A groundbreaking textbook on twenty-first-century statistical physics and its applications Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford’s monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Statistical Physics is an essential introduction that is different from others on the subject because of its unique approach, which is coordinate-independent and geometric; embraces and elucidates the close quantum-classical connection and the relativistic and Newtonian domains; and demonstrates the power of statistical techniques—particularly statistical mechanics—by presenting applications not only to the usual kinds of things, such as gases, liquids, solids, and magnetic materials, but also to a much wider range of phenomena, including black holes, the universe, information and communication, and signal processing amid noise. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional “Track 2” sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter, half-semester, or full-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology.

"Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford's monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Relativity and Cosmology is an essential introduction to the subject, including remarkable recent advances. Written by award-winning physicists who have made fundamental contributions to the field and taught it for decades, the book differs from most others on the subject in important ways. It highlights recent transformations in our understanding of black holes, gravitational waves, and the cosmos; it emphasizes the physical interpretation of general relativity in terms of measurements made by observers; it explains the physics of the Riemann tensor in terms of tidal forces, differential frame dragging, and associated field lines; it presents an astrophysically oriented description of spinning black holes; it gives a detailed analysis of an incoming gravitational wave's interaction with a detector such as LIGO; and it provides a comprehensive, in-depth account of the universe's evolution, from its earliest moments to the present. While the book is designed to be used for a one-quarter or full-semester course, it goes deep enough to provide a foundation for understanding and participating in some areas of cutting-edge research. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional "Track 2" sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter or one-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology." --

A groundbreaking textbook on twenty-first-century general relativity and cosmology Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford’s monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Relativity and Cosmology is an essential introduction to the subject, including remarkable recent advances. Written by award-winning physicists who have made fundamental contributions to the field and taught it for decades, the book differs from most others on the subject in important ways. It highlights recent transformations in our understanding of black holes, gravitational waves, and the cosmos; it emphasizes the physical interpretation of general relativity in terms of measurements made by observers; it explains the physics of the Riemann tensor in terms of tidal forces, differential frame dragging, and associated field lines; it presents an astrophysically oriented description of spinning black holes; it gives a detailed analysis of an incoming gravitational wave’s interaction with a detector such as LIGO; and it provides a comprehensive, in-depth account of the universe’s evolution, from its earliest moments to the present. While the book is designed to be used for a one-quarter or full-semester course, it goes deep enough to provide a foundation for understanding and participating in some areas of cutting-edge research. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional “Track 2” sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter or one-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology.

A groundbreaking textbook on twenty-first-century waves of all sorts and their applications Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford’s monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Optics is an essential introduction to a resurgent subject. “Optics” originally referred to the study of light, but today the field encompasses all types of waves, including electromagnetic waves, from gamma rays to radio waves; gravitational waves; waves in solids, fluids, and plasmas; and quantum waves. The past few decades have seen revolutions in optics—amazing advances in nonlinear optics technology, a growing understanding of optical phenomena throughout the natural world, and an increasing appreciation of the wide-ranging applicability of optics’ central principles. Optics shows how and why this subject—which was once a standard part of physics curricula—should again be routinely taught to physics students, as well as to students in engineering, computer science, and the natural sciences. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional “Track 2” sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter, half-semester, or full-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology.

"Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford's monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Statistical Physics is an essential introduction that is different from others on the subject because of its unique approach, which is coordinate-independent and geometric; embraces and elucidates the close quantum-classical connection and the relativistic and Newtonian domains; and demonstrates the power of statistical techniques--particularly statistical mechanics--by presenting applications not only to the usual kinds of things, such as gases, liquids, solids, and magnetic materials, but also to a much wider range of phenomena, including black holes, the universe, information and communication, and signal processing amid noise. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional "Track 2" sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter, half-semester, or full-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology." --Amazon.com.

