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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: The Macmillan Company in 1899 in 343 pages; Subjects: Physics; Physical laboratories; Physical Laboratories; History / General; Science / General; Science / Physics; ... Read more

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This landmark work chronicles the origin and evolution of solid state physics, which grew to maturity between 1920 and 1960. The book examines the early roots of the field in industrial, scientific and artistic efforts and traces them through the 1950s, when many physicists around the world recognized themselves as members of a distinct subfield of physics research centered on solids. The book opens with an account of scientific and social developments that preceded the discovery of quantum mechanics, including the invention of new experimental means for studying solids and the establishment of the first industrial laboratories. The authors set the stage for the modern era by detailing the formulation of the quantum field theory of solids. The core of the book examines six major themes: the band theory of solids; the phenomenology of imperfect crystals; the puzzle of the plastic properties of solids, solved by the discovery of dislocations; magnetism; semiconductor physics; and collective phenomena, the context in which old puzzles such as superconductivity and superfluidity were finally solved. All readers interested in the history of science will find this absorbing volume an essential resource for understanding the emergence of contemporary physics. ... Read more

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By focusing on the conceptual issues faced by nineteenth century physicists, this book clarifies the status of field theory, the ether, and thermodynamics in the work of the period. A remarkably synthetic account of a difficult and fragmentary period in scientific development. ... Read more

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This enlightening book, a sequel to QUIPS, QUOTES, AND QUANTA, helps readers to understand how physicists think about and look at the world. Starting with the discovery and investigation of cosmic rays, the book proceeds to cover some major areas of modern physics in laymen's terms. Unlike other books that deal with the history of physics, this volume concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists who created the new ideas, with a heavy emphasis on personal incidents and quotes. At the same time it presents, in every day language, the ideas created by these physicists. Both thematic and biographical in nature, readers will be entertained with humorous events in the lives of some famous scientists. Readers will also learn quite a lot about modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts intact. ... Read more

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This fantastic book of experiments and projects will not only explain many of the astonishing technological developments of our time, but will also give children hours of learning fun. Each concept is clearly demonstrated with a hands-on step-by-step project that is easy to follow. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A basic overview of current physics knowledge
The information is mostly accurate.The illustrations are helpful. Overall a simple explanation of some complex subjects- geared toward the novice.

Highly recommended
I certainly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning Physics and want to use it as a reference. I find it really interesting with a lot of good graphics although the subject itself may require some earlier knowledge in Physics. ... Read more

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Force is one of the most elementary concepts that must be understood in order to understand modern science; it is discussed extensively in textbooks at all levels and is a requirement in most science guidelines. It is also one of the most challenging - how could one idea be involved in such disparate physical phenomena as gravity and radioactivity? Forces in Physics helps the science student by explaining how these ideas originally were developed and provides context to the stunning conclusions that scientists over the centuries have arrived at. It covers the history of all of the four traditional fundamental forces - gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force - and shows how these forces have, over the years, allowed physicists to better understand the nature of the physical world.

Forces in Physics: A Historical Perspective traces the evolution of the concept from the earliest days of the Ancient Greeks to the contemporary attempt to form a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): Aristotle and others in Ancient Greece who developed ideas about physical laws and the introduction of forces into nature; Newton and others in the Scientific Revolution who discovered that forces like gravity applied throughout the universe; the 19th century examinations of thermodynamics and the forces of the very small; and 20th century developments—relativity, quantum mechanics, and more advanced physics—that revolutionized the way we understand force. The volume includes a glossary of terms, a timeline of important events, and a bibliography of resources useful for further research.

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Customer Reviews (4)

Fascinating, deep, yet still accessible
This is one of the best history of physics books I've read. Kaiser has a very engaging style of writing and explains technical physical concepts well. Those talents, together with the quirky personalities involved, and the many often humorous quotes from physicists scattered throughout, mean that even the lay reader would be able to enjoy this book. It's far more accessible than, for example, Andrew Pickering's Constructing Quarks. It's also far more entertaining and less loaded with jargon.

