From Publishers Weekly
Not many physicists these days have Baeyer's assured curiosity, which allows him to borrow a title from Saint-Exupery ("One only understands the things that one tames") for his discussion of the wraiths and phantoms of nearly 50 years of quantum theory. Baeyer has the Little Prince's determined faith that the next generation will see the atomic world, and perhaps will at last unify atomic theory and quantum mechanics, the physics of Einstein and Bohr. As in his Rainbows, Snowflakes and Quarks, Baeyer dances gracefully with everyone's theories and makes them all seem charming to the general reader. But this is straight quantum, without clever analogy, Tao insights or any apology for the contradictions in current theories; the volume is, unfortunately, also without mathematics, even as an appendix. When the third revolution in physics ("a second quantum revolution") comes--not necessarily, Baeyer points out, as a synthesis of past ones--Baeyer's readers will have already been alerted. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
At the beginning of this volume, von Baeyer ( Rainbows, Snowflakes and Quarks , LJ 7/84) tells of his recent visit to a physics laboratory to actually see an individual mercury atom, captured, isolated, and made visible by very new techniques of microphysics. He then backs up to review the whole history of atomic theory, from the classical Greek philosophers to 20th-century quantum mechanics. Next, he tells us more of the modern techniques for manipulating and viewing atomic particles; this section features the technique known as "scanning tunneling microscopy." Finally, he refers to the still-unresolved mystery of the foundations of quantum mechanics. All of this is accomplished without resort to diagrams or equations but with marvelously fluid and intelligible prose. The book will be accessible to well-informed lay readers but should also be entertaining even to advanced researchers. A superior work of scientific popularization; highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
- Jack W. Weigel, Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
- Jack W. Weigel, Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
