Book Description
Atom-Photon Interactions: Basic Processes and Applications allows the reader to master various aspects of the physics of the interaction between light and matter. It is devoted to the study of the interactions between photons and atoms in atomic and molecular physics, quantum optics, and laser physics. The elementary processes in which photons are emitted, absorbed, scattered, or exchanged between atoms are treated in detail and described using diagrammatic representation. The book presents different theoretical approaches, including:
* Perturbative methods
* The resolvent method
* Use of the master equation
* The Langevin equation
* The optical Bloch equations
* The dressed-atom approach
Each method is presented in a self-contained manner so that it may be studied independently. Many applications of these approaches to simple and important physical phenomena are given to illustrate the potential and limitations of each method.
Customer Reviews:
Very useful.......2000-06-26
Atom Photon Interactions is an excellent text for atomic and optical physics. I refer back to the review material---transition amplitudes, quantum electrodynamic fundamentals, etc--- over and over again. Naturally, these sections are very brief, and the book works best along side Cohen-Tannoudji's more elementary texts Quantum Mechanics and Photons and Atoms, or their equivalents.
The later chapters are rich in techniques and intuition applicable to atom-trapping, spectroscopy, laser theory, etc. Cohen-Tannoudji covers a lot of material, and manages to link it all to a few basic fundamental principles. The book is extremely well-organized, with bite-sized sections and appendices to each chapter. An excellent collection of exercises with solutions is included in the back. Unfortunately, the text does not prompt the reader to try working these problems at appropriate times (sadly, I didn't realize the exercises were there until I'd been using the book for some time). Like Photons and Atoms, this is primarily a book for theorists; its one weakness, I feel, is that the principles, however clear, never seem connected to the actual numbers that an experimentalist or system designer can relate to.
Book Description
This book emphasizes the role that electron interactions play in the properties of condensed matter. It teaches the use of the powerful nonperturbative techniques that have become available in the last decades to discuss such topics as mixed valence systems, Kondo systems, heavy electrons, high-temperature copper oxide superconductors, the quantum Hall effect, and low-dimensional isotropic magnets. Mathematical derivations are self contained. Appendices provide standard many-body tools including second quantization, Grassmann variables, generating functionals, linear response, correlation functions, Fermi and Bose coherent-states path integrals, Matsubara representation, and the method of steepest descents. There are guided bibliographies and exercises at the end of each chapter.
Customer Reviews:
good magnetism starting point.......2006-05-04
I have to be honest and say that I have to spend time with this book to understand everything, but I think this is one of those books that's worth the effort. AFTER a many body class this book is an appropriate way to foray into magnetism. The first thing i'd do is prove eq 2.9 and read chapters 1-3, just read (having some companion text for this 'easier' material is useful here). Once you are beyond chapter 3 you can start to calculate the results yourself. Auerbach talks about the ferro- and antiferro- magnets and different spin representations, RVBs, order and disoder, etc. There is a discussion of the NLsM and some large-N methods. I found it helpful to pull out original references at times. At the end i think you gain perspective on quantitative tools employed in magnetism, but realise also that this book is a text and therefore an introduction to the field. In that sense, i think the point here is to get some basic principle and learn various methods to go apply to new problems. I dont know any other book like it.
Book Description
Gauge Theory of Weak Interactions treats the unification of electromagnetic and weak interactions and considers related phenomena. First, the Fermi theory of beta decay is presented, followed by a discussion of parity violation, clarifying the importance of symmetries. Then the concept of a spontaneously broken gauge theory is introduced, and all necessary mathematical tools are carefully developed. The "standard model" of unified electroweak interactions is thoroughly discussed including current developments. The final chapter contains an introduction to unified theories of strong and electroweak interactions. Numerous solved examples and problems make this volume uniquely suited as a text for an advanced course. This third edition has been carefully revised.
Customer Reviews:
best choice - occasional errors - disconcerting jumps.......2006-05-18
As of early 2006, this is the best available choice for a text on the standard model of the weak force, and the possibilities for it's upgrade with the new neutrino discoveries.
The minimum requirements for a reader are an advanced knowledge of engineering-level calculus, basic quantum theory, and great familiarity of the sub-atomic zoo and quantum number bookkeeping.
The volume has occasional errors, like reversing the assignment of the Kayon |Ks> and |KL> mixed states to the symmetric (should be anti-) and antisymmetric (should be sym.) combination of K0 and anti-K0. The math is right, but the explication in the text is wrong. Similar small errors popped up throughout the text, which was annoying in a 3rd edition.
