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This undergraduate text takes the reader along the trail of light from Newton's particles to Einstein's relativity. Like the best detective stories, it presents clues and encourages the reader to draw conclusions before the answers are revealed. The first seven chapters describe how light behaves, develop Newton's particle theory, introduce waves and an electromagnetic wave theory of light, discover the photon, and culminate in the wave-particle duality. The book then goes on to develop the special theory of relativity, showing how time dilation and length contraction are consequences of the two simple principles on which the theory is founded. An extensive chapter derives the equation E = mc2 clearly from first principles and then explores its consequences and the misconceptions surrounding it. That most famous of issues arising from special relativity - the aging of the twins - is treated simply but compellingly.

Wave-particle duality. --- Special relativity (Physics)

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La première révolution quantique qui naît notamment sous l’impulsion d’Einstein au début du XXe siècle, bouleverse notre vision du monde, fait émerger des concepts surprenants comme la dualité onde-particule, et conduit à des inventions majeures : le transistor, le laser, les circuits intégrés des ordinateurs.Moins connu est le développement d’une deuxième révolution quantique initiée en 1935 par le débat entre Albert Einstein et Niels Bohr, et rendue possible à partir de la fin des années 1960 par l’expérimentation sur des particules individuelles. Cette révolution, qui se déroule encore sous nos yeux, repose sur la notion étrange de particules intriquées qui se comportent de manière extraordinairement similaire même lorsqu’elles sont éloignées. Cette notion a été vérifiée en particulier dans les expériences d’Alain Aspect au début des années 1980 et connaît déjà des applications concrètes, notamment en matière de cryptographie. Elle pourrait déboucher à terme sur des technologies nouvelles comme l’informatique quantique.Tourné vers une physique d’avenir, cet ouvrage raconte une magnifique histoire de science, dans laquelle l’expérimentation a permis de trancher des débats philosophiques.

Théorie quantique --- Histoire --- mécanique quantique --- Quantum theory --- Wave-particle duality. --- Physics --- History. --- Einstein, Albert,

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Quantum mechanics. Quantumfield theory --- Quantum theory --- Physics --- Stochastic processes --- Wave-particle duality --- Théorie quantique --- Physique --- Processus stochastiques --- Congresses --- Philosophy --- Congrès --- Philosophie --- Microphysics --- Congresses. --- Théorie quantique --- Congrès --- Quantum theory - Congresses --- Microphysics - Philosophy - Congresses --- Stochastic processes - Congresses --- Wave-particle duality - Congresses --- Théorie quantique. --- Processus stochastiques. --- Microphysique. --- Dualité onde-corpuscule. --- Microphysics. --- Wave-particle duality.

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The early twentieth century brought about the rejection by physicists of the doctrine of determinism - the belief that complete knowledge of the initial conditions of an interaction in nature allows precise and unambiguous prediction of the outcome. This book traces the origins of a central problem leading to this change in viewpoint and paradoxes raised by attempts to formulate a consistent theory of the nature of light. It outlines the different approaches adopted by members of different national cultures to the apparent inconsistencies, explains why Einstein's early (1905) attempt at a resolution was not taken seriously for fifteen years, and describes the mixture of ideas that created a route to a new, antideterministic formulation of the laws of nature. Dr Wheaton describes the experimental work on the new forms of radiation found at the turn of the century and shows how the interpretation of energy transfer from X-rays to matter gradually transformed a classical wave explanation of light to one based on particle like quanta of energy, and further, he explains how influential scientists came reluctantly to accept a wavelike interpretation of matter as well. This new and distinctively different account of one of the major theoretical shifts in modern physical thought will be of fundamental interest to physical scientists and philosophers, as well as to historians of science.

Wave-particle duality --- Radiation --- X-rays --- Gamma rays --- History --- -Radiation --- -Wave-particle duality --- -X-rays --- -53 <09> --- Rays, Roentgen --- Roentgen rays --- Roentgenograms --- Electromagnetic waves --- Ionizing radiation --- Cathode rays --- Radiography --- Vacuum-tubes --- Dualism, Wave-particle --- Duality principle (Physics) --- Wave-corpuscle duality --- Complementarity (Physics) --- Matter --- Wave mechanics --- Physics --- Radiology --- Gamma radiation --- Physics--Geschiedenis van ... --- Constitution --- History. --- 53 <09> Physics--Geschiedenis van ... --- 53 <09> --- Physics--Geschiedenis van .. --- Arts and Humanities --- Wave-particle duality - History --- Radiation - History --- X-rays - History --- Gamma rays - History

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Ray, wave and quantum concepts are central to diverse and seemingly incompatible models of light. Each model particularizes a specific ''manifestation'' of light, and then corresponds to adequate physical assumptions and formal approximations, whose domains of applicability are well-established. Accordingly each model comprises its own set of geometric and dynamic postulates with the pertinent mathematical means.At a basic level, the book is a complete introduction to the Wigner optics, which bridges between ray and wave optics, offering the optical phase space as the ambience and the

Wave theory of light. --- Wigner distribution. --- Geometrical optics --- Mathematics. --- Optics, Geometrical --- Optics --- Distribution (Probability theory) --- Racah algebra --- Light, Wave theory of --- Wave-motion, Theory of --- Wave-particle duality