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Philip W. Anderson (1923–2020) is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential physicists of the second half of the twentieth century. Educated at Harvard, he served during World War II as a radar engineer, and began a thirty-five year career at Bell Laboratories in 1949. He was soon recognized as one of the pre-eminent theoretical physicists in the world, specializing in understanding the collective behavior of the vast number of atoms and electrons in a sample of solid matter. He won a one-third share of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of a phenomenon common to all waves in disordered matter called Anderson localization and the development of the Anderson impurity model to study magnetism. At Cambridge and Princeton Universities, Anderson led the way in transforming solid-state physics into the deep, subtle, and coherent discipline known today as condensed matter physics. He developed the concepts of broken symmetry and emergence and championed the concept of complexity as an organizing principle to attack difficult problems inside and outside physics. In 1971, Anderson was the first scientist to challenge the claim of high-energy particle physicists that their work was the most deserving of federal funding. Later, he testified before Congress opposing the Superconducting Super Collider particle accelerator. Anderson was a dominant figure in his field for almost fifty years. At an age when most scientists think about retirement, he made a brilliant contribution to many-electron theory and applied it to a novel class of high-temperature superconductors.

This work is a critical update of the most recent and innovative developments of the avalanche science. It aims at re-founding it on clear scientific bases, from field observations and experiments up to strong mathematical and physical analysis and modeling. It points out snow peculiarities, regarding both static mechanical properties and flow dynamics, that may strongly differ from those of compact solids for the former, and of Newtonian fluids for the latter. It analyzes the general processes involved in avalanche release, in terms of brittle fracture and ductile plasticity, specific friction laws, flow of healable granular materials, percolation concepts, cellular automata, scale invariance, criticality, theory of dynamical systems, bifurcations, etc. As a result, slab triggering (including remote triggering) can be summarized by the “slab avalanche release in 4 steps” concept, based on weak layer local collapse and subsequent propagation driven by slab weight. The frequent abortion of many incipient avalanches is easily explained in terms of snow grain dynamical healing. Sluffs and full-depth avalanches are also analyzed. Such advances pave the way for significant progress in risk evaluation procedures. In the present context of a speeding-up climate warming, possible evolutions of snow cover extent and stability are also tentatively discussed. We show how, in mountainous areas, the present analysis can be extended to other gravitational failures (rock-falls, landslides) that are likely to take over from avalanches in such circumstances. The text is supported by on-line links to field experiments and lectures on triggering mechanisms, risk management, and decision making.

Semiconductor quantum structures are at the core of many photonic devices such as lasers, photodetectors, solar cells etc. To appreciate why they are such a good fit to these devices, we must understand the basic features of their band structure and how they interact with incident light. This book takes the reader from the very basics of III-V semiconductors (some preparation in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism is helpful) and shows how seemingly obscure results such as detailed forms of the Hamiltonian, optical transition strengths, and recombination mechanisms follow. The reader does not need to consult other references to fully understand the material, although a few handpicked sources are listed for those who would like to deepen their knowledge further. Connections to the properties of novel materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides are pointed out, to help prepare the reader for contributing at the forefront of research. The book also supplies a complete, up-to-date database of the band parameters that enter into the calculations, along with tables of optical constants and interpolation schemes for alloys. From these foundations, the book goes on to derive the characteristics of photonic semiconductor devices (with a focus on the mid-infrared) using the same principles of building all concepts from the ground up, explaining all derivations in detail, giving quantitative examples, and laying out dimensional arguments whenever they can help the reader’s understanding. A substantial fraction of the material in this book has not appeared in print anywhere else, including journal publications.