The authors do give a very good overview of (most) possible prior and new versions of the standard model, but for an edition published late in 2000 I expected a lot more about adaptions that accounted well for neutrino mass. There is some there, just not as much as I'd like. I'm hoping in the 4th edition that there will be more discussion on the connundrum of the weak force's preference for left-handed chirality (all the more bizzare now that neutrinos are now thought to have mass). It will be several years before anyone publishes a successor text, since theorizing is still underway, and most particle physicists will be inclined to save their ink until after they've seen results from CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to startup in 2007. I reckon that research and textbook writing delays will keep this book current until at least 2009.
The text occasionally has superb, succinct explanations of problems and motivation, but is given to long mathematical digressions into admittedly important crossection derivations. I wanted more chit-chat with my math. It also made disturbingly abrupt jumps in subject, however, the line of reasoning is very orderly, so it's possible to catch up with the authors. The technical English did bother me: being able to read mathematical German helped me a lot to recognize "what they really meant", since the English translation occasionally uses the wrong word, or a term depricated in physicist-English. It looks to me like it could benefit from some smoothing out (1) by a single physicist adding more bridge text between sections and (2) technical editing by a native English speaker, to tidy up awkward idiom. On the other hand, if you just want the straight scoop, and can pull it out of the math with a minimum of coddling and survive an occaional simple mistake, this book is for you.
It would be nice if there were more diagrams, but on the whole, the number of diagrams and pictures is adequate. A few more would make the math sing.
There are occasional biographical notes, which are nice, and the authors give sufficient historical background for the theory, which is good, but best of all is that they do not use "the historical approach" to particle physics. Thank you! The weak interaction is desribed in stages of increasing complexity from minimum adequate to possible next version(s). By coincidence, it's mostly in historical order, but they don't waste your time with no longer relevant background. That was excellent.
weak interaction and unified theory........2000-02-18
this volume is for advanced learner who has already has a background in quantum mechanics. this volume covers weak interaction. another volume quantum chromodynamics covers strong interaction. weak interaction is essential knowledge for starting research in elementary particle physics. it is also a necessary background for strings theory.
Book Description
The book is a self-contained introduction to perturbative and nonperturbative quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with worked-out exercises for students of theoretical physics. It will be useful as a reference for research scientists as well. Starting with the hadron spectrum, the reader becomes familiar with the representations of SU(N). Relativistic quantum field theory is recapitulated, and scattering theory is discussed in the framework of scalar quantum electrodynamics. Then the gauge theory of quarks and gluons is introduced. In the more advanced chapters, perturbative and nonperturbative techniques in state-of-the-art QCD are discussed in great detail.
This completely revised and enlarged second edition will fill the gap in the literature.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent reference work.......2007-01-17
This is a must have for any physics enthusiast, student and professional physicist alike! It's very complete on the topic.
Introduction to strong interaction........2000-04-08
This may be one of the best textbooks about the topic. However, the translation is not done properly. The new edition is supposed to be published three years ago with corrections to the major errors, but the publication date has been postponed several times and it is still not available today. Anybody capable of reading German is recommended to read its original edition in German.
Average customer rating:
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Interaction of Photons and Neutrons With Matter: An Introduction
Sow-Hsin Chen , and
Michael Kotlarchyk
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
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ASIN: 981022026X |
Book Description
This book is based on lecture notes developed for a one-semester graduate course entitled "The Interaction of Radiation with Matter", taught in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The main objective of the course is to teach enough quantum and classical radiation theory to allow students in engineering and the applied sciences to understand and have access to the vast literature on applications of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation in materials research. Besides presenting the fundamental physics of radiation interactions, the book devotes individual chapters to some of the important modern-day experimental tools, such as nuclear magnetic resonance, photon correlation spectroscopy, and the various types of neutron, x-ray and light-scattering techniques.
