Steven Weinberg

A leading physicist delves into relativity and experimental applicationsGravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity offers a Nobel laureate's perspectives on the wealth of data technological developments have brought to expand upon Einstein's theory. Unique in basing relativity on the Principle of Equivalence of Gravitation and Inertia over Riemannian geometry, this book explores relativity experiments and observational cosmology to provide a sound foundation upon which analyses can be made. Covering special and general relativity, tensor analysis, gravitation, curvature, and more, this book provides an engaging, insightful introduction to the forces that shape the universe.

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains what happened at the very beginning of the universe, and how we know, in this popular science classic.Our universe has been growing for nearly 14 billion years. But almost everything about it, from the elements that forged stars, planets, and lifeforms, to the fundamental forces of physics, can be traced back to what happened in just the first three minutes of its life.In this book, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg describes in wonderful detail what happened in these first three minutes. It is an exhilarating journey that begins with the Planck Epoch - the earliest period of time in the history of the universe - and goes through Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the Hubble Red Shift, and the detection of the Cosmic Microwave Background. These incredible discoveries all form the foundation for what we now understand as the "standard model" of the origin of the universe. The First Three Minutes examines not only what this model looks like, but also tells the exciting story of the bold thinkers who put it together.Clearly and accessibly written, The First Three Minutes is a modern-day classic, an unsurpassed explanation of where it is we really come from.

“Unusually well written and informative…Weinberg is one of the world's most creative theoretical phsyicists.”—Martin Gardner, Washington Post Book WorldIn Dreams of a Final Theory, Stephen Weinberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and bestselling author of The First Three Minutes describes the grand quest for a unifying theory of nature—one that can explain forces as different as the cohesion inside the atom and the gravitational tug between the sun and the earth. Writing with dazzling elegance and clarity, he retraces the steps that have led modern scientists from relativity and quantum mechanics to the notion of superstrings and the idea that our universe may coexist with others.But Weinberg asks as many questions as he answers, among them: Why does each explanation of the way nature works point to the other, deeper explanations? Why are the best theories not only logical but beautiful? And what implications will a final theory have for our philosophy and religious faith?Intellectually daring, rich in anecdote and aphorism, Dreams of a Final Theory launches us into a new cosmos and helps us make sense of what we find there.“This splendid book is as good reading about physics and physicists as this reviewer can name…clear, honest, and brilliantly instructive.”—Philip Morrison, Scientific American

A masterful commentary on the history of science from the Greeks to modern times, by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg—a thought-provoking and important book by one of the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals of our time. In this rich, irreverent, and compelling history, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg takes us across centuries from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato’s Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world—they did not understand what there is to understand, or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the curious backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of the tides, the modern discipline of science eventually emerged. Along the way, Weinberg examines historic clashes and collaborations between science and the competing spheres of religion, technology, poetry, mathematics, and philosophy. An illuminating exploration of the way we consider and analyze the world around us, To Explain the World is a sweeping, ambitious account of how difficult it was to discover the goals and methods of modern science, and the impact of this discovery on human knowledge and development.

In The Quantum Theory of Fields, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory. This is a two-volume work. Volume I introduces the foundations of quantum field theory. The development is fresh and logical throughout, with each step carefully motivated by what has gone before, and emphasizing the reasons why such a theory should describe nature. After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are most certain, relativity and quantum mechanics, and the properties of particles that follow from these principles. Quantum field theory emerges from this as a natural consequence. The author presents the classic calculations of quantum electrodynamics in a thoroughly modern way, showing the use of path integrals and dimensional regularization. His account of renormalization theory reflects the changes in our view of quantum field theory since the advent of effective field theories. The book's scope extends beyond quantum electrodynamics to elementary particle physics, and nuclear physics. It contains much original material, and is peppered with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. This work will be an invaluable reference for all physicists and mathematicians who use quantum field theory, and it is also appropriate as a textbook for graduate students in this area.