A groundbreaking text and reference book on twenty-first-century classical physics and its applications This first-year graduate-level text and reference book covers the fundamental concepts and twenty-first-century applications of six major areas of classical physics that every masters- or PhD-level physicist should be exposed to, but often isn't: statistical physics, optics (waves of all sorts), elastodynamics, fluid mechanics, plasma physics, and special and general relativity and cosmology. Growing out of a full-year course that the eminent researchers Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford taught at Caltech for almost three decades, this book is designed to broaden the training of physicists. Its six main topical sections are also designed so they can be used in separate courses, and the book provides an invaluable reference for researchers. Presents all the major fields of classical physics except three prerequisites: classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and elementary thermodynamics Elucidates the interconnections between diverse fields and explains their shared concepts and tools Focuses on fundamental concepts and modern, real-world applications Takes applications from fundamental, experimental, and applied physics; astrophysics and cosmology; geophysics, oceanography, and meteorology; biophysics and chemical physics; engineering and optical science and technology; and information science and technology Emphasizes the quantum roots of classical physics and how to use quantum techniques to elucidate classical concepts or simplify classical calculations Features hundreds of color figures, some five hundred exercises, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index An online illustration package is available

Nuclear Physics is concerned primarily with low-energy nuclear physics rather than high-energy or elementary particle physics, although examples from particle physics are used where appropriate. The Fermi Golden Rule is given emphasis throughout. This text consists of six chapters and begins with an introduction to nuclear physics, followed by a discussion on nuclear structure at a fairly basic level. This book also discusses the nuclear periodic table, radioactivity, and unstable nuclear states as well as nuclear mass and nuclear binding energy. Spin and static electric and magnetic moments are then examined from the perspective of quantum mechanics rather than through the vector model of angular momentum. Quantum mechanics is also used to treat nuclear decay in the next chapter. The theory of nuclear reactions is discussed by highlighting the concepts of cross-section and resonance. The penultimate chapter deals with self-sustaining nuclear reactions, with particular reference to the nuclear physics of fission reactors and the nuclear aspects of stellar physics. This chapter ends with the application of the theory of thermonuclear reactions to the design of a thermonuclear power plant. The final chapter is devoted to charge independence and isospin in low-energy nuclear physics.

Some Aspects of Vacuum Ultraviolet Radiation Physics presents some data on the state of research in vacuum ultraviolet radiation in association with areas of physics. Organized into four parts, this book begins by elucidating the optical properties of solids in the vacuum ultraviolet region (v.u.v.), particularly the specific methods of determination of optical constants in v.u.v., the properties of metals, and those of ionic insulators. Part II deals with molecular spectroscopy, with emphasis on the spectra of diatomic and simple polyatomic molecules, paraffins, and condensed phases. Part III focuses on some aspects of emission spectroscopy in the v.u.v. in relation to laboratory plasmas. The last part describes the image formation by concave gratings, spectrophotometry, and diffusion by surfaces. This book will be very valuable to physicist and graduate students inclined to this field of interest.

Lectures on Solid State Physics is a compilation of lectures concerned with various branches of solid state physics. It aims to develop basic physical ideas that lead to a better understanding of phenomena and effects. Comprised of 11 chapters, this book discusses several topics on solid state physics: structure of solids; interference effects in crystals; lattice dynamics; perfect and imperfect crystals; electrons and electron theory of metals; semiconductors; electrical contact effects; transport phenomena, and magnetism. Students, physics graduates, electrical engineers, chemists, and metallurgists will find this book invaluable.

Plasma Electrodynamics, Volume 1: Linear Theory is a seven-chapter book that begins with a description of the general methods of describing plasma, particularly, kinetic and hydrodynamic methods. Chapter 2 discusses the linear theory of magneto-hydrodynamic waves. Chapter 3 describes the non-linear magneto-hydrodynamic waves, both simple waves and shock waves. Subsequent chapters explain the high-frequency oscillations in an unmagnetized plasma; oscillations of a plasma in a magnetic field; and interaction between charged particle beams and a plasma. The last chapter details the oscillations of a partially ionized plasma.