Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics

This clearly written and beautifully illustrated history of 20th century physics is presented in a year-by-year chronicle that brings to life the key physicists and their work leading to the Nobel Prize.

In this richly-illustrated 2004 book the author combines history with real science. Using an original approach he presents the major achievements of twentieth-century physics - for example, relativity, quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, the invention of the transistor and the laser, superconductivity, binary pulsars, and the Bose-Einstein condensate - each as they emerged as the product of the genius of those physicists whose labours, since 1901, have been crowned with a Nobel Prize. Here, in the form of a year-by-year chronicle, biographies and revealing personal anecdotes help bring to life the main events of the past hundred years. The work of the most famous physicists of the twentieth century - great names, like the Curies, Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein, Fermi, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Rutherford, and Schrödinger - is presented, often in the words and imagery of the prize-winners themselves.

1. Introduction; 2. Founding fathers; 3. Highlights of classical physics; Part I. The Triumphs of Modern Physics (1901–50): 4. New foundations; 5. The quantum atom; 6. The golden years; 7. The thirties; 8. The nuclear age; Part II. New Frontiers (1951–2003): 9. Wave of inventions; 10. New vistas on the cosmos; 11. The small, the large - the complex; 12. Big physics - small physics; 13. New trends.

In this richly-illustrated 2004 book the author combines history with science. Using an original approach he presents the major achievements of twentieth-century physics as they emerged as the product of the genius of those physicists whose labours, since 1901, have been crowned with a Nobel Prize.