http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/3729

This volume is a collection of the Nobel lectures delivered by the prizewinners, together with their biographies and the presentation speeches by Nobel Committee members for the period 2006-2010. The criterion for the Physics award is to the discoverer of a physical phenomenon that changed our views, or to the inventor of a new physical process that gave enormous benefits to either science at large or to the public. The biographies are remarkably interesting to read and the Nobel lectures provide detailed explanations of the phenomena for which the Laureates were awarded the Nobel Prize.Aspiring young scientists as well as more experienced ones, but also the interested public will learn a lot from and appreciate the geniuses of these narrations.List of prizewinners and their discoveries:(2006) to John C Mather and George F Smoot “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation” The very detailed observations that the Laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science.(2007) to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg “for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance” Applications of this phenomenon have revolutionized techniques for retrieving data from hard disks. The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors as well as for the development of a new generation of electronics. The use of Giant Magnetoresistance can be regarded as one of the first major applications of nanotechnology.(2008) to Yoichiro Nambu “for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics“, and to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa “for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature” Why is there something instead of nothing? Why are there so many different elementary particles? The Laureates presented theoretical insights that give us a deeper understanding of what happens far inside the tiniest building blocks of matter.(2009) to Charles Kuen Kao “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication“, and to Willard S Boyle and George E Smith “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit — the CCD sensor” Kao's discoveries have paved the way for optical fiber technology, which today is used for almost all telephony and data communication. Boyle and Smith have invented a digital image sensor — CCD, or charge-coupled device — which today has become an electronic eye in almost all areas of photography.(2010) to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene” The Laureates have shown that a thin flake of ordinary carbon, just one atom thick, has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics.

Covering the theory of computation, information and communications, the physical aspects of computation, and the physical limits of computers, this text is based on the notes taken by one of its editors, Tony Hey, on a lecture course on computation given b

“YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote one such fan. When Lewin’s lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.” For more than thirty years as a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,” writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don’t approach like a physicist—yet.” Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions. Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy—arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy—he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes. “For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing—the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute—as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.

Mentioned as the second prize area in his will, Chemistry was the most important science for Alfred Nobel's own work. The development of Nobel's inventions as well as the industrial processes he employed were based upon chemical knowledge. This volume is a collection of the Nobel lectures delivered by the prizewinners, together with their biographies and the presentation speeches for the period 2006 2010. Each Nobel lecture is based on the work for which the laureate was awarded the prize. List of prizewinners and their award citations: (2006) Roger D Kornberg for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription; (2007) Gerhard Ertl for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces; (2008) Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y Tsien for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP; (2009) Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A Steitz and Ada E Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome; (2010) Richard F Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.