This book leapfrogs over the usual pedagogical progression, taking readers to a real understanding of quantum, relativistic, nuclear and particle physics. These areas are usually reserved for the end of one's undergraduate career or even for graduate students in physics programs, but do not need to be. The Scenic Route is really created out of the joy of science; it is not designed to produce problem-solving ability but rather is designed to reveal some physics that is just plain nifty. Guided by an understanding that much of modern physics is available to almost everyone with a moderate mathematical vocabulary, we lead the student through a short, trenchant tour of quantum physics, relativity, modern particle physics and its history.
Contents:
- Symmetry
- Mathematical Symmetries and Newton
- A Symmetry That Is Not
- Groups
- Generators
- Noether's Theorem
- The Quantum Mechanical Robert Frost
- The Central Procedure of Quantum Mechanics
- Your First Quantum Calculation
- Your First Quantum Experiment
- What Heisenberg Didn't Know
- Gauge Invariance
- Where Do the Quanta Come From?
- The Quest for Meaning: Particles and Waves
- The Logos
- Mental Waves
- Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen
- About Spin
- Bell's Theorem: Setting up the Equipment
- Bell's Theorem: Taking the Data
- I Do Not Like It
- If You Do Not Know Who Minkowski Was, What are You Doing in His Space?
- Rotational Symmetries and Matrices
- The Sort-of Rotation
- 299,792,548 Meters per Second — and No More!
- Going Slower by Going Faster
- The Twins
- Momentum in Minkowski Space
- Why E Is in Fact mc2
- Antimatter
- Your First Nuclear Physics Theory: Protons and Neutrons
- Your First Nuclear Physics Theory: Symmetry
- SU(2): A Matrix Group
- Your First Nuclear Physics Theory: Pions
- Your First Particle Physics Theory: The ?
- Your First Particle Physics Theory: Strange Mesons
- The Eightfold Way and Quarks
- Another Symmetry That Is Not
- ?, W, Z, and H
- Bra-Kets
- Two Fermions in a Pod
- The Back of the Book
Readership: Undergraduate students in physics, nuclear engineering, mathematics, or electrical engineering.
Key Features:
- This book takes a different approach from conventional texts to modern physics, guiding the reader through physics principles that are not on the well-trodden pedagogical paths
- These principles are typically reserved for students towards the end of their undergraduate career or even for graduate students. But they do not have to be
- A particular emphasis is placed on the principles of symmetry, one of the central ideas of physics for the past century
- The intent of the coverage of relativity and quantum mechanics is to focus on understanding the "bizarre" aspects of these topics rather than the presentation of solutions to specific common problems
- The coverage of nuclear and particle physics is relatively systematic for a text at this level, as a result of incorporating symmetry principles
