the physics being discussed. In some chapters the text is only 20% biography with 80% physics, but in others there is somewhat more biography (perhaps as much as 60-80%). There are great discussions spread throughout the book that clarified a lot for me. For instance, there is a half page discussion of symmetry and conservation laws that did more to clarify this idea than the other general physics books that I have read; likewise for the discussion of Hawking Radiation.
I particularly liked the section of thermodynamics. This subject is often overlooked in other books on scientists. Cropper (who is a physical chemist) shows the evolution of thermodynamics and how it was refined from scientist to scientist. Seeing how the discipline evolved was very helpful and provided a very good foundation for this important subject. While very good, the other sections were not quite as thorough. I found the quantum mechanics section to be somewhat weak; it was good, but not as good as the thermodynamics section. In fact, I found it somewhat superficial in that it did not get into the implications of quantum reality and described the uncertainty principle completely in terms of it being an experimental problem. Heisenberg used this idea, but I think that it tends to obscure the mathematics that generated the uncertainty principle and the degree to which it may reflect the underlying nature of reality. There is a lot of physics in this book; all treated in a general manner that does not compromise the importance of the ideas.
This book contains some mathematical equations (there is even a general section of vector analysis), but does not require any actual problem solving or the use of these equations. This is a great book for college physics, chemistry and engineering majors, as well as practicing scientists and engineers. However, it may be beyond most high school students. For the right reader this is a terrific book. I loved it!
Good book, but ... November 22, 2008
Libb Thims (Chicago)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Good (93-page) section of thermodynamics' history. An inaccuracy, however, occurs on page 107, where Cropper states "Clausius appears to have made no comment on Gibbs's work." Correctly, in 1875, Clausius refers to his (seemingly favored) Gibbs use of the term "isentropic" (pg. 68, The Mechanical Theory of Heat, 2nd ed.), for expansions where the entropy remains constant.
very interesting and readable! November 11, 2008
Panagiotis Katratzis (Athens, Greece)
this book has the perfect mixture of science and personal details, i am doing an assignment on history of science and it provided exactly what i was looking for. i would definitely recommend it for someone who wants to know not just the progress of physics and thermodynamics but also all the background controversies and the personal triumphs and tragedies that went along with it. in the end you'll feel a lot more familiar with all those great names that people usually just associate with a theorem.
Highly recommended August 21, 2006
Donald E. Fulton (Stoneham, MA USA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. Cropper must have put an enormous effort into researching and writing this 500 page, large format paperback, which has been nicely printed on white paper. At its current price of $12.97 an incredible bargain.
At first glance this book appears to be sort of a strange hybrid of biography and science, but the combo works. Cropper generally starts a chapter on a scientist with a few page biographical sketch followed by a longer, clearly written, physics section. I would estimate that the book is about 70% physics and about 30% biographical. The biographical sections are well done and interesting, but the book really shines in its overview of the physics.
Cropper covers 30 scientists with many of them in thermodynamics and atomic physics. Reading these sections you not only get a good overview of the science at a moderate technical level (a notch or two above the usual popular science writing level since Cropper is not afraid of using equations), but also you get an historical understanding of who did what and how their contributions fit together. Another plus is that Cropper will often describe in some detail how a key experiment has been done.
As a technical person (like a previous reviewer, I am an engineer), not only did I learn a lot from this book about how many of the secrets of this world have been discovered, but some of the gaps in my physics knowledge were filled in. Cropper set himself a big task to write an overview of much of physics, but he has pulled it off with style.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
|
|
|
|