A graduate-level text, Semiconductor physics: Principles, theory and nanoscale covers the central topics of the field, together with advanced topics related to the nanoscale and to quantum confinement, and integrates the understanding of important attributes that go beyond the conventional solid-state and statistical expositions. Topics include the behavior of electrons, phonons and photons; the energy and entropic foundations; bandstructures and their calculation; the behavior at surfaces and interfaces, including those of heterostructures and their heterojunctions; deep and shallow point perturbations; scattering and transport, including mesoscale behavior, using the evolution and dynamics of classical and quantum ensembles from a probabilistic viewpoint; energy transformations; light-matter interactions; the role of causality; the connections between the quantum and the macroscale that lead to linear responses and Onsager relationships; fluctuations and their connections to dissipation, noise and other attributes; stress and strain effects in semiconductors; properties of high permittivity dielectrics; and remote interaction processes. The final chapter discusses the special consequences of the principles to the variety of properties (consequences of selection rules, for example) under quantum-confined conditions and in monolayer semiconductor systems. The text also bring together short appendices discussing transform theorems integral to this study, the nature of random processes, oscillator strength, A and B coefficients and other topics important for understanding semiconductor behavior. The text brings the study of semiconductor physics to the same level as that of the advanced texts of solid state by focusing exclusively on the equilibrium and off-equilibrium behaviors important in semiconductors.

We have 118 known chemical elements as our palette in our context of sustaining our world. Our context is considered in terms of the four spheres of the ancient world: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. This book shows how chemical principles can be used to understand the pressures on our world spanning from greenhouse emissions through freshwater supplies to energy generation and storage. The supply of the chemical elements is key to their contribution to alleviating these pressures. Most synthetic and radioactive elements are not available in sufficient supply to contribute in this. Some solutions, such as wind turbines, batteries, fuel cells and automotive exhaust remediation pose questions about sustainable supplies of critical elements. With an eye on the target of the IPCC of capping the temperature anomaly to 1.5 oC (RCP2.6), options for carbon capture and storage, and the generation of energy and element supply from the sea are assessed. The consequences of the escape of plastics and pharmaceuticals into the wider environment for water integrity are also considered. This book is designed around providing a one semester course for students who have entered at least the second level of university chemistry. It provides explanations and entries to current environmental issues. For students of environmental science, it provides an understanding of the chemical principles underpinning the causes and possible solutions to these issues. Each chapter has a set appropriate study questions.

The Analytic Element Method provides a foundation to solve boundary value problems commonly encountered in engineering and science. The goals are: to introduce readers to the basic principles of the AEM, to provide a template for those interested in pursuing these methods, and to empower readers to extend the AEM paradigm to an even broader range of problems. A comprehensive paradigm: place an element within its landscape, formulate its interactions with other elements using linear series of influence functions, and then solve for its coefficients to match its boundary and interface conditions with nearly exact precision. Collectively, sets of elements interact to transform their environment, and these synergistic interactions are expanded upon for three common types of problems. The first problem studies a vector field that is directed from high to low values of a function, and applications include: groundwater flow, vadose zone seepage, incompressible fluid flow, thermal conduction and electrostatics. A second type of problem studies the interactions of elements with waves, with applications including water waves and acoustics. A third type of problem studies the interactions of elements with stresses and displacements, with applications in elasticity for structures and geomechanics. The Analytic Element Method paradigm comprehensively employs a background of existing methodology using complex functions, separation of variables and singular integral equations. This text puts forth new methods to solving important problems across engineering and science, and has a tremendous potential to broaden perspective and change the way problems are formulated.

