Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Physics and Astronomy
  4. History, Philosophy and Foundations of Physics
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

5563 results in History, Philosophy and Foundations of Physics

Page 108 of 279

Quantum Concepts in Physics
  • An Alternative Approach to the Understanding of Quantum Mechanics
  • Malcolm Longair
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 January 2013
  • Written for advanced undergraduates, physicists, and historians and philosophers of physics, this book tells the story of the development of our understanding of quantum phenomena through the extraordinary years of the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rather than following the standard axiomatic approach, this book adopts a historical perspective, explaining clearly and authoritatively how pioneers such as Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Pauli and Dirac developed the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and merged them into a coherent theory, and why the mathematical infrastructure of quantum mechanics has to be as complex as it is. The author creates a compelling narrative, providing a remarkable example of how physics and mathematics work in practice. The book encourages an enhanced appreciation of the interaction between mathematics, theory and experiment, helping the reader gain a deeper understanding of the development and content of quantum mechanics than any other text at this level.

Time in Early Modern Islam
  • Calendar, Ceremony, and Chronology in the Safavid, Mughal and Ottoman Empires
  • Stephen P. Blake
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    11 February 2013
  • The prophet Muhammad and the early Islamic community radically redefined the concept of time that they had inherited from earlier religions' beliefs and practices. This new temporal system, based on a lunar calendar and era, was complex and required sophistication and accuracy. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, it was the Muslim astronomers of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires who were responsible for the major advances in mathematics, astronomy and astrology. This fascinating study compares the Islamic concept of time, and its historical and cultural significance, across these three great empires. Each empire, while mindful of earlier models, created a new temporal system, fashioning a new solar calendar and era and a new round of rituals and ceremonies from the cultural resources at hand. This book contributes to our understanding of the Muslim temporal system and our appreciation of the influence of Islamic science on the Western world.

  • 10 - The collapse of the old quantum theory and the seeds of its regeneration

  • from Part III - The Discovery of Quantum Mechanics
  • Malcolm Longair, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Quantum Concepts in Physics
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 January 2013, pp 189-202

  • Summary

    ‘In spite of its high-sounding name and its successful solutions of numerous problems in atomic physics, quantum theory, and especially the quantum theory of polyelectron systems, prior to 1925, was, from the methodological point of view, a lamentable hodgepodge of hypotheses, principles, theorems and computational recipes rather than a logical consistent theory. Every single quantum-theoretic problem had to be solved first in terms of classical physics; its classical solution had then to pass through the mysterious sieve of the quantum conditions or, as it happened in the majority of cases, the classical solution had to be translated into the language of quanta in conformance with the correspondence principle. Usually, the process of finding the ‘correct solution’ was a matter of skillful guessing and intuition, rather than of deductive or systematic reasoning.’

    (Jammer, 1989)

    Although written with the benefit of hindsight, there is no doubt that, by the end of 1924, there was a major crisis in the attempts to create a system of ‘quantum mechanics’ which could encompass all the features of atoms and their spectra. At the heart of the problem was the wave–particle duality first enunciated by Einstein in 1905 and reinforced by de Broglie's remarkable association of ‘matter-waves’ with electrons in 1924. As recorded by Jammer (1989),

    ‘This state of affairs was well characterised by Sir William Bragg when he said that physicists are using on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the classical theory and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the quantum theory of radiation.’

Page 108 of 279