What could quantum mechanics have in common with the philosophical musings of the ancient Greeks? In our age of multimillion-dollar supercolliders, it's hard to imagine that modern physics owes anything to thinkers who predate Descartes. But French physicists Etienne Klein and March Lachieze-Rey see an unbroken thread running from antiquity to the present--an ongoing search, throughout the history of science, for unity. In The Search for Unity the authors reveal how the quest for the One has driven all the great breakthroughs in science. They show how the Greeks searched for the fundamental element in all things; how Galileo unified the earth with the heavens, by discovering valleys and mountains on the moon; and how Newton created a single theory to describe the motion of the celestial bodies. With unequaled clarity, they explore the work of the most famous unifier of all, Albert Einstein, who melded space and time into a combined space-time concept, and then embarked on an unsuccessful search for a single theory to explain all the physical laws of the universe. Throughout the book, the authors stress the esthetic motives of scientists, how they recognize truth through apprehension of mathematical beauty. And in tracing the quest for unity up to the present day, they illuminate the bizarre workings of quantum mechanics and the sticky definition of reality itself at the subatomic level. A grand unification of all interactions still awaits discovery--but as Klein and Lachieze-Rey show, the search itself is as fascinating as the end result may ever be.

The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics

Science & Math

Klein, Étienne

Lachièze-Rey, Marc

Reisinger, Axel

History & Philosophy

Oxford University Press

This book delivers a quantitative account of cosmology, designed for a nonspecialist audience. The author outlines basic principles using simple math and physics, but still provides rigorous models of the universe. He offers an ideal introduction to the key ideas in cosmology, without going into technical details. The approach used is based on the fundamental ideas of general relativity, such as the spacetime interval, comoving coordinates, and spacetime curvature. The book provides an up-to-date and thoughtful discussion of the Big Bang and the crucial questions of structure and galaxy formation. The author also briefly discusses questions of method and philosophical approaches in cosmology. Advanced undergraduates in either physics or mathematics will benefit greatly from this book, either as a course text or as a supplementary guide to cosmology courses.

Cosmology: A First Course

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Cambridge University Press

This book delivers a quantitative account of cosmology, designed for a nonspecialist audience. The author outlines basic principles using simple math and physics, but still provides rigorous models of the universe. He offers an ideal introduction to the key ideas in cosmology, without going into technical details. The approach used is based on the fundamental ideas of general relativity, such as the spacetime interval, comoving coordinates, and spacetime curvature. The book provides an up-to-date and thoughtful discussion of the Big Bang and the crucial questions of structure and galaxy formation. The author also briefly discusses questions of method and philosophical approaches in cosmology. Advanced undergraduates in either physics or mathematics will benefit greatly from this book, either as a course text or as a supplementary guide to cosmology courses.

The Cosmological Background Radiation

This book provides an introduction to the physics, astrophysics and cosmology of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Adopting the Standard Big Bang model of the universe, the authors cover topics including the origin of the background, intrinsic fluctuations, and the universe and background radiation after recombination. Finally they present measurement of the radiation and its anisotropies, along with a review of the current status of results and experiments. The authors assume the reader has a basic understanding of the central concepts of general relativity, but they avoid complex mathematical proofs and manipulations, preferring instead to concentrate on the information needed by hands-on cosmologists and astrophysicists. In this first edition in the English language, the authors have completely revised the text of the French edition. The level is ideally suited to final-year undergraduates in physics or astronomy.

