FROM ATOMS TO HIGGS BOSONS : voyages in quasi spacetime.
The announcement in 2012 that the Higgs boson had been discovered was understood as a watershed moment for the Standard Model of particle physics. It was deemed a triumphant event in the reductionist quest that had begun centuries ago with the ancient Greek natural philosophers. Physicists basked in...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified],
PAN STANFORD Publishing,
2019.
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
Table of Contents:
- Cover; Half Title; Tilte Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Preface; Introduction; 1. The Reductionist Vision of Physics; 1.1 Reductionism; 1.2 Our View of the World; 1.3 Democritus' Atoms; 1.4 Properties of Atoms in Early Physics; 1.5 The Descent into the Quark Model; 1.6 Contemporary Catalogue of Physical Things; 1.7 Have We Reached the Bottom?; 1.8 Defining the Bottom Rung of the Ladder; 1.9 Are Quarks Really at the Bottom?; 2. Quasirealism; 2.1 Common Sense; 2.2 Mathematics at the Centre; 2.3 Quasiparticles; 2.4 Quasirealism Defined; 2.5 Against Quasirealism
- 2.6 Quasirealism and the Theory of Everything2.7 Concluding Thoughts; 3. Space, Time, and Relativity; 3.1 Ancient Concepts of Space and Time; 3.2 Philosophizing on Space and Time; 3.3 Newton's Absolute Space; 3.4 Lines of Force and Fields; 3.5 The Aether; 3.6 Lorentz-FitzGerald Contraction; 3.7 Special Relativity; 3.8 General Relativity; 3.9 Concluding Remarks; 4. Mathematical Spaces; 4.1 Space and N-Dimensional Spaces; 4.2 Space and Geometry; 4.3 Complex Numbers and Imaginary Planes; 4.4 Minkowski Spacetime; 4.5 Phase Space; 4.6 Hilbert Space; 4.7 String Theories and Multidimensional Space
- 5. Mass5.1 Mass and Weight; 5.2 Mass and Relativity; 5.3 Mass of Small Things; 5.4 Modern Mass Measurements of Subatomic Particles; 5.5 Mass of Short-Lived Particles; 5.6 Mass of Resonances; 5.7 Mass of Quarks; 5.8 Mass of Higgs Boson; 5.9 Concluding Remarks on Mass; 6. Quantum Physics; 6.1 Statistical Microphysics and Waves; 6.2 Quantum Theory of the Atom; 6.3 What Evolves in Quantum Theory?; 7. When Is an Atom?; 7.1 The Classical Atom; 7.2 The Divisible Chemical Atom; 7.3 Protons and Neutrons Are Particles, but Are They Fundamental?
- 7.4 The Electron Is Fundamental, but Is It Still a Particle?7.5 The Electron of Wave Mechanics; 7.6 Niels Bohr's Instrumentalist View; 7.7 Electrons in Quantum Electrodynamics; 7.8 Electrons in Bulk Matter; 7.9 In Summary: We May Still Have Atoms; 8. Elementary Quanta; 8.1 Fermions, Bosons, Quarks, and Leptons; 8.2 Quarks and Leptons Are Really Very Different; 8.3 On the Reality of Neutrinos; 8.4 On the Reality of Quarks; 8.5 The Gauge Bosons; 8.6 Summary; 9. What Is a Photon?; 9.1 Problem of Blackbody Radiation; 9.2 Photoelectric Effect; 9.3 Waves and Particles, Real and Virtual
- 9.4 Other Lives of Photons9.5 Photons and Electroweak Unification; 9.6 Are Photons Phoenixes?; 9.7 Finally, What Are Photons?; 10. Symmetries, Conservation Laws, and Gauge Bosons; 10.1 Symmetry and Gauge; 10.2 Gauge Invariance and Electromagnetism; 10.3 Symmetry and Isospin; 10.4 Mixing of Matter and Interactions; 10.5 Conclusion; 11. Higgs Boson; 11.1 Knowing What We Cannot See; 11.2 Searching for the Higgs Boson; 11.3 Higgs Discovery; 11.4 Particle or Resonance?; 11.5 What Does the Higgs Boson Contribute?; 11.6 Conclusion; Epilogue; Appendix: Epitaph for All Photons; Index