Readership: Students, researchers in physics, chemistry, engineering and mathematics, science writers and general readers.

How do atoms and electrons behave? Are they just like marbles, basketballs, suns, and planets, but smaller?They are not. Atoms and electrons behave in a fashion quite unlike the familiar marbles, basketballs, suns, and planets. This sophomore-level textbook delves into the counterintuitive, intricate, but ultimately fascinating world of quantum mechanics. Building both physical insight and mathematical technique, it opens up a new world to the discerning reader.After discussing experimental demonstrations showing that atoms behave differently from marbles, the book builds up the phenomena of the quantum world -- quantization, interference, and entanglement -- in the simplest possible system, the qubit. Once the phenomena are introduced, it builds mathematical machinery for describing them. It goes on to generalize those concepts and that machinery to more intricate systems. Special attention is paid to identical particles, the source of considerable student confusion. In the last chapter, students get a taste of what is not treated in the book and are invited to continue exploring quantum mechanics. Problems in the book test both conceptual and technical knowledge, and invite students to develop their own questions.

This unique book provides a clear and lucid description of several aspects of astrophysics and cosmology in a language understandable to a physicist or beginner in astrophysics. It presents the key topics in all branches of astrophysics and cosmology in a simple and concise language. The emphasis is on currently active research areas and exciting new frontiers rather than on more pedantic topics. Many complicated results are introduced with simple, novel derivations which strengthen the conceptual understanding of the subject. The book also contains over one hundred exercises which will help students in their self study.Undergraduate and graduate students in physics and astrophysics as well as all physicists who are interested in obtaining a quick grasp of astrophysical concepts will find this book useful.

The three authors present seven areas of modern physics: lasers, superconductivity, symmetry, chaos, birth and death of stars, particles, cosmology. The emphasis is on understanding of the basic principles, without an overload of technical details. Written in congenial language for the (alert and determined) general reader. Useful as a text for a general survey course. Paper edition (unseen), $28. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A self-contained introduction to the basic theoretical concepts, experimental techniques and recent advances in the fields of quantum communication, quantum information and quantum computation. The introductory and self-contained character of the contributions should make this book particularly attractive to students and active researchers in physics and computer science who want to become acquainted with the underlying basic ideas and recent advances in the rapidly evolving field of quantum information processing.

Bernard Lonergan identified the need and possibility of what he called 'generalized empirical method' in science and philosophy. Implementation will be a future community achievement. The book enters into details of a selection of examples in the sciences and philosophy of science. These are provided not to engage in, or blend the present aim with traditional philosophical debate, but as points of entry to help reveal the possibility and need of balanced empirical method. Taking words of Lonergan: '(Q)uestions of method are practical. So my purpose in these (chapters) is not to demonstrate what is necessary. It is not to forecast what is probable. It is ... to invite you to share in the exploration of a proposal' (Bernard Lonergan, A Third Collection (1985), 114). The main examples are drawn from biochemistry and biology, although heuristics envisioned will include all sciences.

In the letters contained in this book, David Bohm argues that the dominant formal, mathematical approach in physics is seriously flawed. In the 1950s and 60s, Bohm took a direction unheard of for a professor of theoretical physics: while still researching in physics, working among others with Yakir Aharanov and later Jeffrey Bub, he also spent time studying “metaphysics”—such as Hegel’s dialectics and Indian panpsychism. 50 years on, questions raised about the direction and philosophical assumptions of theoretical physics show that Bohm’s arguments still have contemporary relevance.