Even more impressively, the accessible style doesn't detract from the quality of research presented. With his detailed accounts of the myriad, often mutually contradictory applications of field theory and Feynman diagrams, Kaiser makes a strong case against theory-centric philosophy of science and for a more Cartwrightian stance. He also does an excellent job of describing contrasting strands of methodologies, such as Dyson's use of Feynman diagrams primarily as a bookkeeping device in mathematically rigorous field theory versus Feynman's own much more relaxed and sloppy use of the diagrams. He has a convincing presentation of the sociology involved in the spread of Feynman diagrams -- unlike many sociology of science works that are steeped in social constructionist jargon, this was all done in extremely accessible language and kept me turning the pages -- the prose was not dry at all.

What a book!
A fantastic book. With too many words sometimes, but really good.
It has 496 pages, not the number indicated in the Amazon page.

how a compelling idea spread amongst physicists
For physicists, this book makes engaging reading. Feynman diagrams are now well established, and have been so for decades. They give crucial understanding to some very intricate equations in high energy physics.

Kaiser has performed some indepth historical research on the early postwar years. When Feynman had his seminal insights into how these graphical techniques could simplify a tangle of equations. Today, with a pervasive web and instantaneous email between researchers across the globe, it is a very different environment. Then, a compelling idea still primarily had to be transmitted by the traditional method of inperson presentations, like seminars and conferences and actual letters.

The book is as much about the sociology of science as it is about the physics devised by Feynman. Granted, key sections may be intelligible only to physicists. These delve into the physics and equations of propagators and Hamiltonians in quantum mechanics. But most of the book can be gainfully read by non-physicists, who might want more details about Richard Feynman's life.

Storied names of 20th century physicists are also generously scattered throughout the book. Bethe [Feynman's PhD advisor], Dyson, Gell-Mann, Salam and others.

Interesting for historians, valuable for physicists
This is a very engaging book on at least two different levels: as a book about history, and as a book about physics.

The book is an early adopter of a couple of new and intriguing techniques in history of science. Instead of trying to identify theories or paradigms, it focuses on physicists' "paper tools" --the techniques they used for calculations. Also, it emphasizes the importance of pedagogy -- a subject's transmission through textbooks, clusters of professors/postdocs/grad students and, importantly in this case, informal contact.

Feynman introduced his diagrams at a small, private conference in spring 1948. He didn't publish about them until September 1949; but by then they were already widely used in studying quantum electrodynamics, albeit not well-understood. Kaiser traces the roles of Freeman Dyson and a cadre of postdocs from Princeton's IAS in spreading the diagrams on both sides of the Atlantic. As each researcher pieced together his (or occasionally her) own understanding of the diagrams, he transmitted it -- together with many idiosyncrasies -- to his students. A neat figure in the book compares the styles of diagram used by professors and students at major universities. Students tended to follow their teachers, but no two institutions had the same style. (Kaiser also traces the spread of the diagrams in Japan and Russia, two physics communities that were largely isolated from Western researchers.)

The result was a Balkanization of styles and interpretations of the diagrams. This had already begun with Dyson's first articles in February 1949. Feynman had viewed the diagrams as intuitively depicting the behavior of particles in spacetime. Kaiser connects the diagrams' enduring appeal to their similarity to particle tracks in bubble-chamber photos, which makes a viewer feel that the diagrams are a realistic picture of what's going on. Dyson, on the other hand, regarded them as a geometric algorithm for keeping track of terms in a perturbative expansion in QED; he was also the first to promote viewing them in an abstract, topological way.

