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.
Average customer rating:
- Healing Photons: The Science & Art of Blood Irradiation Therapy
- Review of Healing Photons
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Healing Photons: The Science & Art of Blood Irradiation Therapy
Kenneth J. Dillon
Manufacturer: Scientia Press
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ASIN: 0964297655 |
Customer Reviews:
Healing Photons: The Science & Art of Blood Irradiation Therapy.......2007-07-19
A growing number of people are becoming disenchanted by the modern medical system. Medical procedures and drug prices are high. Technology and research often lags behind the need to treat growing levels of illness. Drug resistant strains of infection, bacteria, and virus retard the process that much more.
Some scientists and interested individuals are looking to alternative therapies. One such potential is Blood Irradiation (BI) Therapy. At the simplest level of explanation, this treatment makes use of specific wave lengths of light to kill infection, bacteria, and viruses. Pioneered in the USA in the 1920's, BI has been integrated into contemporary medicine in Russia and in East Germany. The costs are minimal, the process fairly simple to use, and studies of the wide ranging potential of BI (including but not limited to AIDS/HIV, liver disease, bronchial asthma, and hypertension).
Healing Photons explores Blood Irradiation Therapy in some depth discussing the history, the way BI works, the various ways that the therapy has been used, the effectiveness of these treatments, and ideas about the further potential uses. I completely agree with the author, these techniques need to be studied and thoroughly tested (including long range trials) to see what potential they hold in the fight against infection and disease.
Review of Healing Photons.......2006-02-17
This text is BRILLIANT! Ken Dillon, PhD is the author of the definitive book about Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation therapy. I have read other texts on this subject over the years and am happy to say that Dr. Dillon's book is rated #1 in my opinion. I have used this therapy on thousands of clients and have witnessed incredible results in respect to their healing. One does not need medications, surgery, or chemotherapy. This book explains the biophysics behind how to stimulate the body's own healing power by using UBI! This book is a quick read for both layperson and clinician. There is no fluff, no hype, just facts and the medical study references from the past to back the text up. Anyone in alternative medicine MUST read this book and have it in their personal or office medical library. This text, provided the service is offered will revolutionize alternative medicine. This book, for practitioners who use IV therapies is a must own.
Brian E.P.B. O'Connell, N.M.D.
"The Gen. George Patton of Naturopathic Medicine"
Book Description
Photonic Crystals: The Road from Theory to Practice explores the theoretical road leading to the practical application of photonic band gaps. These new optimal devices are based on symmetry and resonance and the benefits and limitations of hybrid "two dimensional" slab systems in three dimensions. The book also explains that they also signify a return to the ideal of an omnidirectional band gap in a structure inspired by and emulating the simplicity of two dimensions. Finally, the book takes a look at computational methods to solve the mathematical problems that underlie all undertakings in this field. Photonic Crystals: The Road from Theory to Practice should rapidly bring the optical professional and engineer up to speed on this intersection of electromagnetism and solid-state physics. It will also provide an excellent addition to any graduate course in optics.
Customer Reviews:
useless, buy Joannopoulos' other book.......2005-11-05
This book is very costly and not worth either the money or the time you spend reading it. It's a collection of journal articles that you can get free if your institution subscribes to common physics and optics journals. They have added a badly written introduction and conclusion, and there is absolutely no coherent presentation as it jumps from topic to topic in different papers.
(Note: I have used the Kids review option because I didnt want to take the trouble of finding my password, signing in ... I am a researcher in the area of nonlinear photonics.)
Extremely Poor Value.......2003-10-22
Taken by itself, it isn't a bad book BUT most (80%) of the content is just *reprinted journal articles* which, if you work/study anywhere with decent journal access, you can get for FREE. Just look up Joannopoulos' major papers. The other 20% of the book is covered in more detail in his other book, Photonic Crystals:Molding the Flow of Light.
And this is not even mentioning the absolutely outrageous price that the publisher wants for this miniscule tract. It looks like it was just photocopied (poorly - you can even see where the toner didn't distribute properly) and bound. Some of the graphs and illustrations were meant to be shown in color in the journals and are, of course, illegible in black and white.
I recommend buying the other book.
Excellent.......2003-07-05
This book will be very useful for future researcher in the emerging field oh photonic crystal.
At last, Photonic Crystals book for beginner in the field........2003-02-05
Recently I had been working on simulation of light propagation in photonic crystals, and found that many materials (text, papers, etc) are difficult for beginners, especially non-physics majors like myself (I'm a computer science people).
