Description
Book SynopsisThis book develops the best traditions of this kind of scientific literature. Written by working theoretical physicists who are at the same time dedicated popularizers of scientific knowledge, the book is clear and captivating in style. It brings to the reader the latest achievements of quantum solid-state physics; but on the way it shows how the laws of physics reveal themselves even in trivial (at first sight) episodes and natural phenomena around us. And what is most important, it portrays the world through the eyes of scientists, “proving the harmony by algebra”.
Table of ContentsPart 1 Outdoor physics: meandering down to the sea; rivers from lakes; the oceanic phone booth; in the blue; the moon-glades; the Fucault pendulum and the Baer law; the moon-brake. Part 2 Saturday night physics: why the violin sings; the chiming and silent goblets; the bubble and the droplet; the mysteries of the magic lamp; waiting for the tea-kettle to boil; craving the microwaved mammoth; the water mike; how the waves transmit information; why the electric power lines are droning; the footprints on the sand; how to prevent snowdrifts; the incident in the train. Part 3 Windows to the microworld: the uncertainty relation; on the snowballs, nuts, bubbles and ... liquid helium; the superconductivity passion at the end of the millennium' what is SQUID?; the superconducting magnets.
