Poetry of Physics and the Physics of Poetry

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The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry 7657 tp.indd 1 5/11/10 9:44:31 AM ...

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NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI World Scientific Robert K Logan Department o ...

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. For phot ...

v This book is dedicated to my students, past and present, of the Poetry of Physics as well as Rebecca F., Haviva, Jacob, Joshua ...

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vii Contents Chapter 1 To My Readers 1 Chapter 2 The Origin of Physics 5 Chapter 3 Ancient Science of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Chi ...

viii Contents Chapter 15 The General Theory of Relativity 139 Chapter 16 Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions and 151 the ...

1 Chapter 1 To My Readers Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see t ...

2 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry the “nature” of the world in which they live should, therefore, want to study ...

To My Readers 3 that the spirit of trying to describe the physical world we live in is universal and can be traced back to preli ...

4 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry This book was written for first year students at the University of Toronto and ...

5 Chapter 2 The Origin of Physics What is physics? One way to answer this question is to describe physics as the study of motion ...

6 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry as the autocatalysis of a large set of organic chemicals that were able to rep ...

The Origin of Physics 7 An example of the sophistication of early astronomy is the megalithic structure of Stonehenge built in a ...

8 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry ancient Egypt, Greece, India, Babylonia, Polynesia and North America. Other cl ...

The Origin of Physics 9 The story of Kujum-Chantu attempts a coherent explanation of both the creation of the world and the natu ...

10 The Poetry of Physics and The Physics of Poetry of its predictions, but, nevertheless, continues to explain new facts, inspir ...

11 Chapter 3 Ancient Science of Mesopotamia, Egypt and China The first signs of science began to emerge in ancient Mesopotamia, ...