This book describes the changing views of the physics community toward photons, and how photons are viewed today in several contexts. The first portion, a ninechapter Memoir with few equations and many definitions, explains the changing view of physicists toward radiation and its wave-particle photons, written for those with interest but possibly without technical background. It gives operational definitions that have been used for photons and their association with quantum-state manipulations that include Quantum Information, astronomical sources and crowds of photons, the boxed fields of cavity Quantum Electrodynamics It defines, qualitatively, the historical photons of Planck, Einstein, Compton, and Bohr, the later photons of Dirac, Feynman, and Glauber, and the photon constituents of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. It points to contemporary photons as causers of change to atoms, as carriers of messages, and as subject to controllable creation and alteration. A second portion, of three tutorial appendices, explains the mathematical background of quantum theory and radiation needed by those whose profession involves photonics and who therefore want more detailed understanding of the Memoir portion: quantum theory and the Schrodinger equation for quantum-state manipulation; Maxwell equations for electromagnetism with wave modes that become photons through a quantization postulate, possibly exhibiting quantum entanglement; and the coupling of atoms and fields to create quasiparticles that are seen as slow and stored light pulses. As with other Memoirs, the present book has idiosyncrasies of the author. Most notably, on the opening page of each chapter, and at the end of the book, is a cartoon drawn by the author, as a grad student, that reflects the changing views of a PhD aspirant toward the grad school experience as he progressed through the graduate school of MIT in the 1950s.

Celestial Tapestry places mathematics within a vibrant cultural and historical context, highlighting links to the visual arts and design, and broader areas of artistic creativity. Threads are woven together telling of surprising influences that have passed between the arts and mathematics. The story involves many intriguing characters: Gaston Julia, who laid the foundations for fractals and computer art while recovering in hospital after suffering serious injury in the First World War; Charles Howard, Hinton who was imprisoned for bigamy but whose books had a huge influence on twentieth-century art; Michael Scott, the Scottish necromancer who was the dedicatee of Fibonacci’s Book of Calculation, the most important medieval book of mathematics; Richard of Wallingford, the pioneer clockmaker who suffered from leprosy and who never recovered from a lightning strike on his bedchamber; Alicia Stott Boole, the Victorian housewife who amazed mathematicians with her intuition for higher-dimensional space. The book includes more than 200 colour illustrations, puzzles to engage the reader, and many remarkable tales: the secret message in Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors; the link between Viking runes, a Milanese banking dynasty, and modern sculpture; the connection between astrology, religion, and the Apocalypse; binary numbers and the I Ching. It also explains topics on the school mathematics curriculum: algorithms; arithmetic progressions; combinations and permutations; number sequences; the axiomatic method; geometrical proof; tessellations and polyhedra, as well as many essential topics for arts and humanities students: single-point perspective; fractals; computer art; the golden section; the higher-dimensional inspiration behind modern art.

What is scientific research? It is the process by which we learn about the world. For this research to have an impact, and positively contribute to society, it needs to be communicated to those who need to understand its outcomes and significance for them. Any piece of research is not complete until it has been recorded and passed on to those who need to know about it. So, good communication skills are a key attribute for researchers, and scientists today need to be able to communicate through a wide range of media, from formal scientific papers to presentations and social media, and to a range of audiences, from expert peers to stakeholders to the general public. In this book, the goals and nature of scientific communication are explored, from the history of scientific publication; through the stages of how papers are written, evaluated, and published; to what happens after publication, using examples from landmark historical papers. In addition, ethical issues relating to publication, and the damage caused by cases of fabrication and falsification, are explored. Other forms of scientific communication such as conference presentations are also considered, with a particular focus on presenting and writing for nonspecialist audiences, the media, and other stakeholders. Overall, this book provides a broad overview of the whole range of scientific communication and should be of interest to researchers and also those more broadly interested in the process how what scientists do every day translates into outcomes that contribute to society.

Technological evolution and revolution are both driven by the discovery of new functionalities, new materials and the design of yet smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient components. Progress is being made at a breathtaking pace, stimulated by the rapidly growing demand for more powerful and readily available information technology. High-speed internet and data-streaming, home automation, tablets and smartphones are now ‘necessities’ for our everyday lives. Consumer expectations for progressively more data storage and exchange appear to be insatiable. In this context, ferroic domain walls have attracted recent attention as a completely new type of oxide interface. In addition to their functional properties, such walls are spatially mobile and can be created, moved, and erased on demand. This unique degree of flexibility enables domain walls to take an active role in future devices and hold a great potential as multifunctional 2D systems for nanoelectronics. With domain walls as reconfigurable electronic 2D components, a new generation of adaptive nano-technology and flexible circuitry becomes possible, that can be altered and upgraded throughout the lifetime of the device. Thus, what started out as fundamental research, at the limit of accessibility, is finally maturing into a promising concept for next-generation technology.