These centrifugal tendencies became elaborated and diversified in the 1950s and 1960s. All sorts of new diagrams sprung up, with different kinds of lines, arrows, geometries and "blobs" -- but eventually all were called "Feynman diagrams". The uses of the diagrams also diverged, from being a tool of quantum field theory to being a tool for its (attempted) overthrow. Among many other fascinating stories, Kaiser describes the UC Berkeley "particle democracy" movement, which used geometrical permutations of the diagrams to make a case that the distinction between "elementary" and "composite" particles is false. (By similar means, the school of Lev Landau came to regard diagrams as more fundamental than field theory.)

Kaiser does a great job of providing the historical context of what problems each group was trying to address, including adapting the diagrams to studying QED in condensed matter as well as other QFTs, such as the strong interaction. Along the way, you'll learn a little about Regge theory, pomerons, the Mandelstam representation, the analytical S-matrix, and other approaches to QFT that still surface today in corners of the arXiv. You won't find these developments described in other histories of the period, such as Schweber's "QED" or Pais's ultra-terse "Inward Bound". Kaiser's book is indispensible for understanding diagrams in the physics literature from the 1950s and 1960s and perhaps later. (And since it's much shorter than Schweber and less oracular than Schwinger, it's a good introduction to the second half of the Dover collection of QED papers, which Schwinger edited and introduced.)

Readers more interested in QFT than in history might be put off by Kaiser's at times dry style, and especially by the critical theory-tinged first chapter (influenced by the science studies ramblings of Bruno Latour et al.) But don't be put off. While much of the history Kaiser describes has been forgotten, it survives in the eclectic style of "Feynman diagrams" you'll find in many textbooks today -- e.g., Itzykson & Zuber, Ryder, Mattuck, and A. Zee's recent "Nutshell", which mixes diagrammatic styles with an especially breezy abandon. In all of these, turn a few pages past the dutiful description of the 1949 Feynman-Dyson rules and you'll start seeing diagrams about QCD, or diagrams with blobs or double-arrows or other innovations, most of which won't be explained systematically. Kaiser's book will help you to decipher some of these diagrammatic puzzles. Even better, it may make you sensitive to some of the uses, interpretations, and ambiguities of diagrams that you might never have considered otherwise. ... Read more

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Outstanding text by one of the 20th century’s foremost physicists dramatically explains how the central laws of physical science evolved—from Pythagoras’ discovery of frequency ratios in the sixth century B.C. to today’s research on elementary particles. Includes fascinating biographical data about such immortals as Galileo, Newton, Huygens, Einstein and others.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Very Informative!
This book contained everything you could wish to know concerning just about every physicist that has had a major scientific contribution.This is a great book for intermediate scientific readers.I also liked that it had diagrams especially drawn by the author himself.

An excellent overview of discoveries in physics.
I have read a fair amount of books on physics and found this one to be very enjoyable. Gamow keeps things pretty simple (until the end when he starts talking about his specialty) and very accessible. He is careful that the math is sequential; he always builds on previous examples to take you to the next step.

The book was published in the 60's, so there are many recent discoveries missing, but you need to know your history of physics to see how we got where we are.In fact, I found that this bookshowed just how new all of our current theories are and that there is promise for many new things on the horizon. ... Read more

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An eminent mathematician and writer explores an idea both simple and complex, both multidisciplinary and unifying--the story of symmetry.

Hidden in the heart of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, and modern cosmology lies one idea: symmetry.

Symmetry has been a key concept for artists, architects, and musicians for centuries, but as a mathematical principle it remained, until very recently, an arcane pursuit. In the twentieth century, however, symmetry emerged as central to the most fundamental ideas in physics and cosmology. Why Beauty Is Truth chronicles its history, from ancient Babylon to twenty-first century physics. World-famous mathematician Ian Stewart tells the compelling stories of the eccentric and occasionally tragic mathematical geniuses as he describes how symmetry grew into one of the most important ideas of modern science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Good History of Math, Misleading Title
The author has penned a dozen stories of mathematical discovery joined by the theme of symmetry.The individual stories are good biographies, historically interesting and their mathematical principles accessable to the layman.The links from story to story are plausible.The abstract level of the principles is made clear.