Book Description
This is the second volume of the third edition of a successful text, now substantially enlarged and updated to reflect developments over the last decade in the curricula of university courses and in particle physics research. Volume I covered relativistic quantum mechanics, electromagnetism as a gauge theory, and introductory quantum field theory, and ended with the formulation and application of quantum electrodynamics (QED), including renormalization. Building on these foundations, this second volume provides a complete, accessible, and self-contained introduction to the remaining two gauge theories of the standard model of particle physics: quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and the electroweak theory. The treatment significantly extends that of the second edition in several important respects. Simple ideas of group theory are now incorporated into the discussion of non-Abelian symmetries. Two new chapters have been added on QCD, one devoted to the renormalization group and scaling violations in deep inelastic scattering and the other to non-perturbative aspects of QCD using the lattice (path-integral) formulation of quantum field theory; the latter is also used to illuminate various aspects of renormalization theory, via analogies with condensed matter systems. Three chapters treat the fundamental topic of spontaneous symmetry breaking: the (Bogoliubov) superfluid and the (BCS) superconductor are studied in some detail; one chapter is devoted to the implications of global chiral symmetry breaking in QCD; and one to the breaking of local SU(2)xU(1) symmetry in the electroweak theory. Weak interaction phenomenology is extended to include discussion of discrete symmetries and of the possibility that neutrinosare Majorana (rather than Dirac) particles. Most of these topics are normally found only in more advanced texts, and this is the first book to treat them in a manner accessible to the wide readership that the previous editions have attracted.
Customer Reviews:
Very clear and readable.......2007-03-21
Like the 2nd edition this 2 volume set is very readable. I like it's informal style, and the wealth of background material presented, as well as the hints about when to expect further discussions of a subject in succeding chapters. By far the best Quantum Field Theory book I've come across.
more understandable QFT for beginners.......2005-09-17
The 3rd edition of that book clarified to a degree the fog left in my mind by a two-semester QFT course. The book is better suited for beginners than Peskin & Shroeder, Mandl & Show or Lahiri & Pal simply because it senses better the difficult points for beginners and tries to explain them at lower level. It focuses on the main concepts and doesn't try to `cover broad material in shortest time' or get into extreme computational technicalities totally irrelevant to beginners. The correct historical perspective of many ideas is given and the important historical papers are cited. The theory is frequently compared to the experimental results. Violin string is used as a prototype of a continuous system described by a classical field which is the first field quantized later. The book develops physical intuition showing how a scattering process can be analyzed in full QED (all fields are operators), in semiclassical approximation (all fields are operators except the EM field) or using the lowest level wavefunction approximation (all fields are treated like wave functions just like scattering in nonrelativistic QM) often getting the same result (see chapter 8). Important concepts like Feynman diagrams and Renormalization of a theory are first explored in a simple theoretical playground - a hypothetical `ABC theory' of three massive scalar fields with an interaction ABC term - and later discussed again in the case of QED with all the complications like fermions and Electromagnetic gauge field.
Topics discussed include gauge invariance principle; relativistic field equations describing free particles like Klein-Gordon and Dirac; Feynman interpretation of the negative energy solutions of Dirac eq. (no its not `antiparticle going back in time'); Dirac equation with EM field; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian densities for continuous systems; quantization of free fields like KG (real and complex scalar), Dirac and Electromagnetic field [the quantization is by postulating commutators/anticommutators, no path integrals]; Normal ordering of operators; Interaction picture for interacting fields, Time ordering of operators, Dyson expansion of the S matrix; Wick's theorem; scattering processes in QED at tree level; Ward identity; form factors for scattering from non point particle; parton model, Bjorken scaling; diagrams with loops, regularization and renormalization of ultraviolet divergences in QED.
It took me a month and a half to read the book and solve all problems (10 problems per chapter on average). The problems are exactly the ones every beginner should solve and usually revolve about filling in details from the text or proving statements in the text. Solving them is usually easy with a few exceptions and teaches you the typical computational tricks of the trade. You have to know quantum mechanics (at least have seen scattering theory) and special relativity. You have to at least have heard of Green function and contour integration in the complex plane. The book provides nice appendices about all these.
Not everything is crystal clear in that book, sometimes it took me a few days for an idea to sink in or I understood some paragraphs only after I read the whole book. Other ideas I did not understand at all. Sometimes it's hard to tell what they are trying to say although they say it several times from different angles ... The authors should work on expressing an idea in a direct succinct way once and for all instead of repeating several fuzzy versions of it. Overall that book made me understand MUCH more than a regular QFT course and I highly recommend it as a prep for such a course.