[Note that this book itself does not state that it is for beginners, but the tone of the text itself said it all.]
This book fills in the gap nicely. It has a good introduction topics and good explanation, i.e., english rather than mathematical formula, for otherwise rather difficult things. A lot of things, including computational model, are introduced in the text (even I think the computational model section is a little bit shallow). Note that this book might missed out some recent advancement like nonlinear waveguide. However, taking into account that this book is rather for beginners of this rapidly-changing field, it is fine with me.
Cons::
This book has some cons, however. First, it is a little bit pricy. Considering that it is only 154 pages long and pricing at 125$, it is almost $1/page. And at this price, you would expect it to be in full colors with good quality paper (like Joannopoulos' previous "Photonic Crystals: Molding the Flow of Light" book). However, a copy I recieved has rather bad quality paper and only in monochrome. And for this reason, I had lowered the rate of this otherwise a 5-stars book.
Book Description
This fully updated and dramatically expanded edition will allow family physicians and specialists to fully understand not only what they need to do, but also why. New to this edition-over half the book-are discussions of the clinical guidelines for selecting patients for densitometry measurements, various questionnaires and indices that have been developed to help patients identify themselves as candidates for bone mass measurements, and specific densitometry applications of diagnosis, fracture risk prediction, and monitoring changes in bone density. Updated material includes an expanded review of the effects of diseases and drugs on bone density, new standardization formulas for the hip subregions and forearm, statistical devices necessary to "test the test," and guidance on how to do a short-term precision study and apply the result to clinical practice. An accompanying CD-ROM contains a Precision Calculator, a Statistical Confidence Calculator for Measured Change in BMD, OST Nomograms, a Patient Risk Factor Questionnaire, and a CME review, which, if successfully completed, can lead to 30 hours of AMA Category I continuing education credit.
Customer Reviews:
Good overview with details and case descriptions.......2003-05-07
This book is a good reference as well as learning tool. It includes many glossy prints of actual bone density scans with descriptions and instructions for interpretation. It has a good section on identifying artifacts and evaluating the adequacy of the scans. There's not much description of secondary causes of osteoporosis but that information can be obtained elsewhere. In all, a good learning and reference book, esp. for physicians.
The Clinical Bible for Osteoporosis.......2000-09-10
This is the single most important resourse that any physician performing DEXA scans should have in his or her library. It is a reference used frequently and is a great review of the state of the art of bone density. Two copies are useful, if the first is misplaced. A must read for physicians starting the bone densitometry business.
Average customer rating:
- Physics to Phenomenology
- Psychology & Neurophysiology of Vision Science
- I can't believe it's an one-author book
- A book that's as good as its cover
- A unique text for students and researchers alike.
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Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology
Stephen E. Palmer
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Foundations of Vision
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Visual Perception: Key Readings (Key Readings in Cognition)
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Eye and Brain
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Computational Neuroscience of Vision
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Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems
ASIN: 0262161834 |
Book Description
This book revolutionizes how vision can be taught to undergraduate and graduate students in cognitive science, psychology, and optometry. It is the first comprehensive textbook on vision to reflect the integrated computational approach of modern research scientists. This new interdisciplinary approach, called "vision science," integrates psychological, computational, and neuroscientific perspectives.
The book covers all major topics related to vision, from early neural processing of image structure in the retina to high-level visual attention, memory, imagery, and awareness. The presentation throughout is theoretically sophisticated yet requires minimal knowledge of mathematics. There is also an extensive glossary, as well as appendices on psychophysical methods, connectionist modeling, and color technology. The book will serve not only as a comprehensive textbook on vision, but also as a valuable reference for researchers in cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, optometry, and philosophy.
Customer Reviews:
Physics to Phenomenology.......2006-07-05
Palmer has written an outstanding book for the technically trained reader, even if that reader has a casual interest in understanding the emergence of of human cognition from the physics of vision, to the function of sight.
Absent from the book is a cogent presentation of aesthetics of seeing. For that the interested reader should see John Gage's Color and Meaning.
Psychology & Neurophysiology of Vision Science.......2004-06-11
Stephen Palmer has written a marvelous book. Its well organized and written. It is suitable as a reference & text for those beginning and advancing to higher levels in Vision Science. The pictures, diagrams, graphs, charts, photos, and outlines are well placed and explained in the body of the text. Because Dr. Palmer is first a Neuropsychologist, the approach is more geared toward psychological mechanisms & psychophysics. The emphasis is less on Biological Approaches to Visual Function. This & Chalupa's 2 Volume Set should get novice to intermediate scientists going further in Vision Science!