In the end, the beauty of the mathematics or structures discovered is not clear.The deeper commonality of the mathematics escapes the general reader.The connection of symmetry to beauty or truth is not really attempted.

The reader who enjoys the history of math and mathematicians or who seeks some understanding of post-calculus math will enjoy this book, but don't expect to learn the meaning of the universe.

Fearful symmetry framed.
An excellent history of the roles played by symmetry various fields of mathematics. Complex ideas are well explained in a way accessible to anyone with good high school mathematics (hardly any equations appear). Many eccentric characters are brought to life, entwining the explorers with their discoveries.

I wasn't fully able to grasp the beauty
This book has many good points, and some drawbacks. I think my own lack of mathematical knowledge held me back from fully appreciating it. (I got A in O level maths in 1981. I enjoyed maths at school, and felt I was getting to the interesting bits when I was forced towards physics chemistry and biology for A levels- looking back I wish I had the chance to do all four subjects)

The good points are that is well written with a clear narrative showing how our mathematical thinking has developed over time. It shows well how seemingly abstract problems lead on to many insights that may be interesting of themselves (pure maths) or may help solve practical problems. (applied maths) What seems like purely abstract mathematics may later turn out to be the route to new applied knowledge. The "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics is shown in many examples throughout the book. The discussion of the relationship between truth and beauty is well nuanced, and it seems likely that truth will be beautiful, and that a current "ugly" or "messy" formulation is one awaiting its simplification. At school I was just beginning to get the idea that graphs, coordinates, geometry, equations and matrices were all ways of expressing the same idea in different formats. This book shows how these relationships come about, and evolve out from one another.

The drawbacks of the book for me was that the final 100 pages largely lost me. I got certain headline points, but I did not understand the ideas behind group theory, Lie groups, Hamilton's work, Killing's work. I think this is a reflection of my ignorance, not the author's writing.

My feeling about this book is that it would be a great read for someone studying maths at A level or university and wanting to get an idea of how maths has developed and where it is going. It would whet the appetite and encourage their studies.

Bad writing style for an otherwise stellar topic and approach
I very much agree with Israel Ramirez's review.

I love the topic and the approach the author used. Math history is fascinating and I'm sure more people would understand and appreciate math if it were taught with more of a historical perspective rather than the rote learning approach used in most k-12 education these days in north america.

I found this book to drag on at times and not go into enough depth on what it promised to discuss - group theory.

Reading was made difficult by the fact that everything happened at the same level of discourse. Whether it was a pages long setup starting with Maxwell's grandparents, The author's opinion on how 2 historians recordings differ on a less important fact of Sumarrian school children, or the Ah Ha! moment that revolutionized mathematics from a study of quantitative calculations to the analysis of the abstract, it's all written in a way that holds the same level of importance.

That being said I also cried my eyes out with his recounting of Galois's untimely death - something I never thought possible of a math book.

Why beauty is Truth is more than a simple book about math and group theory but a book about humanity's attempt to understand the natural world culminating with the latest triumphs in theoretical physics. However, this book could have easily been half the length and still kept all the main points. It was very hard to get into a rhythm while reading since it was hard to tell what points were important and what points made up the background information.

An inspired but muddled mess
I agree completely with the review by Israel Ramirez.Stewart religiously avoids mathematical expressions throughout, assuming his audience will choke on anything more than a polynomial equation, but he doesn't think twice about spewing esoteric math and physics jargon when attempting to explain fantastically complicated concepts in words. To his credit, it works some of the time, but any honest reader will admit it doesn't work much of the time. As others have noted, there are many positive things about the book, but by the end the author is throwing new thoughts into the mix helter skelter as if cleaning out his ideas closet, and it all just falls apart. What are we supposed to take away from nonsense such as: "So now the general opinion is that the exceptional Lie groups exist because of the wisdom of the deity in permitting the octonions to exist."?? ... Read more

