This book is not a textbook or a reference book but is a technical book. It attempts to provide simpler explanations for some strange light "behaviour" than existing theories provide. It describes light behaviour in terms of more tangible concepts without the need for mysterious quantum physics or complicated mathematics. It contains useful general information on the physics of light but only for background. While there is an element of myth busting about this book, I don't believe existing light theories are completely wrongsome are just incomplete or based on misinterpretations of observations. Current light theory has been good enough to help us understand what we see from the edges the universe down to almost atomic scales and many levels in between. But the explanation of what light really is and how it does what it does seems incomplete. Will this book explain everything about light, perhaps not! But as you realise the significance of my light ideas on the science of the atom and the universe you may be surprised.

A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s award-winning film, Interstellar, from executive producer and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne. Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system. Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie’s jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne’s scientific insights—many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar—describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible. Interstellar and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s14).

This book provides a thorough introduction to the phenomenology of heavy flavour physics, those working on the B-factories, LHCb, BTeV, HERA and the Tevatron. It explains how heavy quark theory could be implemented on the lattice, and discusses the status of CP-violation in the neutral kaon system.

Quantum mechanics provides the fundamental theoretical apparatus for describing the structure and properties of atoms and molecules in terms of the behaviour of their fundamental components, electrons and nudeL For heavy atoms and molecules containing them, the electrons can move at speeds which represent a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and thus relativity must be taken into account. Relativistic quantum mechanics therefore provides the basic formalism for calculating the properties of heavy-atom systems. The purpose of this book is to provide a detailed description of the application of relativistic quantum mechanics to the many-body prob lem in the theoretical chemistry and physics of heavy and superheavy elements. Recent years have witnessed a continued and growing interest in relativistic quantum chemical methods and the associated computa tional algorithms which facilitate their application. This interest is fu elled by the need to develop robust, yet efficient theoretical approaches, together with efficient algorithms, which can be applied to atoms in the lower part of the Periodic Table and, more particularly, molecules and molecular entities containing such atoms. Such relativistic theories and computational algorithms are an essential ingredient for the description of heavy element chemistry, becoming even more important in the case of superheavy elements. They are destined to become an indispensable tool in the quantum chemist's armoury. Indeed, since relativity influences the structure of every atom in the Periodic Table, relativistic molecular structure methods may replace in many applications the non-relativistic techniques widely used in contemporary research.

The study of N∗s can provide us with critical insights into the nature of QCD in the confinement domain. The keys to progress in this domain are the identification of its important degrees of freedom and the effective forces between them. The nucleon is the simplest system in which the nonabelian character of QCD is manifest. There are Nc quarks in a baryon because there are Nc colors, and as a consequence Gell-Mann and Zweig were forced to introduce the quarks in order to describe the octet and decuplet baryons.This volume gives a status report on the recent experimental and theoretical results in the field of nucleon resonance physics. A wealth of new high precision data was presented from facilities around the world, such as BES, BNL, ELSA, GRAAL, JLab, MAMI, MIT/Bates, SPring8, and Yerevan. Particular emphasis was laid on polarization degrees of freedom and large acceptance detectors as precision tools for studying small but important transition amplitudes, and the helicity (spin) structure of the nucleon. There were new results describing the nucleon resonance structure on the basis of quantum chromodynamics, either directly in terms of quarks and gluons by means of lattice gauge theory, or in terms of hadrons in the framework of chiral field theories. A status report on duality showed the surprising connections between the physics of the low energy nucleon resonance region and the realm of quark structure functions in deep inelastic scattering. Finally, this volume contains a summary report of the BRAG workshop, devoted to the analysis of baryon resonances.

The highly positive affirmation and wide reception that this book continues to receive from professors and students ahke is the occasion for this 7th edition. Once again we have included a number of valuable suggestions for improvements, which we address as appropriate. In addition, we refer to a number of developments in atomic physics. Of these new developments in regard to exotic atoms, we mention antihydrogen in par ticular, because fundamental experiments in matter and antimatter can be expected in the future. Furthermore, we have inserted a chapter on the behaviour of atoms in strong elec trical fields. Experiments with corresponding lasers could only recently be realized. We thank our Jenaer colleague, R. Sauerbrey, for his contribution of this chapter. We have also included a new chapter on the behaviour of the hydrogen atom in strong magnetic fields. The results are of profound interest for two very different fields of physics: on the one hand, according to classical physics, one expects chaotic behaviour from Rydberg atoms in magnetic fields that can be created in the laborato ry; thus, an association can be drawn to aspects of chaos theory and the problems of quantum chaos. On the other hand, the very strong fields necessary for low quantum numbers are realized in the cosmos, in particular with white dwarfs and neutron stars.