There exists a large scientific literature on black holes, including many excellent textbooks of various levels of difficulty. However, most of these prefer physical intuition to mathematical rigour. The object of this book is to fill this gap and present a detailed, mathematically oriented, extended introduction to the subject. The first part of the book starts with a presentation, in Chapter 1, of some basic facts about Lorentzian manifolds. Chapter 2 develops those elements of Lorentzian causality theory which are key to the understanding of black-hole spacetimes. We present some applications of the causality theory in Chapter 3, as relevant for the study of black holes. Chapter 4, which opens the second part of the book, constitutes an introduction to the theory of black holes, including a review of experimental evidence, a presentation of the basic notions, and a study of the flagship black holes: the Schwarzschild, Reissner–Nordström, Kerr, and Majumdar–Papapetrou solutions of the Einstein, or Einstein–Maxwell, equations. Chapter 5 presents some further important solutions: the Kerr–Newman–(anti-)de Sitter black holes, the Emperan–Reall black rings, the Kaluza–Klein solutions of Rasheed, and the Birmingham family of metrics. Chapters 6 and 7 present the construction of conformal and projective diagrams, which play a key role in understanding the global structure of spacetimes obtained by piecing together metrics which, initially, are expressed in local coordinates. Chapter 8 presents an overview of known dynamical black-hole solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations.

Organic electronics is a platform for very low cost and high performance optoelectronic and electronic devices that cover large areas, are lightweight, and can be both flexible and conformable to irregularly shaped surfaces such as foldable smart phones. Organics are at the core of the global organic light emitting device (OLED) display industry, and also having use in efficient lighting sources, solar cells, and thin film transistors useful in medical and a range of other sensing, memory and logic applications. This book introduces the theoretical foundations and practical realization of devices in organic electronics. It is a product of both one and two semester courses that have been taught over a period of more than two decades. The target audiences are students at all levels of graduate studies, highly motivated senior undergraduates, and practicing engineers and scientists. The book is divided into two sections. Part I, Foundations, lays down the fundamental principles of the field of organic electronics. It is assumed that the reader has an elementary knowledge of quantum mechanics, and electricity and magnetism. Background knowledge of organic chemistry is not required. Part II, Applications, focuses on organic electronic devices. It begins with a discussion of organic thin film deposition and patterning, followed by chapters on organic light emitters, detectors, and thin film transistors. The last chapter describes several devices and phenomena that are not covered in the previous chapters, since they lie outside of the current mainstream of the field, but are nevertheless important.

This book was written by the working physicists for students and teachers of physics faculties of universities. Its contents correspond roughly to the corresponding course in the textbooks Mechanics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz (1976) and Classical Mechanics by H. Goldstein, Ch. Poole, and J. Safko (2000). As a rule, the given solution of a problem is not finished with obtaining the required formulae. It is necessary to analyse the results, and this is of great interest and by no means a mechanical part of the solution. The authors consider classical mechanics as the first chapter of theoretical physics; the methods and ideas developed in this chapter are literally important for all other sections of theoretical physics. Thus, the authors have indicated wherever this does not require additional amplification, the analogy or points of contact with the problems in quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, or statistical mechanics. The first English edition of this book was published by Pergamon Press in 1971 with the invaluable help by the translation editor D. ter Haar. This second English publication is based on the fourth Russian edition of 2010 as well as the problems added in the publications in Spanish and French. As a result, this book contains 357 problems instead of the 289 problems that appeared in the first English edition.