I can't believe it's an one-author book.......2003-01-04
This book covers neuro, behavioral, computer science, almost everything about vision science, and very organized. at the bottom line, this book can be a good reference for vision science.
A book that's as good as its cover.......2002-07-27
As an interested academic in a completely unrelated field (chemistry) Palmer's book was only the second cognitive psychology text that I had ever read. It was an "eye opener." There should be awards given to authors who commit themselves and succeed at the task of what Palmer has done here. The book was comprehensive and didn't pull any punches, but was still very readable. The quality of the writing and organization leads me to assume that the man is a gifted teacher as well. The layout, glossary, index, and organization of the text were clearly constructed with the reader in mind. Five star reviews at Amazon.com should be reserved for books of this quality.
A unique text for students and researchers alike........1999-05-14
This is an excellent book! Steve Palmer is perhaps best known for his work on perceptual grouping and perceptual organization. With this text, however, Palmer proves that his interests extend beyond these boundaries into the domain of perception as a whole. Palmer also demonstrates that his interests are not confined by one methodology either. Presenting findings from a number of perspectives is one of the things that excites Palmer the most, and he does it like no other. By making use of relevant research in neuroscience, psychology, computer vision and linguistics, to name a few, Palmer develops a unified text for the emerging domain of "Vision Science", a subfield of the larger interdisciplinary enterprise of Cognitive Science.
Palmer's book differs from other books on visual perception in three major ways. First, Palmer introduces the major theoretical perspectives to visual perception--inferential, ecological and computational-- early in the text and then places empirical findings throughout the text in the context of these perspectives. Second, Palmer presents findings from a number of disciplines in an integrated fashion. As opposed to having separate sections for neuroscience, computer vision and perceptual development, for example, Palmer presents research from multiple disciplines as it relates to relevant areas of visual perception, such as perceptual organization or object recognition. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Palmer resists the temptation to dichotomize. The discussions of the literature are sophisticated, presenting both the pros and the cons of different approaches to phenomena in perception, even venturing to propose novel theoretical syntheses at various points in the book.
For anyone who is interested in visual perception, neuroscience, computer vision, or just Cognitive Science in general, this is a book that you must have on your book shelf.
Book Description
Celebrated for his brilliantly quirky insights into the physical world, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman also possessed an extraordinary talent for explaining difficult concepts to the general public. Here Feynman provides a classic and definitive introduction to QED (namely quantum electrodynamics), that part of quantum field theory describing the interactions of light with charged particles. Using everyday language, spatial concepts, visualizations, and his renowned "Feynman diagrams" instead of advanced mathematics, Feynman clearly and humorously communicates both the substance and spirit of QED to the layperson. A. Zee's new introduction places both Feynman's book and his seminal contribution to QED in historical context and further highlights Feynman's uniquely appealing and illuminating style.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful little book!.......2007-07-15
In his Introduction to this wonderful "extra-difficult popular book ", A.Zee divides its prospective readers in three groups:1)-students who might be inspired by this book to go on and master QED.2)- intelligent laypersons curious about QED and 3)-professional physicists. Personally, I fall between groups 1 and 2: I have been a "student" of physics all my life, but at the same time I'm just a "layperson", since physics is not my specialty.
Having said that, I consider that Feynman has succeeded in conveying the basic ideas of QED to the "intelligent layperson", but I also believe that very few laypersons will finish reading this book. On the other hand, whoever finishes reading it properly, "mulling over each sentence carefully", would end up having a correct understanding of QED. And Feynman accomplishes this feat without once mentioning fermions, bosons or leptons! He makes an exception for baryons, though!
Of course, things would become much easier when the reader has some mathematical background, like knowing what vectors and complex numbers are. Then he or she will know how to add two "Feynman arrows" without there being any need to tell him or her to "attach the head of one arrow to the tail of another". The reader would also know that "shrinking and turning" is nothing but the multiplication of two complex numbers!
