And Yet It Moves: Strange Systems and Subtle Questions in Physics

by Mark P. Silverman

• ISBN13: 9780521446310
• ISBN10: 0521446317
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-06-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

How would one explain a simple hollow tube that blows hot air out of one end and cold air out of the other? Or determine if an atomic electron has moved? Or decide if an "anti atom" will fall upward? These mysteries and others are dealt with in this book of beautifully written essays, which convey a largely nonmathematical account of some of the strange behavior, both classical and quantum, exhibited by moving particles, fluids, and waves. Drawn from the author's researches in quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, electromagnetism and optics, gravity, thermodynamics, and the physics of fluids, the essays describe different physical systems whose behavior provokes surprise and challenges the imagination. There are strange processes for which no mechanism can be visualized; processes that seem to violate fundamental physical laws, but which in reality do not; processes that are superficially well understood, yet turn out to be subtly devious.

Table of Contents

Preface: The fire within
The unimaginably strange behaviour of free electrons	p. 1
Variations on 'the only mystery'	p. 1
Electron interference in a space with holes	p. 14
The two-electron quantum interference disappearing act	p. 33
Heretical correlations	p. 43
Quantum beats and giant atoms	p. 64
The light from atomic 'pulsars'	p. 64
Anomalous reversals	p. 79
Quantum implications of travelling in circles	p. 94
Long-distance beats	p. 110
And yet it moves: exotic atoms and the invariance of charge	p. 120
A commotion about motion	p. 120
The electric charge of a moving electron	p. 127
The exotic atom	p. 132
Epilogue: marking time with planetary atoms	p. 138
Reflections on light	p. 140
Exorcising a Maxwell demon	p. 140
Enhanced reflection: how light gets brighter when it is up against a wall	p. 144
Left- and right-handed reflection	p. 163
Two worlds, large and small: Earth and atom	p. 184
The Wirbelrohr's roar (...or rather whistle)	p. 221
Science and wonder	p. 242
Selected papers by the author	p. 252
Index	p. 263
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