In Search of a Theory of Everything takes readers on an adventurous journey through space and time on a quest for a unified “theory of everything” by means of a rare and agile interplay between the natural philosophies of influential ancient Greek thinkers and the laws of modern physics. By narrating a history and a philosophy of science, theoretical physicist Demetris Nicolaides logically connects great feats of critical mind and unbridled human imagination in their ambitious quest for the theory that will ultimately explain all the phenomena of nature via a single immutable overarching law. This comparative study of the universe tells the story of physics through philosophy, of the current via the forgotten, in a balanced way. Nicolaides begins each chapter with a relatively easier analysis of nature—one conceived by a major natural philosopher of antiquity—easing readers gradually into the more complex views of modern physics, by intertwining finely the two, the ancient with the new. Those philosophers’ rigorous scientific inquiry of the universe includes ideas that resonate with aspects of modern science, puzzles about nature that still baffle, and clever philosophical arguments that are used today to reassess competing principles of modern physics and speculate about open physics problems. In Search of a Theory of Everything is a new kind of sight, a philosophical insight of modern physics that has long been left unexamined.

This book, based on the life and work of Joanne (Gerould) Simpson (1923–2010), charts the history of women in meteorology and the history of tropical meteorology in the context of her long and productive career as pioneer scientist, project leader, and mentor. In 1943 women had no status in meteorology, tropical weather was largely aer incognita, and Joanne Gerould, a new graduate student at the University of Chicago, had just set her sights on understanding the behavior of clouds. Establishing her career in an era of overwhelming marginalization of women in science was no easy matter, and Joanne (who published under three married names and raised three children) had to fight every step of the way. Under the mentorship of Herbert Riehl, she received a PhD degree from Chicago in 1949. Later, while working at Woods Hole, she collaborated with Riehl on their revolutionary and controversial “hot tower” hypothesis that cumulonimbus clouds were the driving force in the tropical atmosphere, providing energy to power the Hadley circulation, the trade winds, and by implication, the global circulation. The mechanism of hot towers alludes to the incessant battle between buoyancy and entrainment in tropical convection, valorizing those clouds that successfully break through the trade wind inversion to soar to the top of the troposphere. The metaphor of hot towers points to the incessant battles Joanne waged between her sky-high aspirations and the dark psychological and institutional forces dragging her down. Yet she prevailed, reaching the pinnacle of personal and professional accomplishment, especially in her years at NASA, as she conditioned the atmosphere for further breakthroughs for women in science. She is best remembered as a pioneer woman scientist, the best tropical scientist of her generation.

This book describes some of the important equations of materials and the scientists who derived them. It is aimed at anyone interested in the manufacture, structure, properties and engineering application of materials such as metals, polymers, ceramics, semiconductors and composites. It is meant to be readable and enjoyable, a primer rather than a textbook, covering only a limited number of topics and not trying to be comprehensive. It is pitched at the level of a final year school student or a first year undergraduate who has been studying the physical sciences and is thinking of specialising into materials science and/or materials engineering, but it should also appeal to many other scientists at other stages of their career. It requires a working knowledge of school maths, mainly algebra and simple calculus, but nothing more complex. It is dedicated to a number of propositions, as follows: 1. The most important equations are often simple and easily explained; 2. The most important equations are often experimental, confirmed time and again; 3. The most important equations have been derived by remarkable scientists who lived interesting lives. Each chapter covers a single equation and materials subject. Each chapter is structured in three sections: first, a description of the equation itself; second, a short biography of the scientist after whom it is named; and third, a discussion of some of the ramifications and applications of the equation. The biographical sections intertwine the personal and professional life of the scientist with contemporary political and scientific developments. The topics included are: Bravais lattices and crystals; Bragg’s law and diffraction; the Gibbs phase rule and phases; Boltzmann’s equation and thermodynamics; the Arrhenius equation and reactions; the Gibbs-Thomson equation and surfaces; Fick’s laws and diffusion; the Scheil equation and solidification; the Avrami equation and phase transformations; Hooke’s law and elasticity; the Burgers vector and plasticity; Griffith’s equation and fracture; and the Fermi level and electrical properties.