There is also one thing I would like to point out about Feynman's remark at page 15 regarding the behavior of light as particles("I'm telling you the way it does behave-like particles.")Those little Feynman arrows, turning and stopping between two points of a path, why do they turn at different speeds for different colors? Neither Feynman nor QED tells us anything about it, and it remains a mystery. For me, those arrows are nothing but the old "Fresnel vectors", that are used to represent a sinusoidal function of time in old classical physics. The length of the vector is the amplitude of the sinewave, and its projection on the reference axis gives the value of that function at any given time. As for the angular speed of rotation, it is the frequency of that sinewave times 2 pi. I cannot understand light or electromagnetic fields without this concept of frequency, and consequently of wavelength: this is why the stopwatch turns faster for blue than for red light. Besides, waves are used in Quantum Field Theories to represent all elementary particles, so why not photons as well? And what happened to the old W=h.c/lambda, if there be no more lambda?And how does one explain the Doppler effect and the cosmological redshift without a wave? Feynman probably would have been able to find an explanation of these effects without resorting to the wave concept, but there are very few Feynmans around...So dear reader, if you know how to explain the Doppler shift without using waves, please let me know!
All in all, this book is a must read for all those who are curious about modern physics, but who cannot understand the "real thing", with all its details and equations. This is why I strongly recommend it.
Finally understood refraction.......2007-04-17
When I was a senior in high school, I asked my physics teacher why light bent when it entered a lens. He responded with an analogy about soldiers marching on a field and entering a marsh. The first soldiers entering the marsh would slow down and "bend" the column until all the soldiers were in the marsh.
The analogy made no sense to me because we were talking about light, not soldiers. He responded that light travels in waves and if I viewed the soldiers as a wave front, I could understand his analogy. I left the conversation feeling very stupid for not "getting it." and thinking the analogy had so many holes in it. For example, it didn't explain why the lens was a marsh as far as light goes.
It wasn't until I read QED that I realized I didn't get the soldier analogy because my teacher was wrong - light doesn't travel in waves, it travels in discrete little packets called photons.
In QED, Feynman opens his first chapter by saying a couple of things. First he tells you that the theory he's going to describe to you has been experimentally verified out to 10 decimal places so it's probably right. He then gives you a quick review of what matter is and then tells you "light comes in particles. Not waves, particles." No wavicles, just little bits of light. He tells you that photons go from place to place, an electron goes from place to place and the electron will sometimes either absorb or emit a photon. From that basis, the rest of the book shows how that model explains why light bends when it enters a lens, why mirrors reflect, why oil slicks show different colors, why peacock feathers iridesce along a with host of other phenomena. He also explains why light has wave-like properties despite the fact that light comes in packets.
The first reviewer is right - there are questions left unanswered but that doesn't diminish the book. The framework Feynman develops in four chapters gives you a clear mental image of what's going on. Bohr and Pauli disliked Feynman's approach because it violated the Copenhagen approach of eschewing all models. In their view, only mathematics would suffice to understand quantum mechanics. I for one, am very glad Feynman ignored them, developed his approach and eventually gave the 4 lectures that are the basis of the book.
If you think light travels in waves, read this book. It's truly wonderful. If you're as dumb as I am, you'll have to read it multiple times but it's definitely worth it.
I want to love this book but can't.......2007-04-11
Yes the book explains QED without any math, but it doesn't really explain it very well. I admire what Feynman is trying to do, but I don't believe he succeeds. I'll give one example. The book is built around using vector addition and multiplication to show how to come up with probability sums and products. So far so good. The problem is that we never get an explanation for why the vectors point the way the do, are rotated just so, etc. Without that it's simply voodoo, and nothing has been explained.
It's not that you'd need math for any of that. You wouldn't. It's not the lack of math that leaves the reader in the dark, it's simply Feynman's not having the time to elaborate given the lecture format. Twenty pages on how waves work and reinforce and cancel etc. would at least provide the frame work for understanding more or less what is going on in the vector spinning.
Feynman certainly made an amazing use of the time he had in the brief lecture series the book is drawn from, but unfortuantely a brief lecture series aimed at the scientifically illiterate is just not a reasonable forum for presenting even a very basic understanding of QED.
Very readable........2007-03-19
Unlike Feynman's lecture series, you'll be able understand every word of the first two of the books three sections. Is a great feeling to understand Feynman.
Quantum mechanics for the intelligent layman.......2007-02-17
This book has to be the ultimate proof that if you really understand something, you can explain it to anyone willing to listen carefully.
Most people would agree that Quantum Mechanics is the most complex idea ever. Here, the idea is presented accurately, but without any scientific or mathematical jargon. It's just amazing that this is possible.
