"Subtle is the Lord-- " : the science and the life of Albert Einstein / / Abraham Pais ; [with a new foreword by Sir Roger Penrose]

• Autore: Pais Abraham <1918-2000.>
• Pubblicazione: Oxford ; ; New York, : Oxford University Press, 2005
• Edizione: New [edition].
• Descrizione fisica: xx, 552 p. : ill
• Disciplina: 530.092; B
• Soggetto topico: Physicists; Physics - History
• Note generali: Originally published in 1982.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
• Nota di contenuto: Intro -- Contents -- I: INTRODUCTORY -- 1. Purpose and plan -- 2. Relativity theory and quantum theory -- (a) Orderly transitions and revolutionary periods -- (b) A time capsule -- 3. Portrait of the physicist as a young man -- An addendum on Einstein biographies -- II: STATISTICAL PHYSICS -- 4. Entropy and probability -- (a) Einstein's contributions at a glance -- (b) Maxwell and Boltzmann -- (c) Preludes to 1905 -- (d) Einstein and Boltzmann's principle -- 5. The reality of molecules -- (a) About the nineteenth century, briefly -- (b) The pots of Pfeffer and the laws of van't Hoff -- (c) The doctoral thesis -- (d) Eleven days later: Brownian motion -- (e) Einstein and Smoluchowski -- critical opalescence -- III: RELATIVITY, THE SPECIAL THEORY -- 6. 'Subtle is the Lord ...' -- (a) The Michelson-Morley experiment -- (b) The precursors -- (c) Poincaré in 1905 -- (d) Einstein before 1905 -- 7. The new kinematics -- (a) June 1905: special relativity defined, Lorentz transformations derived -- (b) September 1905 -- about E = mc[sup(2)] -- (c) Early responses -- (d) Einstein and the special theory after 1905 -- (e) Electromagnetic mass: the first century -- 8. The edge of history -- IV: RELATIVITY, THE GENERAL THEORY -- 9. 'The happiest thought of my life' -- 10. Herr Professor Einstein -- (a) From Bern to Zurich -- (b) Three and a half years of silence -- 11. The Prague papers -- (a) From Zurich to Prague -- (b) 1911. The bending of light is detectable -- (c) 1912. Einstein in no man's land -- 12. The Einstein-Grossmann collaboration -- (a) From Prague to Zürich -- (b) From scalar to tensor -- (c) The collaboration -- (d) The stumbling block -- (e) The aftermath -- 13. Field theories of gravitation: the first fifty years -- (a) Einstein in Vienna -- (b) The Einstein-Fokker paper -- 14. The field equations of gravitation -- (a) From Zürich to Berlin. ; (b) Interlude. Rotation by magnetization -- (c) The final steps -- (d). Einstein and Hilbert -- 15. The new dynamics -- (a) From 1915 to 1980 -- (b) The three successes -- (c) Energy and momentum conservation -- the Bianchi identities -- (d) Gravitational waves -- (e) Cosmology -- (f) Singularities -- the problem of motion -- (g) What else was new at GR9? -- V: THE LATER JOURNEY -- 16. 'The suddenly famous Doctor Einstein' -- (a) Illness. Remarriage. Death of Mother -- (b) Einstein canonized -- (c) The birth of the legend -- (d) Einstein and Germany -- (e) The later writings -- 17. Unified Field Theory -- (a) Particles and fields around 1920 -- (b) Another decade of gestation -- (c) The fifth dimension -- (d) Relativity and post-Riemannian differential geometry -- (e) The later journey: a scientific chronology -- (f) A postcript to unification, a prelude to quantum theory -- VI: THE QUANTUM THEORY -- 18. Preliminaries -- (a) An outline of Einstein's contributions -- (b) Particle physics: the first fifty years -- (c) The quantum theory: lines of influence -- 19. The light quantum -- (a) From Kirchhoff to Plank -- (b) Einstein on Planck: 1905. The Rayleigh-Einstein-Jeans law -- (c) The light-quantum hypothesis and the heuristic principle -- (d) Einstein on Planck: 1906 -- (e) The photo-electric effect: the second coming of h -- (f) Reactions to the light-quantum hypothesis -- 20. Einstein and specific heats -- (a) Specific heats in the nineteenth century -- (b) Einstein -- (c) Nernsf: Solvay I -- 21. The photon -- (a) The fusion of particles and waves and Einstein's destiny -- (b) Spontaneous and induced radiative transitions -- (c) The completion of the particle picture -- (d) Earliest Unbehagen about chance -- (e) An aside: quantum conditions for non-separable classical motion -- (f) The Compton effect -- 22. Interlude: The BKS proposal. ; 23. A loss of identity: the birth of quantum statistics -- (a) From Boltzmann to Dirac -- (b) Bose -- (c) Einstein -- (d) Postscript on Bose-Einstein condensation -- 24. Einstein as a transitional figure: the birth of wave mechanics -- (a) From Einstein to de Broglie -- (b) From de Broglie to Einstein -- (c) From de Broglie and Einstein to Schroedinger -- 25. Einstein's response to the new dynamics -- (a) 1925-1931. The debate begins -- (b) Einstein in Princeton -- (c) Einstein on objective reality -- 26. Einstein's vision -- (a) Einstein, Newton and success -- (b) Relativity theory and quantum theory -- (c) 'Überkausalität' -- VII: JOURNEY'S END -- 27. The final decade -- 28. Epilogue -- VIII: APPENDICES -- 29. Of tensors and a hearing aid and many other things: Einstein's collaborators -- 30. How Einstein got the Nobel prize -- 31. Einstein's proposals for the Nobel prize -- 32. An Einstein chronology -- Name Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Subject Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Z.
• Sommario/riassunto: 'Subtle Is The Lord' is widely recognized as the definitive scientific biography of Einstein. The late Abraham Pais was a distinguished physicist turned historian who knew Einstein both professionally & personally in the last 20 years of his life. His biography combines an understanding of Einstein's work with personal recollections.
• Titolo autorizzato: "Subtle is the Lord-- "
• ISBN: 1-383-00286-X; 1-280-75319-6; 0-19-152402-6
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910815918803321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
• Serie: Oxford scholarship online.