Continuum mechanics of Solids presents a unified treatment of the major concepts in Solid Mechanics for beginning graduate students in the many branches of engineering. The fundamental topics of kinematics in finite and infinitesimal deformation, mechanical and thermodynamic balances plus entropy imbalance in the small strain setting are covered as they apply to all solids. The major material models of Elasticity, Viscoelasticity, and Plasticity are detailed and models for Fracture and Fatigue are discussed. In addition to these topics in Solid Mechanics, because of the growing need for engineering students to have a knowledge of the coupled multi-physics response of materials in modern technologies related to the environment and energy, the book also includes chapters on Thermoelasticity, Chemoelasticity, Poroelasticity, and Piezoelectricity. A preview to the theory of finite elasticity and elastomeric materials is also given. Throughout, example computations are presented to highlight how the developed theories may be applied.

The book contains a comprehensive account of the theory and application of neutron scattering for the study of the structure and dynamics of condensed matter. All the principal experimental techniques available at national and international neutron scattering facilities are covered. The formal theory is presented, and used to show how neutron scattering measurements give direct access to a variety of correlation and response functions which characterize the equilibrium properties of bulk matter. The determination of atomic arrangements and magnetic structures by neutron diffraction and neutron optical methods is described, including single-crystal and powder diffraction, diffuse scattering from disordered structures, total scattering, small-angle scattering, reflectometry, and imaging. The principles behind the main neutron spectroscopic techniques are explained, including continuous and time-of-flight inelastic scattering, quasielastic scattering, spin-echo spectroscopy, and Compton scattering. The scattering cross-sections for atomic vibrations in solids, diffusive motion in atomic and molecular fluids, and single-atom and cooperative magnetic excitations are calculated. A detailed account of neutron polarization analysis is given, together with examples of how polarized neutrons can be exploited to obtain information about structural and magnetic correlations which cannot be obtained by other methods. Alongside the theoretical aspects, the book also describes the essential practical information needed to perform experiments and to analyse and interpret the data. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter to consolidate and enhance understanding of the material, and a summary of relevant results from mathematics, quantum mechanics, and linear response theory, is given in the appendices.

The book describes the fundamentals of particle detectors in their different forms as well as their applications, presenting the abundant material as clearly as possible and as deeply as needed for a thorough understanding. The target group for the book are both, students who want to get an introduction or wish to deepen their knowledge on the subject as well as lecturers and researchers who intend to extent their expertise. The book is also suited as a preparation for instrumental work in nuclear, particle and astroparticle physics and in many other fields (addressed in chapter 2). The detection of elementary particles, nuclei and high-energetic electromagnetic radiation, in this book commonly designated as ‘particles’, proceeds through interactions of the particles with matter. A detector records signals originating from the interactions occurring in or near the detector and (in general) feeds them into an electronic data acquisition system. The book describes the various steps in this process, beginning with the relevant interactions with matter, then proceeding to their exploitation for different detector types like tracking detectors, detectors for particle identification, detectors for energy measurements, detectors in astroparticle experiments, and ending with a discussion of signal processing and data acquisition. Besides the introductory and overview chapters (chapters 1 and 2), the book is divided into five subject areas: – fundamentals (chapters 3 to 5), – detection of tracks of charged particles (chapters 6 to 9), – phenomena and methods mainly applied for particle identification (chapters 10 to 14), – energy measurement (accelerator and non-accelerator experiments) (chapters 15, 16), – electronics and data acquisition (chapters 17 and 18). Comprehensive lists of literature, keywords and abbreviations can be found at the end of the book.

The author visits one of the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational- Wave Observatory (LIGO) sites in the United States, at Hanford, Washington. This is where scientists are detecting gravitational waves generated by faraway merging black holes and neutron stars. He meets the people who work there and has discussions with some of them. The director gives him a tour of the LIGO experimental installation, describing the work, the technological details of the apparatus, and answers his questions. On the final day of the visit, the author gives a talk to the LIGO group on gravitational waves and on an alternative gravitational theory.