Gunzig, Edgard

Throughout history, the mysterious dark skies have inspired our imaginations in countless ways, influencing our endeavors in science and philosophy, religion, literature, and art. Filled with 380 full-color illustrations, Celestial Treasury shows the influence of astronomical theories and the richness of illustrations in Western civilization through the ages. The authors explore the evolution of our understanding of astronomy and weave together ancient and modern theories in a fascinating narrative. They incorporate a wealth of detail from Greek verse, medieval manuscripts and Victorian poetry with contemporary spacecraft photographs and computer-generated star charts. Celestial Treasury is more than a beautiful book: it answers a variety of questions that have intrigued scientists and laymen for centuries. 
<li> How did philosophers and scientists try to explain the order that governs celestial motion? </li>
<li> How did geometers and artists measure and map the skies? </li>
<li> How many different answers have been proposed for the most fundamental of all questions: When and how did Earth come about? </li>
<li> Who inhabits the heavens--gods, angels or extraterrestrials? No other book recounts humankind's fascination with the heavens as compellingly as Celestial Treasury. Marc Lachièze-Rey is a director of research at the Centre National pour la Récherche Scientifique and astrophysicist at the Centre d'Etudes de Saclay. He is the author of The Cosmic Background Radiation (Cambridge, 1999), and and The Quest for Unity, (Oxford, 1999 ), as well as many books in French. Jean-Pierre Luminet is a research director of the Centre National pour la Rechérche Scientifique, based at the Paris-Meudon observatory. He is the author of Black Holes, (Cambridge 1992), as well as science documentaries for television.</li>

Celestial Treasury: From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space

Luminet, Jean-Pierre

Astronomy & Space Science

Atlas of Islamic History

This Atlas provides the main outlines of Islamic history from the immediate pre-Islamic period until the end of 1920, that is, before most parts of the Muslim world became sovereign nation states. Each map is accompanied by a text that contextualises, explains, and expands upon the map, and are fully cross-referenced. All of the maps are in full colour: 18 of them are double-page spreads, and 25 are single page layouts. This is an atlas of Islamic, not simply Arab or Middle Eastern history; hence it covers the entire Muslim world, including Spain, North, West and East Africa, the Indian sub-continent, Central Asia and South-East Asia. The maps are not static, in that they show transitions within the historical period to which they refer: for instance, the stages of the three contemporaneous Umayyad, Fatimid and ‘Abbasid caliphates on Map 10, or the progress of the Mongol invasions and the formation of the various separate Mongol khanates between 1200 and 1300 on Map 21. Using the most up to date cartographic and innovative design techniques, the maps break new ground in illuminating the history of Islam. Brought right up to date with the addition of a Postscript detailing The Islamic World since c.1900, a Chronology from 500 BCE to 2014, and additional endpaper maps illustrating The Spread of Islam through the Ages and The Islamic World in the 21st Century, the Atlas of Islamic History is an essential reference work and an invaluable textbook for undergraduates studying Islamic history, as well as those with an interest in Asian History, Middle East History and World History more broadly.

A dramatic photographic tour of the universe. 
 The observable universe contains some hundred billion galaxies -- each one made up of as many stars. Of the vast billions of stars, only a scant 5,000 are actually visible from Earth with the naked eye. 
 Over the last twenty years, space probes and space-based telescopes have released us from the confines of Earth and catapulted us into the open reaches of space to capture worlds beyond our own. 
 Cosmos showcases magnificent celestial objects of unparalleled beauty, gathering the most dramatic images of the night sky - from close planets and our sun to the most remote galaxies. It features the latest images from space from sources including Hubble, NASA and the European Space Agency. 
 The light of some stars and galaxies take several billion years to reach to us. In fact some of the blazing stars featured in Cosmos are already dead. This remarkable voyage shows frozen and fiery worlds of stars and galaxies as they are created and as they are dying. 
 Cosmos is organized into the following chapters:
<ul>
<li>Solar System</li> <li>Scattered Nebulae and Stellar Births</li> <li>Star Clusters</li> <li>Planetary Nebulas</li> <li>Decline and Death of Giant Star</li> <li>Galaxies as Far as the Eye Can See.</li> </ul>
 Cosmos, an inspiring, rare and unobstructed view into the far reaches of space, is for anyone who has ever gazed into the night sky and wondered what was actually out there.

Cosmos

Arditi, Sylvia

Firefly Books

Voyager dans le temps: La physique moderne et la temporalité

SEUIL

La Quête de l'unité: L'aventure de la physique

ALBIN MICHEL

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lachièze-Rey, Marc. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lachièze-Rey, Marc

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lachièze-Rey, Marc. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics

Cosmology: A First Course

Cosmology: A First Course

The Cosmological Background Radiation

The Cosmological Background Radiation

Celestial Treasury: From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space

Celestial Treasury: From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space

Cosmos

Voyager dans le temps: La physique moderne et la temporalité

La Quête de l'unité: L'aventure de la physique