A wise, personal, and wide-ranging meditation on science and society by the Nobel Prize–winning author of To Explain the World .For more than four decades, one of the most captivating and celebrated science communicators of our time has challenged the public to think carefully about the foundations of nature and the inseparable entanglement of science and society. In Third Thoughts Steven Weinberg casts a wide from the cosmological to the personal, from astronomy, quantum mechanics, and the history of science to the limitations of current knowledge, the art of discovery, and the rewards of getting things wrong.Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and author of the classic The First Three Minutes , Weinberg shares his views on some of the most fundamental and fascinating aspects of physics and the universe. But he does not seclude science behind disciplinary walls, or shy away from politics, taking on what he sees as the folly of manned spaceflight, the harms of inequality, and the importance of public goods. His point of view is rationalist, realist, reductionist, and devoutly secularist.Weinberg is that great rarity, a prize-winning physicist who is entertaining and accessible. The essays in Third Thoughts , some of which appear here for the first time, will engage, provoke, and inform―and never lose sight of the human dimension of scientific discovery and its consequences for our endless drive to probe the workings of the cosmos.

This commentary on the discovery of the atom's constituents provides an historical account of key events in the physics of the twentieth century that led to the discoveries of the electron, proton and neutron. Steven Weinberg introduces the fundamentals of classical physics that played crucial roles in these discoveries. Connections are shown throughout the book between the historic discoveries of subatomic particles and contemporary research at the frontiers of physics, including the most current discoveries of new elementary particles. Steven Weinberg was Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard before moving to The University of Texas at Austin, where he founded its Theory Group. At Texas he holds the Josey Regental Chair of Science and is a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research has spanned a broad range of topics in quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology, and has been honored with numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, the Heinemann Prize in Mathematical Physics, the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Madison Medal of Princeton University, and the Oppenheimer Prize. In addition to the well-known treatise, Gravitation and Cosmololgy, he has written several books for general readers, including the prize-winning The First Three Minutes (now translated into 22 foreign languages), and most recently Dreams of a Final Theory (Pantheon Books, 1993). He has also written a textbook The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol.I, Vol. II, and Vol. III (Cambridge).

This book is unique in the detailed, self-contained, and comprehensive treatment that it gives to the ideas and formulas that are used and tested in modern cosmological research. It divides into two parts, each of which provides enough material for a one-semester graduate course. The first part deals chiefly with the isotropic and homogeneous average universe; the second part concentrates on the departures from the average universe. Throughout the book the author presents detailed analytic calculations of cosmological phenomena, rather than just report results obtained elsewhere by numerical computation. The book is up to date, and gives detailed accounts of topics such as recombination, microwave background polarization, leptogenesis, gravitational lensing, structure formation, and multifield inflation, that are usually treated superficially if at all in treatises on cosmology. Copious references to current research literature are supplied. Appendices include a briefintroduction to general relativity, and a detailed derivation of the Boltzmann equation for photons and neutrinos used in calculations of cosmological evolution. Also provided is an assortment of problems.

In this second volume of The Quantum Theory of Fields, available for the first time in paperback, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg continues his masterly expoistion of quantum theory. Volume 2 provides an up-to-date and self-contained account of the methods of quantum field theory, and how they have led to an understanding of the weak, strong, and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is throughout interwoven with accounts of the problems of elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics to which they have been applied. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter.

Just as Henry David Thoreau “traveled a great deal in Concord,” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg sees much of the world from the window of his study overlooking Lake Austin. In Lake Views Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive today, continues the wide-ranging reflections that have also earned him a reputation as, in the words of New York Times reporter James Glanz, “a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate—and sting.” This collection presents Weinberg’s views on topics ranging from problems of cosmology to assorted world issues—military, political, and religious. Even as he moves beyond the bounds of science, each essay reflects his experience as a theoretical physicist. And as in the celebrated Facing Up , the essays express a viewpoint that is rationalist, reductionist, realist, and secular. A new introduction precedes each essay, explaining how it came to be written and bringing it up to date where necessary. As an essayist, Weinberg insists on seeing things as they are, without despair and with good humor. Sure to provoke his readers—postmodern cultural critics, enthusiasts for manned space flight or missile defense, economic conservatives, sociologists of science, anti-Zionists, and religious zealots—this book nonetheless offers the pleasure of a sustained encounter with one of the most interesting scientific minds of our time.