Average customer rating:
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Hybrid SPECT/CT Imaging in Clinical Practice
Manufacturer: Informa Healthcare
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0824728548 |
Book Description
Exploring a technology that is significantly impacting the noninvasive evaluation of the physiology and anatomy of tumors, as well as the diagnosis of infectious disease, this source presents recent advances and clinical applications of single-photon emission computed tomography and computed tomography imaging. With color images throughout, this source is written by pioneers in hybrid imaging and offers authoritative sections on state-of-the-art breakthroughs in sentinel lymph node identification, cardiac imaging, and the study and treatment of a variety of disorders including lymphoma, thyroid and parathyroid tumors, neuroendocrine tumors, prostatic cancer, and bone metastases.
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Coherence and Statistics of Photons and Atoms
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
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ASIN: 0471388610 |
Book Description
Up-to-date, expert new research in quantum optics and its applications
Coherence and Statistics of Photons and Atoms provides cutting-edge research in modern quantum optics and complete information about systems of interacting photons and atoms based on the quantum statistical properties of such systems. Editor Jan Perina has collected eleven articles from experts around the world to illuminate the changing science of quantum optics and push the development of new, more powerful, applications such as quantum cryptography, quantum computation, and quantum teleportation.
Recent articles highlight the most interesting directions in the development of contemporary quantum optics with important consequences for other physical sciences and their applications. The first chapter presents a basic analysis of quantum electrodynamics, including cavities, followed by chapters devoted to properties of photons and atoms and their interactions in quantum computers. Other articles cover these vital subjects:
* Nonlinear quantum couplers
* Internal correlations in optical pulses
* Detection and reconstruction of quantum states from the point of view of quantum information
* Quantum interference, coherence, and correlation
* Quantum information and teleportation
* Interaction of atoms with squeezed reservoirs
* Quantum statistics and coherence of trapped atoms
* Dynamics of systems of atoms
Coherence and Statistics of Photons and Atoms extends earlier treatments to include up-to-date results and organizes them into a form suitable for further research in the fundamental concepts of quantum optics and in new optical applications. Comprehensive discussions of preparation, transmission, detection, and reconstruction of quantum states, as well as in-depth coverage of quantum computing, make this the most complete source of new information available to students and professionals.
Book Description
The counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics have been for long illustrated by thought experiments, from Einstein's photon box to Schrodinger's cat. These experiments have now become real, with single particles - electrons, atoms or photons - directly unveiling the weird features of the quantum. State superpositions, entanglement and complementarity define a novel quantum logic which can be harnessed for information processing, raising great hopes for applications. This book describes a class of such thought experiments made real. Juggling with atoms and photons confined in cavities, ions or cold atoms in traps, is here an incentive to shed a new light on the basic concepts of quantum physics. Measurement processes and decoherence at the quantum-classical boundary are highlighted. This volume, which combines theory and experiments, will be of interest to students in quantum physics, teachers seeking illustrations for their lectures and new problem sets, researchers in quantum optics and quantum information.
Book Description
Famous the world over for the creative brilliance of his insights into the physical world, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman also possessed an extraordinary talent for explaining difficult concepts to the nonscientist. QED--the edited version of four lectures on quantum electrodynamics that Feynman gave to the general public at UCLA as part of the Alix G. Mautner Memorial Lecture series--is perhaps the best example of his ability to communicate both the substance and the spirit of science to the layperson.
The focus, as the title suggests, is quantum electrodynamics (QED), the part of the quantum theory of fields that describes the interactions of the quanta of the electromagnetic field-light, X rays, gamma rays--with matter and those of charged particles with one another. By extending the formalism developed by Dirac in 1933, which related quantum and classical descriptions of the motion of particles, Feynman revolutionized the quantum mechanical understanding of the nature of particles and waves. And, by incorporating his own readily visualizable formulation of quantum mechanics, Feynman created a diagrammatic version of QED that made calculations much simpler and also provided visual insights into the mechanisms of quantum electrodynamic processes.
In this book, using everyday language, spatial concepts, visualizations, and his renowned "Feynman diagrams" instead of advanced mathematics, Feynman successfully provides a definitive introduction to QED for a lay readership without any distortion of the basic science. Characterized by Feynman's famously original clarity and humor, this popular book on QED has not been equaled since its publication.
Customer Reviews:
Mind-blowing.......2006-12-10
Feynman makes it easy for the curious amateur to understand. This book is accessible and mind-blowing. Everyone should read it. And there is little if any math so don't be intimidated.