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Readings from Physics Today With over 300 photographs and illustrations, this volume is a valuable library reference, a useful supplementary text for a wide range of courses, and stimulating leisure reading for physicists and non- physicists alike. ... Read more

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Bravo!
Rather than a collection of historically important papers, this is a collection of papers ABOUT the history of physics (spread over the history of Physics Today). I was confused at first, but I'm not disappointed in the book. This bookhas a large-format with plenty of room for photographs, charts and even newspaper clippings. It's approx 8" x 11" with 373 densely packed pages of three-color ink printing. The third ink is a septia tone added to all the photographs and article titles and charts for distinction. There are so many individual articles organized by chapters, it's impossible to list them all. All the articles are reprints from Physics Today (they seem to be exact photocopies of the pages because sometimes you can see the bleed-through in the photographs and the bleed through isn't from this book, but from the original magazine). Needless to say with such a pedigree, the articles don't pull punches and will serve any serious student well.It includes a section called "Personal Accounts" with, well, personal accounts by Einstein on Einstein,Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck. ... Read more

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This book examines a selection of philosophical issues in the context of specific episodes in the development of physical theories and presents scientific advances within their historical and philosophical contexts. Philosophical considerations have played an essential and ineliminable role in the actual practice of science.The book begins with some necessary introduction to the history of ancient and early modern science, but emphasizes the two great watersheds of twentieth-century physics: relativity and quantum mechanics.At times the term "construction" may seem more appropriate than "discovery" for the way theories have developed and, especially in later chapters, the discussion focuses on the influence of historical, philosophical and even social factors on the form and content of scientific theories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

a very good reading
The perfect balance between physics and philosophy, getting to the social dimension of scientific quest its deserved place (usually ovelooked by many scientists, advocates of a (too) strong concept of rationality in science). I liked especially the chapters dedicated to modern physics, underdetermination and theory ladenness are really big problems for modern science, in no case are we entitled to underestimate them (I don't think that Bayesianism, objective or subjective, is enough to reject them). Overall a good reading, especially for those having some previous knowledge of physics, it shows clearly that one must go well beyond the usual cliche that science is only inductive and that we have enough probabilistic justification for the view that it surely approach at least approximate Truth.

Lots of Physics...No Philosophy
This work reads more like a general overview of the history of ideas regarding the physical universe rather than a philosophical treatment of the ideas behind physics. The book merely presents in a linear fashion the major ideas that revolutionized our views of the physical world but goes no further than presenting the theories as matter of fact. There are no discussions into the interplay between the philosophy of ideas and the actual modeling of the physical world using the scientific method. It reads similar to Stephen Hawking's "On The Shoulders of Giants"(a much more interesting work).

More like History of Physics
My be I was expecting more from the book based on the title of the book but after all I was satisfied. Author provides a good history of Physics from Greeks to Quantum Theory. In Quantum theory you feel some Philosophical discussions but otherwise it is a science book and a good one with formulas, schematics like a text book. What I liked most was the excerpts from the original writings as the author was making his point. Paragraph from Newton's, Kepler's , Maxwell's, Bohr's, Bell's writings, all those fellows. It is serious book and requires serious reading. Also there is good references for further readings.

good historical overview
This book summarizes the history of scientific developments from antiquity to quantum physics. No prior knowledge of science or philosophy is assumed, except the general high school education. The author is a physicistinterested in philosophy, but the philosophical dimension of the book ismuch less obvious than the scientific-historical aspect. It is a clear andnice read, but it is physics rather than philosophy. ... Read more

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This book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of ideas about the sun and the stars, from antiquity to modern times. Two theoretical astrophysicists who have been active in the field since the early 1960s tell the story in fluent prose. About half of the book covers most of the theoretical research done from 1940 to the close of the twentieth century, a large body of work that has to date been little explored by historians.

