Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 2004 - Biography & Autobiography - 500 pages
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 see how 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.
 

Contents

IV
5
V
18
VI
41
VII
43
IX
51
XI
59
XIII
71
XV
78
XXXIII
256
XXXIV
263
XXXVII
275
XXXVIII
293
XXXIX
295
XL
308
XLII
330
XLIII
344

XVII
93
XVIII
106
XX
124
XXI
135
XXII
137
XXIII
154
XXIV
177
XXV
179
XXVII
201
XXVIII
203
XXIX
229
XXXI
231
XXXII
242
XLIV
363
XLV
365
XLVII
376
XLIX
403
L
421
LIII
423
LIV
438
LV
452
LVI
464
LVII
478
LVIII
485
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About the author (2004)

William H. Cropper is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University. He lives in Saugerties, New York.

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