Just the facts, Ma'am.......2006-08-07
In the Introduction to the 'Strange Theory of Light and Matter' Feynman tells us that what he likes to talk about is the "part of physics that is known, rather than a part that is unknown." And he goes on to give us a thumbnail sketch, a "physicist's history of physics," which shows how physicist's, in their quest to describe the world, continually reduce a group of seemingly unrelated phenomenon to a single phenomenon. So heat and sound were found, thanks to Newton, to be reducible to laws of motion, while electricity, magnetism and light were reducible to Maxwell's electromagnetic wave. In this way physicist's explain the world.
Here one is almost tempted to say that they proceed much as religion and ideology do. Religion has from the beginning of recorded history been taking phenomenon and feelings, like storms and suffering or aging and despair, and molding them into an internally coherent explanation of all that is and was and will be. They do this by separating the relevant from the incidental, then uncovering the essential by excluding the accidental. They simplify. In similar ways ideologues like the communists take what at one time were discreet incidents and disparate facts (for instance, the poverty of the third world and imperialism) and weave them into a grand general explanation. Is science merely the latest avatar of religion? - Or perhaps it is an ideology without tears?
Not so fast! Feynman goes on to show us that attempts to explain the atomic world foundered on the laws of motion. He shows us that the rescue of those shipwrecked on the shoals of classical theory involved the invention of a new, counter-intuitive theory, Quantum Mechanics. He then goes on, while discussing a small portion of that theory, to give us the (deliberately) hilarious and 'absurd' example of how physicists predict how many photons, out of a given number, will be reflected back from a surface. 'Draw little arrows on a piece of paper' and watch the clock, he tells us. And with no explanation as to why this procedure works! Of course, for physics, what matters is that it does work. Physicists have been forced "away from making absolute predictions to merely calculating the probability of an event." But where is the essential, the eternal, the necessary?
Perhaps this is what Feynman is driving at. Science describes, it doesn't explain why. We should all wonder at that. The great 'philosophical' questions that drive theology and political ideology are beyond the purview of physics. Science doesn't create worlds; nor does it 'interpret' or change them, it simply describes what it finds. (It is technology that changes the world.) Freud saw fit to end one of his books by saying that 'our science is no illusion, but it would be an illusion to believe you can find elsewhere what it does not offer.' But how much truer this is of physics! One is then perhaps not surprised to come away from this little book wondering exactly what the status of philosophy, psychoanalysis, politics and religion would be in a genuinely scientific world.
But of course there will never be, given human irrationality, an entirely scientific human culture. This book is a superb introduction to quantum electrodynamics. It's 'experimentalism' and agnosticism towards grand philosophical explanations I found very congenial and convincing. Feynman is an engaging personality and this is an entertaining book. While one doesn't need a degree in physics and math to understand him a lay competence and interest in math and physics is certainly necessary. For those of us still living in a Newtonian world, a dwindling number to be sure, this book will have several surprising moments. But that really is part of the show!
The shortest, clearest and "most physical" description of quantum theory without compromise in the accuracy.......2006-01-21
I had read a few books on quantium physics before, some are serious textbooks, and some are books for general readers, without even a single equation. This book, catagorized as the latter case, is the shortest, clearest and "most physical" description I've ever read.
It really tells you what the physicsts are doing behind the equations. I felt I solved many of the puzzles I had before, especially the intuitive meaning of the wave function and how the amplitudes really combine "visually".
It's a must read if you have tried other books on quantum theory but get confused (which I think is very likely). One major difference of this book from other books is Feynman didn't try to invent analogous but confusing things to explain difficult concepts. He really introduces you the subject itself.
Whew! Worth the effort..........2005-12-23
Feynman believed that if you truly understand a concept than you should be able to express it in a way that any educated person can understand it. Thus you have a smallish book (based on lectures) on some of the most obtuse subjects in physics in a way that is entertaining, readable, and understandable.
This is no "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" (if you haven't read it you should...) but still shows his wit and curiosity. One reason I think the book is so good is that he was instrumental in working out many of the ideas he presents so he's not just repeating someone else's work.
The concepts can be hard to grasp but the book is well worth the trouble.
Feynman's Nobel prize winning subject, QED........2005-09-15
This book is basically a transcript of a series of lectures Professor Feynman gave at UCLA and in New Zealand. The lectures were given at the University of Auckland in New Zealand because Feynman wanted to "try out" the lectures on people far from home to see if they would work. [...] The book QED attempts successfully to give the reader an idea of how light works at a fundamental level and is actually very weird and untuitive due to our inherited and evolved senses and perception. Feynman preps the reader to anticipate these very strange unintuitive scientific findings and goes on to explain them very well.
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