The physics book : from the big bang to quantum resurrection, 250 milestones in the history of physics

Summary: Following the hugely successful The Science Book and The Math Book comes 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 Maxwell's demon, the book's timeline 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 helps readers gain an understanding of major concepts without getting bogged down in complex details. --- Book Description.

Record details

ISBN: 9781402778612 (alk. paper)
ISBN: 1402778619 (alk. paper)
ISBN: 9781402790997 (ebook)
Physical Description: print
527 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 23 cm
Publisher: New York : Sterling Pub., ©2011.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

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' principal 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 Snowflake" -- 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. Lischtenberg 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.