Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking 1st Edition by William H. Cropper (PDF)

Description

Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists–all geniuses–who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline–mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and others–each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can seehow the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg.Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “This book provides encapsulated histories of 30 physicists who have made major contributions to the development of physics over the last five centuries, from Galileo to Hawking…. This has the wonderful effect of laying out the development of physics in an exciting continuous stream, interweaving the social and scientific lives of all the scientists very effectively. The individual chapters are scholarly yet brief, concise and to the point, focusing on the crucial life events and the major scientific breakthroughs…. We need something like this for mathematics now!”―Mathematical Reviews About the Author William H. Cropper is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University. He lives in Saugerties, New York.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Excelente reseña de varios de los mas importantes físicos de la historia, tanto desde lo rigurosamente científico como desde el estilo literario. Muy buen material para el dictado de materias de historia de la fisica a nivel universitario.

⭐

⭐This ambitious book aspires to capture the great contributions and contributors to our modern understanding of the physical world. I think it succeeds admirably. It reminded me of my excitement and aspirations as I began down the road of theoretical physics many years ago. There’s a theory that every equation a book contains halves its readership. I hope it isn’t true in this case, although I do wonder how the lay reader coped with certain passages. Yet, even skipping the math, this book is an exhilarating read, insightfully mapping the path to our current comprehension of the nature of the world.I was a little surprised by some choices of inclusion and omission. For instance, Hawking is included but Weinberg is not. This wouldn’t reflect my own assessment of the relative contributions of the two men to modern physics, and I wonder how other physicists might view this. Notwithstanding such nitpicking, it’s an absorbing book and I highly recommend its account of physics, humankind’s most successful intellectual journey.

⭐Excellent, well researched, and compelling book.Gives insight into lives of the people who helped shape physics starting with Galileo and ending with Hawking with all the other great characters in between; Newton, Joule, Gibbs, Maxwell, Planck, Schroedinger, Dirac, Currie, Hubble, Einstein, Feynman etc. The book is split into different sections corresponding to areas of physics which were being developed during different times e.g. Mechanics, thermodynamics, E & M. The best part of this book was that Cropper provides the mathematics behind the ideas that were involved in the subjects. It not only helps gain a better understanding of the physics but gives us an idea of how these people thought and the fundamental questions that they were trying to answer. Apart from their contributions to science, a brief history is written about their lives and how they were as people. Cropper doesn’t hold back on their personalities and even writes that while these men and women were luminaries of their time, science is a human endeavor. Overall a wonderful book!

⭐This book contains a historical view of the people pictured, giving the central information about their most important accomplishments, but also describing their lifetime setting, friends, family life, associates. It thus places the information in a context that enhances the scientific story.It is not a resource for actual scientific research, but has enough equations to make one appreciate the direction created by the individuals’ efforts in learning about our planet. It is organized in sections that further identify the physicist’s place in the ongoing development of knowledge. If you like history, and like science, you will like this book.

⭐As other reviewer has put it, the book not only explains the “behind the scenes” of major milestones in physics, but it also gives a summary explanation of the math and concepts behind each milestone. Some passages reminded me of physics courses I took as undergrad, so the book was not only entertaining and nice to read but it also was a nice memory teaser (as to how much I don’t remember!). I’m encouraging my teenage son to read it, with the hope that he will be lured into studying physics or any other exact science.

⭐I found this book to be just excellent, in every respect. If you want to read about the history of history and also get a consise yet excellent explanation of the physics that each physicts created, then this is your book. This is why I refer to it as “Cliff Notes of Physics through the history of Physics”. It’s very clearly written.

⭐Well done. Equations are a little small but acceptable.

⭐Good (93-page) section of thermodynamics’ history. An inaccuracy, however, occurs on page 107, where Cropper states “Clausius appears to have made no comment on Gibbs’s work.” Correctly, in 1875, Clausius refers to his (seemingly favored) Gibbs use of the term “isentropic” (pg. 68, The Mechanical Theory of Heat, 2nd ed.), for expansions where the entropy remains constant.

⭐If you want nice short chapters covering a number of phyisicists, this is the book for you. Unlike some it does include some maths etc to explain the basic aspects, but it also includes relationships etc.

⭐I found of going through the life of great physicists and this is the best among its type. If you want more then go for individual.

⭐a brilliant book, exactly what I wanted, it gives information in great detail, delivery was very good, thanks a lot

⭐Great book exceptional.

⭐A present for my nephew.Good value……I didn’t understand a word of it,but the boy enjoys reading it,and his Dad’s a physics teacher,so I’m sure it must be interesting.

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