The golden age of theoretical physics

Jagdish Mehra9789810249847, 9810249845, 9810243421, 9810249853

Table of contents :
Contents……Page 10
Foreword……Page 12
A Personal Introduction……Page 14
1. Albert Einstein’s ‘First’ Paper……Page 21
Letter to Casar Koch……Page 28
Concerning the Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields……Page 29
Notes and References……Page 31
Mein lieber Onkel!……Page 35
Uber die Untersuchung des Aetherzustandes im magnetischen Felde……Page 36
1. The Early Work of Robert Gustav Kirchhoff……Page 39
2. Towards the Derivation of Wien’s Law……Page 41
3. Planck’s Work on Irreversible Radiation Processes……Page 50
4. Planck’s Radiation Law……Page 51
5. The Significance of the Constants in Planck’s Law……Page 59
References……Page 73
1. The Birth of the Concept of Zero-Point Energy……Page 76
2. Does the Zero-Point Energy Really Exist?……Page 86
3. Calculations without Zero-Point Energy: Ehrenfest……Page 89
References……Page 102
1. A Letter from Lord Rayleigh……Page 114
2. Brief Sketch of Gibbs’ Life……Page 115
3. The Scientific Work of Josiah Willard Gibbs……Page 117
4. Fundaments of Thermodynamics……Page 119
5. The Writing of the Elementary Principles……Page 123
6. Einstein and Statistical Thermodynamics……Page 127
7. Ehrenfest Contra Gibbs……Page 129
References……Page 132
1. Introduction……Page 143
2. Mechanical Explanation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics……Page 144
3. The Foundation of Thermodynamics……Page 151
4. The General Molecular Theory of Heat……Page 157
5. Earlier Work on the Statistical Foundation of Thermodynamics……Page 161
6. Boltzmann, Gibbs and Einstein……Page 165
References……Page 170
1. Introduction……Page 173
2. Smoluchowski’s Interest in Fluctuation Phenomena……Page 175
3. Einstein and Radiation Fluctuations……Page 177
4. The Brownian Motion……Page 179
5. Einstein and the Consequences from the Molecular-Kinetic Theory……Page 181
6. Smoluchowski’s Theory of Brownian Motion……Page 195
7. The Proofs of Molecular Reality……Page 201
8. The Fluctuations and Opalescence……Page 206
9. Experimental Tests……Page 215
Appendix……Page 216
References and Notes……Page 222
Historical Preliminaries……Page 230
Lorentz, Larmor and Planck……Page 235
Henri Poincare……Page 239
Albert Einstein……Page 242
Einstein, Poincare and Lorentz……Page 244
8. The Historical Origins of the General Theory of Relativity……Page 249
1. Introduction……Page 250
2. Steps Towards a New Theory of Gravitation……Page 251
3. Physics and Geometry……Page 266
4. Completion of the Theory of Gravitation……Page 281
5. Physical Interpretation of General Covariance……Page 290
6. Hamilton’s Principle and the Conservation Laws……Page 293
7. General Covariance and Conservation Laws……Page 297
8. Extension of General Relativity……Page 302
9. ‘Ein Bleibender Kern – an Enduring Core……Page 305
References and Notes……Page 308
9. Albert Einstein and the Origin of Light-Quantum Theory……Page 346
References……Page 368
10. Niels Bohr and the Quantum Theory of the Atom……Page 371
References……Page 390
11. Arnold Sommerfeld and Atoms as Conditionally Periodic Systems……Page 392
References……Page 422
12. The Gottingen Tradition of Mathematics and Physics……Page 424
References……Page 475
13. The Bohr Festival in Gottingen: Bohr’s Wolfskehl Lectures and the Theory of the Periodic System of Elements……Page 479
References……Page 518
14. Satyendra Nath Bose, Bose-Einstein Statistics, and the Quantum Theory of an Ideal Gas……Page 521
Research Work in Calcutta and Dacca……Page 525
Principal Work……Page 528
Return to Dacca……Page 547
Travel……Page 548
The Inspiration of Bose’s Life……Page 549
References……Page 551
15. Louis de Broglie and the Phase Waves Associated with Matter……Page 566
References……Page 590
16. Wolfgang Pauli and the Discovery of the Exclusion Principle……Page 591
References……Page 603
17. The Discovery of Electron Spin……Page 605
References……Page 630
18. The Discovery of the Fermi-Dirac Statistics……Page 632
1. Symmetry Properties of Wave Functions and Quantum Statistics……Page 642
References……Page 657