If you are having trouble with QFT - BUY THIS BOOK!.......2003-04-13
This book (2nd edition) has 15 chapters . I have just finished chapter 4 entitled QFT and I am compeled to write this review! After a year of studying of QFT informally I can report that this is the way to introduce yourself to the topic. I've been through Mandl & Shaw, Peskin & Schoeder, Ryder, Weinberg and a few others and this is heads and tails the BEST intro available. In 42 pages, Aitchison & Hey make the transistion from classical to QM and from QM to QFT as gracefully as I can conceive. For example, the transition from the discrete Lagrangian to the field Lagrangian is very explicit. One benfit of this is that the dependence of L on partial of phi wrt x is clearly motivated leading to the manifestly relativistically invariant form of L. They explicitly develop physical intuition at every step of the way - for example, this is the only book that I have found that explicitly asks the question where is QM's wavefunction in the QFT formalism? Answer - The vacuum to one-particle matrix elements of the field operators. The transistion from free fields to interacting fields is far clearer than any other treatment I've seen. I also appreciated that the problems were used to basically fill in details left out of the text. I was able to 'practice' the various kinds of manipulations that are required.
Amazingly clear introduction to the subject.......1998-08-03
This book is the best book I've seen on the subject. The qualitative description of qunatum field theory in particular are amazingly lucid for the subject. The only possible flaw in the book is that the problems at the end of each chapter are both few in number and for the most part do not challenge the student at all; for the most part they are just rote calculations.
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The Theory of Quark and Gluon Interactions (Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)
Francisco J. Ynduráin
Manufacturer: Springer
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String Theory in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell)
ASIN: 354033209X |
Book Description
F. J. Ynduráin's book on Quantum Chromodynamics has become a classic among advanced textbooks. First published in 1983, and translated into Russian in 1986, it now sees its fourth edition. It addresses readers with basic knowledge of field theory and particle phenomenology. The author presents the basic facts of quark and gluon physics in pedagogical form. Theory is always confronted with experimental findings. The reader will learn enough to be able to follow modern research articles. This fourth edition presents a new section on heavy quark effective theories, more material on lattice QCD and on chiral perturbation theory.
Amazon.com
"If there were something like a guidebook for living creatures, I think the first line would read like a biblical commandment: Make thy information larger. And next would come the guidelines for colonizing, in good imperialist fashion, the biggest chunk of negative entropy around."
Werner Loewenstein, a cell biologist at Woods Hole Biological Laboratories, has written a remarkably engaging book tying together information theory, thermodynamics, molecular biology, and the structure of cells. The subject is not one to which the human brain is well suited, but with Loewenstein's guidance you may get a better grasp on concepts like entropy than you've ever had before.
Loewenstein describes life as a circus: "Flowing in from the cosmos, information loops back onto itself to produce the circular information complex we call Life.... To those who are inside the Circus, it will always seem the greatest show on Earth, though I can't speak for the One who is outside it."
The Touchstone of Life covers some of the ground surveyed in Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach and Kauffman's At Home in the Universe, but with an even stronger sense of the physical realities constraining the "Circus." It should prove fascinating for anyone interested in biology, consciousness, physics, or the future of computing. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
No one can escape a sense of wonder when looking at an organism from within. From the humblest amoeba to man, from the smallest cell organelle to the amazing human brain, life presents us with example after example of highly ordered cellular matter, precisely organized and shaped to perform coordinated functions. But where does this order spring from? How does a living organism manage to do what nonliving things cannot do--bring forth and maintain all that order against the unrelenting, disordering pressures of the universe? In The Touchstone of Life, world-renowned biophysicist Werner Loewenstein seeks answers to these ancient riddles by applying information theory to recent discoveries in molecular biology. Taking us into a fascinating microscopic world, he lays bare an all-pervading communication network inside and between our cells--a web of extraordinary beauty, where molecular information flows in gracefully interlaced circles. Loewenstein then takes us on an exhilarating journey along that web and we meet its leading actors, the macromolecules, and see how they extract order out of the erratic quantum world; and through the powerful lens of information theory, we are let in on their trick, the most dazzling of magician's acts, whereby they steal form out of formlessness. The Touchstone of Life flashes with fresh insights into the mystery of life. Boldly straddling the line between biology and physics, the book offers a breathtaking view of that hidden world where molecular information turns the wheels of life. Loewenstein makes these complex scientific subjects lucid and fascinating, as he sheds light on the most fundamental aspects of our existence.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing portrayal of thermodynamics.......2007-09-12
Trying to find good books to review on cell biology just isn't easy, but I've been looking. Werner Loewenstein had an interestingly titled one published in 1999, that I thought sounded interesting: The Touchstone of Life: Molecular Information, Cell Communication, and the Foundations of Life. An intriguing combination of topics, I thought - especially the issues of cellular biochemistry and their origins.
