Quips, Quotes and Quanta
Book Description
In physics the heroes which created the subject tend to become abstract entities much like the results that they produced. They become legends. As such they give rise to numerous stories that physicists relate to each other.
The twentieth century saw unprecedented developments in physics through the efforts of extraordinary individuals like Bohr, Dirac, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, Schrödinger. Sometimes, as in the case of relativity, their work was without controversy. At other times, as the painfully slow development of quantum mechanics showed, controversy continued until almost now. Why did Einstein and Schrödinger, both of whom played a crucial role in its development, refuse to accept quantum mechanics? How is it that Pauli, who rejected the notion of spin to explain the splitting of spectral lines in a magnetic field, has the spin matrices named after him?
For more than forty years, Anton Capri collected stories about the founders of modern physics and in Quotes, Quirks, and Quanta: An Anecdotal History of the Birth of Modern Physics he has interwoven these anecdotes with a history of the development of the subject. His aim was to both entertain and educate readers who want to know what modern physics is about and what kind of men and women created this knowledge. The book is not a textbook; it is a collection of quotes and humorous incidents involving the main protagonists in the struggle to wrest nature’s secrets from her. Quotes, Quirks, and Quanta is aimed at anyone interested in a qualitative discussion of the major ideas, such as quantum mechanics and relativity, at the forefront of physics today and how these ideas came to be. It is intended for the non-scientist as well as members of the physics community.