In a recent New York Times profile, James Glanz remarked, "Steven Weinberg is perhaps the world's most authoritative proponent of the idea that physics is hurtling toward a 'final theory,' a complete explanation of nature's particles and forces that will endure as the bedrock of all science forevermore. He is also a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate--and sting...He recently received the Lewis Thomas Prize, awarded to the researcher who best embodies 'the scientist as poet.'" Both the brilliant scientist and the provocative writer are fully present in this book as Weinberg pursues his principal passions, theoretical physics and a deeper understanding of the culture, philosophy, history, and politics of science. Each of these essays, which span fifteen years, struggles in one way or another with the necessity of facing up to the discovery that the laws of nature are impersonal, with no hint of a special status for human beings. Defending the spirit of science against its cultural adversaries, these essays express a viewpoint that is reductionist, realist, and devoutly secular. Each is preceded by a new introduction that explains its provenance and, if necessary, brings it up to date. Together, they afford the general reader the unique pleasure of experiencing the superb sense, understanding, and knowledge of one of the most interesting and forceful scientific minds of our era.

Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg continues his masterly exposition of quantum field theory. This third volume of The Quantum Theory of Fields presents a self-contained, up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to supersymmetry, a highly active area of theoretical physics that is likely to be at the center of future progress in the physics of elementary particles and gravitation. The text introduces and explains a broad range of topics, including supersymmetric algebras, supersymmetric field theories, extended supersymmetry, supergraphs, nonperturbative results, theories of supersymmetry in higher dimensions, and supergravity. A thorough review is given of the phenomenological implications of supersymmetry, including theories of both gauge and gravitationally-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Also provided is an introduction to mathematical techniques, based on holomorphy and duality, that have proved so fruitful in recent developments. This book contains much material not found in other books on supersymmetry, some of it published here for the first time. Problems are included.

Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a concise introduction to modern quantum mechanics. Ideally suited to a one-year graduate course, this textbook is also a useful reference for researchers. Readers are introduced to the subject through a review of the history of quantum mechanics and an account of classic solutions of the Schrödinger equation, before quantum mechanics is developed in a modern Hilbert space approach. The textbook covers many topics not often found in other books on the subject, including alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation, Bloch waves and band structure, the Wigner–Eckart theorem, magic numbers, isospin symmetry, the Dirac theory of constrained canonical systems, general scattering theory, the optical theorem, the 'in-in' formalism, the Berry phase, Landau levels, entanglement and quantum computing. Problems are included at the ends of chapters, with solutions available for instructors at www.cambridge.org/9781107028722.

Available for the first time in paperback, The Quantum Theory of Fields is a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory from Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. The first volume introduces the foundations of quantum field theory, the second volume examines modern applications, and finally, the third volume presents supersymmetry, an area of theoretical physics likely to be at the center of progress in the physics of elementary particles and gravitation. The development is fresh and logical throughout, with each step carefully motivated by what has preceded. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is interwoven with accounts of applications in both elementary particle and condensed matter physics. The three volumes contain much original material, and are enhanced with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Hb ISBN (1995) Vol.1 0-521-55001-7 Hb ISBN (1996) Vol.2 0-521-55002-5 Hb ISBN (1996) Vols. 1 & 2 Set 0-521-58555-4 Hb ISBN (2000) Vol.3 0-521-66000-9 HB ISBN (2000) Vols. l-3 Set 0-521-78082-9

Steven Weinberg shares his candid thoughts, in his own words, on theoretical physics and cosmology, along with personal anecdotes and recollections of the people who helped shape his career. These memoirs of his life as a scientist and public figure cover his student days and early career, through the golden age of particle physics in the 1970s, his being awarded the Nobel prize, through to the end of the twentieth century. In addition to his research insights, Weinberg provides glimpses into his life in academia more dealing with the 'two-body problem', tenure, international conference travel, his book-writing, advisory work with JASON, and his advocacy for the Superconducting Super Collider. Physicists, historians of science and interested readers will find the presentation engaging and often witty, as Weinberg reflects on his life in physics.

In addition to his ground-breaking research, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is known for a series of highly praised texts on various aspects of physics, combining exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition. Describing the foundations of modern physics in their historical context and with some new derivations, Weinberg introduces topics ranging from early applications of atomic theory through thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, transport theory, special relativity, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and quantum field theory. This volume provides the basis for advanced undergraduate and graduate physics courses as well as being a handy introduction to aspects of modern physics for working scientists.

Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, writes that America today "has an unprecedented opportunity to begin to escape from the risk of nuclear annihilation." But, he warns, President Bush is not only letting this opportunity slip away, he is, in some respects, moving in the wrong direction.Bush's abrogation of the 1972 treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile systems is one example. Another, equally worrying, is the "revival of the idea of developing nuclear weapons for use, rather than solely for deterrence." The development of low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons for use in attacking underground bunkers "would be foolishness on a scale that even medieval knights might find implausible," Weinberg argues.Such weapons would be "one sort of folly to which war is especially well the lust for glory." The temptation to prize military glamour over sensible strategy has always been with us, as Weinberg shows in examples from the Middle Ages onward, but may have a particularly dangerous effect on defense policies in our age of high-tech armaments.Anthony Lewis writes in his preface concerning these proposed "In the face of official folly so great, most of us tend to turn off. The subject is too difficult, and too frightening. But Steven Weinberg does not turn off. He grapples with the danger and the folly in understandable and elegant prose."

Lectures on Astrophysics provides an account of classic and contemporary aspects of astrophysics, with an emphasis on analytic calculations and physical understanding. It introduces fundamental topics in astrophysics, including the properties of single and binary stars, the phenomena associated with interstellar matter, and the structure of galaxies. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to cover exciting recent developments and new results. Emphasizing theoretical results, and explaining their derivation and application, this book provides an invaluable resource for physics and astronomy students and researchers.

In The Quantum Theory of Fields Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory. Volume II gives an up-to-date and self-contained account of the methods of quantum field theory, and how they have led to an understanding of the weak, strong, and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is throughout interwoven with accounts of the problems of elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics to which they have been applied. Problems are included at the end of each chapter.

In this zany and vibrantly illustrated nonfiction guide to all things color, the origins of today's pigments come alive across continents and history, with oodles of art, tons of science--and extensive interactive backmatter!So what is color? A red apple? A yellow banana? The purple goo from a squished sea snail?Once you start digging, color turns out to be a lot of things--it’s messy, stinky, and even a little bit dangerous. You may already know that it’s art, but it’s science, too! What Is Color? will take readers all over the world, introducing them to talented, brilliant, creative people from scientists to famous artists and everyone in between as we take the color wheel for a spin.Perfect for curious and creative minds who love paintbrushes as much as microscopes, this clever and eye-catching full-color nonfiction book dives deep into the strange, wacky, silly, and occasionally perilous history behind the colors that paint our everyday lives.Readers will • A laugh-out-loud funny adventure full of gross-out facts (like how cow pee can be used to make the color yellow!).• Hilarious illustrations that encourage creativity and fun while learning!• A kid-friendly primer on global art history, from Yayoi Kusama to Van Gogh, Basquiat, and many more.• A dazzling full-color book, with rainbow edges and vibrant info-filled endpapers.• Extensive backmatter with a glossary plus art and science activities perfect for the classroom and home!

Kniha je jedenáctou kapitolou díla Snění o finální teorii S. Weinberga.(The book is the eleventh chapter of S. Weinberg's Dream of a Final Theory.)

Teoria pol kwantowych Tom 2

Science explaining the world of Steven Weinbergb The provocative and daring history of science, nowhere else! The myriad moments of science are recreated in the hands of scientists. b It has a modern form and closely traces it before it is called a science that symbolizes rational intelligence. However, the author does not merely list historically significant theories and achievements, but attempts to communicate with past scholars by making full use of modern theories and knowledge. It shows another dimension of science history. In the hands of the author, the history of science is reborn not as a mere record of the past, but as a grand story that stretches out to the present. And this effort has made modern science plausible to explain the world, but it is not yet perfect. It means that the questions of those who wanted to explain the world thousands of years ago are valid today. The belief that all phenomena have a set of laws, and efforts to find them continue to this day. We are still looking for a "final theory" that explains all the phenomena in the world.

A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE, written by the eminent and ground-breaking physicist Steven Weinberg, provides a succinct yet illuminating guide to the ideas and events shaping twentieth-century physics. Weinberg succeeds brilliantly in unifying the fundamental forces of human nature in an accessible and compelling way.

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