By Sebastien Balibar
Where is mankind positioned within the Universe? What is going on inside of atoms? was once Einstein continually correct? can we locate extraterrestrial existence within the close to destiny? And what could be performed approximately worldwide warming? Sébastien Balibar, a number one authority in physics, makes use of illuminating tales from his personal lifestyles to reply to the main fascinating questions within the actual sciences at the present time. The Atom and the Apple considers facets of our environment--the issues we see round us, yet seldom really understand--and indicates that technological know-how might be a thrilling event grounded within the phenomena of the day-by-day world.
Balibar examines twelve difficulties spanning the frontiers of physics, and he devotes a bankruptcy to every factor. He appears to be like at chaos thought, cosmology, fluid mechanics, and climatology. He explains how we stumbled on the age of the Earth, how we all know the Universe is increasing ever extra speedily, and why the spiral styles of pinecones and sunflowers are with regards to the Golden Ratio in arithmetic. He scrutinizes how the collective habit of atoms results in such notable effects as lasers, superconductors, or superfluids. As Balibar invitations us to understand the physics hidden in the points of interest and sounds of the wildlife, he additionally recounts the reports of his formative years and profession that have been pivotal to his lifelong ardour for science.
Written for normal readers, The Atom and the Apple explores interesting elements of our international, and demonstrates why the pursuit of clinical wisdom is easily worthy everyone's time, despite medical history.
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Extra resources for The Atom and the Apple
Sample text
Is 8,000 Bq a lot? How much is “1 bequerel” anyway? Am I in danger? The bequerel is a very small unit that everyone should know about, given how much it’s used with regard to radioactivity, and given how simple it is to understand. Radioactive elements are unstable and undergo reactions described as “nuclear” because they involve the elements’ nuclei. During these reactions, which are spontaneous, the nuclei of “radioactive” atoms disintegrate to form other nuclei in a random manner and after a certain amount of time.
F. Kurie9 noticed that exposing nitrogen to a beam of neutrons could produce radioactive carbon, 14 C. Then, in 1946, Willard Franck Libby had the idea that 14C was constantly produced in the upper atmosphere of the Earth, where the nitrogen of the air is irradiated by the Sun. ” Flying too long at high altitudes, let alone traveling in a spaceship or spending time on the Moon, is therefore dangerous to one’s health. Life didn’t develop on land until the atmosphere contained enough oxygen, and therefore enough ozone (a molecule containing three oxygen atoms), to protect living beings from the Sun.
So Dirac wrote a generalization of Schrödinger’s equation in order to be able to describe the behavior of rapidly moving electrons. Among the solutions of his equation, Dirac found two that corresponded to what he was looking for at the outset. These were electrons whose magnetization—what is called their “spin” in quantum physics—was pointing either up or down. Then, Dirac found something else. His equation contained more than he had put into it at the outset. Another type of particle appeared in his solutions, which Dirac had trouble understanding.