Introduction To Modern Physics: Theoretical Foundations

Our understanding of the physical world was revolutionized in the twentieth century the era of modern physics''. This book, aimed at the very best students, presents the foundations and frontiers of today's physics. It focuses on the following topics: quantum mechanics; applications in atomic, nuclear, particle, and condensed-matter physics; special relativity; relativistic quantum mechanics, including the Dirac equation and Feynman diagrams; quantum fields; and general relativity. The aim is to cover these topics in sufficient depth such that things make sense'' to students and they can achieve an elementary working knowledge of them. Many problems are included, a great number of which take dedicated readers just as far as they want to go in modern physics. Although the book is designed so that one can, in principle, read and follow the text without doing any of the problems, the reader is urged to attempt as many of them as possible. Several appendices help bring the reader up to speed on any additional required mathematics. With very few exceptions, the reader should then find the text, together with the appendices and problems, to be self-contained. Contents: Classical Physics; Some Contradictions; Quantum Mechanics; Atomic Physics; Nuclear Physics; Particle Physics; Special Relativity; Relativistic Quantum Mechanics; General Relativity; Quantum Fluids; Quantum Fields; Problems.

John Dirk Walecka obtained his PhD in nuclear theory from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. He was Professor of Physics at Stanford University from 1966 to 1987 and then went on to become Scientific Director of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) from 1986 to 1992. He is now Governor's Distinguished CEBAF Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary. His research interests cover theoretical nuclear and sub-nuclear physics, in particular nuclear structure, the relativistic nuclear many-body problem, strong-coupling QCD, and electroweak interactions with nuclei. He has published numerous papers on nuclear physics, and in 1996 the American Physical Society recognized his work with the award of the Bonner Prize. He has lectured on electron scattering throughout the United States and Europe.