Molecular "information" was dubious however. I gave Loewenstein the benefit of the doubt - maybe he could do better than the inept attempts to use concepts from information theory to explain biological phenomenon I had seen previously (e.g. Dembski's No Free Lunch). Could he explain how one could quantify the information content of an organic molecule better than the prevailing paradigm of organic chemistry, and in particular, the kinetics and thermodynamics of biochemical interactions and their effects?
Sadly, no.
Don't get me wrong, he portrays cell biology and evolutionary history accurately enough, but the concept of molecular information doesn't contribute anything. In fact, on page 9 and surrounding pages, he explicitly defines molecular information as a dimensionless inverse of entropy. And by taking away the scaling factor of entropy he sets the stage for a book-full of hand-waiving and sub-par qualitative explanations, when quantification would be much more precise.
For instance, on page 31, having gotten to the topic of "The Advantages of Molecular Complementarity," Loewenstein says:
"When we speak about the transmission of information from one molecule to another, we mean a transfer of information inherent in the molecular configuration - in the linear sequence of the unit structure or in the three-dimensional disposition of the atoms. Since molecules cannot talk or engage in other human forms of communication, their method of transmitting information is straightforward: the emitter molecule makes the atoms of the receiver deploy themselves in an analogue spatial pattern."
Anthropomorphize much? At best, this is an overuse of symbolism; at worst, it could fuel the naive interpretation that biomolecules possess some sort of intent or agency with which to decide to communicate (one step away from the invocation of deus ex machina or an intelligent capacity of molecules).
Loewenstein is also focused upon the thought experiment known as Maxwell's demon. While much has been said about that as a thought experiment, it has little grounding in the world of experimental biology. For instance, he compares Maxwell's demon to ion channels, cell surface receptors, and enzymes, yet has to resort to classical thermodynamics and kinetics in biochemistry to describe the functions of such proteins. There's no `choice' in such reactions, only chemical transition states and affinities, energy flow (often by ATP hydrolysis), and cascades of such reactions.
So yes, I'm rather disappointed with this book.
Flawed but interesting.......2007-01-09
I personally found this book very interesting because it was the first time I had seen the idea of information in biological systems discussed in a popular science book.
Usually when laymen think of information in biological systems, they are thinking of the way the brain processes information or the the way DNA stores it. But that is a different topic.
This book is about the rest of the information in any organism, which is stored in the arrangement of the complex molecules in the body which allows the organism to function. At some level, the body must "know" where all this stuff should be, and whether it is where it should be. Otherwise it couldn't repair itself or grow.
The amount of information involved is huge. This book is about where the information comes from and how it is collected. The information is gathered in tiny parcels in a massively parallel process consisting of chemical reactions.
One of the most interesting points of the book is that life is more interested in conserving information than anything else, including energy.
It's all very interesting, so why not five stars? Well, I am afraid the editors of this book really fell down on the job.
First, Loewenstein is a German, and it really shows. I am fluent in German, and I really wonder how people who aren't can even figure out what he is trying to say. A lot of the book reads like an amatuerish translation of German - which in fact it probably is.
Second, Loewenstein often loses track of the point he is trying to make, so that a sentence with an parenthetical remark is converted into a whole paragraph about something unimportant, with the original remark buried somewhere in it. What makes this worse is the fact that Loewenstein is often preoccupied with things that Germans talk about, but that English speakers need some backgraound information on to make sense of.
I sort of feel sorry for the author. With the right editor this could have been a pop sci blockbuster.
A popular myth.......2005-12-21
is perpetuated by this author that information is some sort of absolute as opposed to an effect measured by humans. This author, like many, starts with the wrong formula and this leads to the fundamental error in his theory that 'in the beginning there was information' (something like physicist John Wheeler's 'it from bit'). He writes "As for the origin of information, the fountainhead, this must lie somewhere in the territory close to the bang...Here things are still shrouded in the mist." Therefore the author explains the mystery of life by moving the mystery back to the 'Big Bang' and deeming everything to be consequential from there. By substituting one mystery for another however we are no further ahead. In addition he is wrong; he begins with the wrong (though popular) formula:
S = -(k.ln2).I
where S is the entropy [-kSum(p.lnp)], k is Boltzman's thermodynamic constant and I is supposedly the information which he has therefore defined as an absolute. However Shannon's syntatic information measure for communication theory is relative, it is a state function difference being the reduction of uncertainty to a receptor between a before and after measure of a change of system state. The word 'measure' means a human is involved somewhere along the steps. [e.g. if a computer is the measurer then guess who built it? This is not to deny that there is what we call information transfers at the molecular level which is better described as genetic instructions, a fact, whereas the mathematical measurer is human or human made. One must not confuse semantical information or meaning with syntatic probability measures, which the author notoriously does by describing information as a force.]
