The Cosmic Code-Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature

by Heinz R. Pagels

1982

Description

This is one of the most important books on quantum mechanics ever written for general readers, in which an eminent physicist discusses and explains the core concepts of physics without resorting to complicated mathematics. "Can be read by anyone. I heartily recommend it!" -- New York Times Book Review. 1982 edition.

Library's review

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Part I-The road to quantum reality
1 The last classical physicist
2 Inventing general relativity
3 The first quantum physicists
4 Heisenberg on Halgoland
5 Uncertainty and complementarity
6 Randomness
7 The invisible hand
8 Statistical mechanics
9 Making waves
10 Shrodinger's

cat
11 A quantum mechnical fairy tale
12 Bell's inequality
13 The reality marketplace
Part II-The voyage into matter
1 The matter microscopes
2 Beginning the voyage: molecules, atoms, and nuclei
3 The riddle of the hadrons
4 Quarks
5 Leptons
6 Gluons
7 Fields, particles, and reality
8 Being and nothingness
9 Identity and difference
10 The gauge field theory revolution
11 Proton decay
12 The quantum and the cosmos
Part III-the cosmic code
1 Laying down the law
2 The cosmic code
Bibliography
Index

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