The first chapter, which outlines the period from about 3000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., shows that at every stage in history human beings have had a particular understanding of the sun and stars, and that this has continually evolved over the centuries. Next the authors systematically address the immense mass of observations astronomy accumulated from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth. The remaining four chapters examine the history of the field from the physicists perspective, the emphasis being on theoretical work from the mid-1840s to the late 1990s--from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics, from nuclear physics and magnetohydrodynamics to the remarkable advances through to the late 1960s, and finally, to more recent theoretical work. Intended mainly for students and teachers of astronomy, this book will also be a useful reference for practicing astronomers and scientifically curious general readers. ... Read more

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This book offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work. The importance of quantum field theory for Bohr's thinking has not been adequately addressed in the literature on Bohr. This book provides clarification of Bohr's writings (which usually pose problems of reading), and an analysis of the role of quantum field theory in Bohr's thinking.

Customer Reviews (1)

Returnable?
The book is brilliant, incisive, crisp and terrific.But when I found I already owned a copy, I've been trying to return it to Sherbiebooks via amazon.com, but they haven't replied to my two e-mails and have no phone number.IT cost me $98.00, and I'd like to return it.Maybe this message will send me assistance. ... Read more

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This book deals with the history of physics, covering important developments in physics from the end of the nineteenth century to about 1930. Major topics include relativity theory (both special and general) and quantum mechanics.This book is unique in that it concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists creating the new ideas. Both thematic and biographical in nature, it contains a heavy emphasis on personal incidents or quotes. Readers will be entertained with humorous incidents in the lives of some famous scientists, and simultaneously learn quite a bit of modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts. Academics and anyone interested in science in the most general sense are likely to want to read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fun book
A fun book, worthy of reading -- especially for lecturers -- as it supplies much material that can be used to "lighten up" lectures and, also make the presentations more human. ... Read more

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(Icon Books) Explains Newton's ideas in mechanics, mathematics, and optics, the foundation for later theories, including Einstein's. Previous edition: c1997. Softcover. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

On Newton's discoveries, as well as my own
I found this book, one evening in a basement in Oxford, and picked it up thinking it was a coloring book. Although the type-setting seemed a bit bizarre, I forged ahead and began reading through the first few pages.
As I delved deeper into the book, it became more apparent, that there was much more to Newton than I had learnt from the past 12 years of studying physics, and fluxions.
Moreover, I had no idea that he discovered the Binomial Theorem - a formulation that permits the extraction of roots , and the expansion of variable sums raised to powers.
As far as gravity, corpuscular theory, Calculus, Kinematics - dynamics and statics, I was easily able to follow Rankin's arguments and recollections.
Something else, of no less interest was Newton the theologian and and Isaac the Alchemist. He pursued what he called "prisca sapientia", which he felt had been disseminated incognito by the elders of the Vestal Cult, and claimed that gentile theology had somehow alloyed this "TRUTH."
As he rightfully said to Hooke and many of other Mathematics progenitors, " Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident - If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Quite good, not great.
I would recommend for someone into the Introducing... series, but not one of their best works.

"Newton and Classical Physics" is a brainstormed surprise.
This could be the best book in the "Introducing" series. It seems to have the best story, illustrations and topics. Newton is considered smarter then Einstein by many. It reads like an action movie. This is the best place to start on physics however I recommend that you also try "Introducing Mathematics" in this series if you need an maths refresher.

Core material:

Arithmetic
Geometry
Pythagoras
Squaring the Circle
John Bate's The Mysterious of Nature and Art
Sundials
Fireworks
Physis - The nature of a thing is its end
Crystalline Spheres
Ptolemy and Earth as the centre
Copernicus and Sun as the centre
Strange motions of Mars
Tyco disproves Aristotle fixed stars hypothesis by discovering Supernova
Tyco proves a comet in past the moon
Kepler covers 900 folio pages of Mars' orbit and discovers it is oval.
Kepler creates Copernicus model with oval elliptical orbits.
Galileo proves heavy and light bodies fall at same speed
Giovanni Battista della Porta develops telescope and Galileo develops it
Galileo talks about four moon of Jupiter, Venus phases, Saturns rings, Spiral Galaxy in Andromedia
Galileo pushes Copernicus on the Church
Galileo publishes resistance, cohesion, motion and acceleration, projectile curves
Descartes, matter only effecting matter by contact, everything parts of a machine, doctor is a mechanic, vivisection and animals have no feelings.
Euclid's Geometry, Schooten, Oughtred, Wallis and Descartes.
Binomial Theorem and infinity
Fluxions
Calculus
Optics
White is a mixture of colors
Mirror telescope
Principia
Laws of Motion
1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
2. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.
3. III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Core pages of the discoveries and math is on p.122-129