What the author refers to as information is actually the uncertainty and that Shannon designation is H, an entropy-like formula without the k (which is just a measure of units) and his (proper) information measure is R = Hbefore - Hafter (bits per operation). Many authors make this mistake (of using an absolute) and then argue that the most random state, such as an equilibrium state, has the most information. In fact it has the most uncertainty. This author makes the opposite argument and at least gets the potential comparison right when he writes that the equilibrium state has zero information whereas for instance particles crowded together out of equilibrium (such as gas first entering a container, or the Big Bang) have more information to an observer. However there is actually no information inherent in the 2 situations which is a state function difference as measured by an observer. This puts the mystery back with life itself, i.e. where did the observer come from? and not with information as being some mysterious force. So all such authors have it wrong which leads to hopeless philosophical debates. The proper state function difference equation is critical to the issue and not popularly known. However some authors who have it right have articles available on the web, such as the late 'father of communication theory', Claude Shannon and also biologist Richard Dawkins and molecular biologist Tom Schneider. One of the reviewers also critical of the book says there is no way to apply information theory to molecular biology as you would have to know all of the system's potential states. Dr Schneider explains in great depth at his website how by using the state difference formula, this is not true; you only need to know the system's changes with a logrithmatic measure.
A proper way to describe the author's comparative diagrams would be to say that if an observer measures the difference between the uncertainty to him/her at equilibrium vs the initial state then he will have a determined an amount of syntatic information because the equilibrium state has greater potential choices and hence uncertainty. If we move from the crowded particle initial state to an equilibrium state we do not lose information, the universe is not losing information since the Big Bang while overall entropy increases. Local observers of various phenomena are 'merrily' measuring positive information changes every day. There is no initial 'fountainhead of information' steadily dissipating, although there were instead unique conditions to the early universe and emergent properties to life. As author Irun Cohen writes in his book 'Tending Adam's Garden': "It is the spontaneous flow of energy that makes life (and our world) possible...Only a fraction of the energy is free energy that can be harnessed for work. Evolution is a contrivance for harnessing the energy of the dying sun..." Why does this happen? Author P.W. Atkins clarifies in his book 'The Second Law' that "the tendancy to fall to lower free energy must not be interpreted literally in terms of the falling down of energy. The Universe falls upward in entropy: that is the only law of spontaneous change. The free energy is, in fact, just a disguised form of the total entropy of the universe." But why is that? Author Roger Penrose has explained this a number of times including in his book 'The Road to Reality' that this is due to the unique initial gravitational conditions, perhaps an extremely unusual condition but not a 'fountainhead' of some 'all knowing' force. (This author borders on creationism with his faulty information measure; like some other authors such as W. Dembski.) Cohen continues: The clearest example of an emergent property is life itself. Life is not inherent in any single element constituing the living cell... What distinguishes the living from the dead? Nothing more than actions and interactions. Life emerges from inert matter as a consequence of metabolism, the continuous transfer of energy and information [instructions, we're not talking about the measure here] systematically packaged in cells in a way that leads to self-perpetuation...In a piece of amber there existed lifelessly for 35 million years, all of the components needed for life, but there was no life until the machinery actually began to interact...The process of evolution [on the other hand] is an emergent property of life." Obviously however we still do not have enough knowledge to understand how all of this works, maybe we never will.
The book about information economy of self-developing system.......2005-01-28
It has 16 pages of reference section, 7 pages of subject index.
Many figures, but almost all of them are from regular textbook (structure of DNA, protein etc). The book is about the information economy of self-developing system, and intercellular communication network.
Like many other authors in this field, Loewenstein is fascinated by the "information" in biological world. He says there is fundamentally deeper, connoting a cosmic principle of oraganization and order.
The book is way too long, but contains few novel idea. 333 pages with very small fonts. I didn't have time to finish it. Good editor could condense it to 1/10 of this volume.
