Showing results for "Physics, Structure, and Reality" in All Categories

Time rules our lives, woven into the very fabric of the universe-from the rising and setting of the sun to the cycles of nature, the thought processes in our brains, and the biorhythms in our day. Nothing so pervades our existence and yet is so difficult to explain. But now, in a series of 24 riveting lectures, you can grasp exactly why - as you take a mind-expanding journey through the past, present, and future, guided by a noted author and scientist.

Would you like to know how the universe works? Scientists have been asking that question for a long time and have found that many of the answers can be found in the study of particle physics, the field that focuses on those impossibly tiny particles with unbelievably strange names - the hadrons and leptons, baryons and mesons, muons and gluons - so mystifying to the rest of us.

In this 24-lesson course aimed at non-scientists, noted particle physicist Dr. Don Lincoln of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory covers more than a century of progress in physics, describing exactly how scientists reach the conclusions they do. He starts with the atom, which was long hypothesized but wasn’t definitively proven until a paper by Albert Einstein in 1905. That was just the beginning, as researchers probed ever deeper into the atom’s complex structure, leading to the weird findings of quantum mechanics.

Shining a light on the most profound insights revealed by modern physics, Jim Al-Khalili invites us all to understand what this crucially important science tells us about the universe and the nature of reality itself. Al-Khalili begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of space, time, energy, and matter, and then describes the three pillars of modern physics - quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics - showing how all three must come together if we are ever to have a full understanding of reality.

Mona is a smart girl and figured everything out a long time ago. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. When your parents are uber-celebrities and you graduate from high school at 15, finish college at 18, and start your PhD program at 19, you don’t have time for distractions outside of your foci. Even fun is scheduled. Which is why Abram, her brother’s best friend, is such an irritant. Abram is a talented guy, a supremely gifted musician, and has absolutely nothing figured out, nor does he seem to care.