User-Friendly Newton
This is one of the best of these illustrated "Introducing" books I've read so far.You won't learn that much practical knowledge of calculus or physics from this 170-page volume; however, you will get a lot of tasty info on Newton's life, his theories, his conflicts, and his eccentricities.

I found particularly interesting the fact that Newton wrote as many words about alchemy and other occult subjects as he did about mechanics and calculus.His notion of "action at a distance" (e.g., gravitational attraction), for example, was probably inspired by his alchemical research.

Also, it's a shame Newton decided to spend his later years running the British Mint, wanting do something more useful with himself than perform further research!

I also enjoyed the author's brief polemic against Galileo, apparently one of the most obnoxious takers of credit in the history of ideas.

It's a fun book, and informative.I may track down a few of the others mentioned in the bibliography.

Let Newton be!
This is a book from series of book including Einstein,Quantum theory,The Universe,Chaos,Stephen Hawking,etc.If you like this book,you might want to collect other books in series.The book presented Newton's life and works on science in illustrative,humurous way.It is also factual so for those who want detail descriptions and formal presentation probably dislike.For general reader it is an excellent book.Everyone know that Newton is the great man in science so this book tried to tell you in different way. Also recommended for secondary students.They will find about a giant in Physics in very interesting way. ... Read more

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This classic and comprehensive history of physics, written by the Hungarian scientist and engineer Karolyi Simonyi, has been translated and updated. The book combines a wide-ranging, in-depth account of the science of physics with an insightful interpretation of the cultural context in which these experimental discoveries and conceptual interpretations developed. A wealth of original sources and illustrations, both technical and historical, allow the reader to get involved in the intellectual dialogue with the great scientific minds that created our understanding of the physical world that the author reveals. ... Read more

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Market: Physicists, interested lay readers, and historians of science. This survey of the history of electrodynamics provides insight into the revolutionary advances made in physics during 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries. The first volume covers the theories of classical physics from the time of Plato to the end of the 19th century. The second volume examines the origins of the discoveries that paved the way for modern physics with the emphasis on special relativity, quantum theories, general relativity, matrix mechanics, and wave mechanics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fundamental to understand how scientific ideas evolved over time
This is a book by E.T. Whittaker, of"A Course of Modern Analysis"-fame (please check it out on Amazon if you have never heard of that classic).
For scientists and engineers, it is fundamental to have a minimum understanding of how scientific ideas evolved over time. Recall the debate over the particle versus wave nature of light, and how the two schools of thought took turns as the mainstream theory until they were reconciled in the beginning of the twentieth century (well, not really: there are some rough edges lingering still). The same happens with the currently out-of-favor theory of ether; after abandoning the idea of ether upon the establishment of the theory of Special Relativity, Einstein himself revisited the concept of ether in a different fashion when developing his broader-scoped General Relativity (he actually developed 3 diverse ether models then; check out "Einstein and the Ether" by Ludwik Kostro for an account of this episode). The history of the ether hypothesis is in fact the history of a number of competing theories, each of which entailing a different set of properties for this elusive would-be medium (substance?). Whether replacing one another or co-existing side by side, these theories were very important for the development of physics as we know it today. In this book Whittaker offers an account of that will prove enjoyable, possibly insightful, to physicists and other scientists in general.
... Read more