A Snow Job.......2004-08-21
Full of prolix verbiage, intellectual snobbery, interesting similes and metaphors, and too many cliches, The Touchstone of Life is a "snow job". After struggling to read it even after the benefit of attending many seminars on molecular recognition which had the real biochemistry set out, I did not learn anything new.
Maxwell's Demon is presented (p4) as a contradiction of the second law of thermodydamics. A better description was easily found: http://www.auburn.edu/~smith01/notes/maxdem.htm
This also explains that the demon could not really succeed. Also, this website goves the better explanation of entropy as randomness, not disorder, which is the 19th century German explanation. I do not agree that Figure 1.4.4 contains less information than any of the others.
The author can certainly see the forest for the trees, in attempting a grand synthesis of string theory, quantum electrodynamics, thermodynamics, and molecular recognition. However, there was a serious set of failures to see the trees for the forest. For example, on p30, in the caption for Figure 3.1b, the carboxyl group is identified as COO-. Actually this is the carboxylate anion. A carboxyl group is COOH. An amino group is given as NH3+. In fact this is an ammonium group missing a bond. An amino group is -NH2. In Figure 4.1 on p59 the glutamine is shown with a C-NH3 group with the + charge missing. In this reaction there is ADP on the left with no ADP and Pi on the right. The plus signs are missing. In the caption the ammonium ion is given as NH3. This is quite wrong; it should have been NH4+.
On p60 in Figure 4.2 blue light is shown at 500 nm; in fact, 500 nm looks green. Ultraviolet light is shown as going from 0-290 nm; in fact, the usual definition is that it extends from 150-390 nm. The shorter wavelengths actually encompass Xrays, gamma rays and cosmic rays. The Figure 9.5 on p180 does a much better job with a logarithmic scale, but the ranges of UV and visible light are still odd.
The explanation for the DNA codes for amino acids, the 3-base groups, was very involved. The combinations of 4 DNA bases taken 3 at a time may be simply seen as the minimum information needed to distinguish between about 20 amino acids. Thus 4x3x2x1 = 24.
There must be a better source of understanding on molecular recognition than this.
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Advances in Quantum Chemistry, Volume 46: Theory of the Interaction of Swift Ions with Matter, Part 2 (Advances in Quantum Chemistry)
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Advances in Quantum Chemistry presents surveys of current developments in this rapidly developing field that falls between the historically established areas of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. With invited reviews written by leading international researchers, as well as regular thematic issues, each volume presents new results and provides a single vehicle for following progress in this interdisciplinary area.
The intention of this volume, as with the previous volume in this series is to present the latest developments in the field of energy deposition as it is actually viewed by many of the major researchers working in this area. It is not possible to incorporate all of the important players and all of the topics related to energy deposition in the limited space available; however the editors have tried to present the state of the art as it is now.
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Analytical Methods for Problems of Molecular Transport (Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications)
I.N. Ivchenko ,
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Jr., R.V. Tompson
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The Kinetic Theory of Gases has applications in many areas of science and technology as well as in our understandings of many natural processes and phenomena from the nano-scale up to the cosmic-scale. Some of the fields and topics affected include manufacturing, health care, weather, defence, pollution, aerospace science and engineering, and others. In particular, the interactions of rarefied gases with surfaces are of great interest because such interactions can have pronounced effects on the behaviour exhibited by those systems in all of the above fields. Such fundamental things as the transfer of mass, momentum, and energy between the components of a system can be significantly altered by such interactions. Collectively this transfer is typically described in terms of Rarefied Gas Dynamics and Transport Theory which generally go hand-in-hand with the Kinetic Theory of Gases. When this transport involves small particles suspended in a gas such as air, it is typically termed Aerosol Mechanics. Thus, this book should prove to be a very useful tool in virtually all application areas involving the Kinetic Theory of Gases, Rarefied Gas Dynamics, Transport Theory, and Aerosol Mechanics. This book is designed to serve a dual function. It is intended that it be capable of serving as a teaching instrument, either in a classroom environment or independently, for the study of basic analytical methods and mathematical techniques that may be used in the Kinetic Theory of Gases and is primarily suitable for use in graduate level physics and engineering courses on the subject. This book should also prove to be useful as a reference for scientists and engineers working in the fields of Rarefied Gas Dynamics and Aerosol Mechanics. In addition, the material in this book may prove to be of interest to individuals working in such areas as Physical Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or any other applied discipline in which gas-surface interactions can be expected to play a significant role.
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