A Century of Ideas: Perspectives from Leading Scientists of the 20th Century (Fundamental Theories of Physics Book 149)

Shortly after its inauguration in 1985 the Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, India, started a series of lectures by Nobel Laureates and other scientists of international renown, usually in Physics and Astronomy, sometimes in Life Sciences and Chemistry. The present collection mostly consists of lectures on frontier topics. The transcript of each lecture is preceded by a short biography of the Nobel Laureate/Scientist in question. The lectures are aimed at, and accessible to a wide non-specialist but higher educated audience. Cover......Page 1 A Century of Ideas......Page 2 Fundamental Theories of Physics Volume 149......Page 3 Copyright......Page 5 Preface......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 List of Contributors......Page 11 Fifty Years of Cosmology......Page 12 Science as an Adventure......Page 24 The Early Universe......Page 30 The Long-Term Future of Particle Accelerators......Page 37 Energy and Evolution......Page 52 The Wonders of Pulsars......Page 63 Is the Future Given? Changes in Our Description of Nature......Page 73 Bubbles, Foams and Other Fragile Objects......Page 84 Beyond the Standard Model: Will it be the Theory of Everything?......Page 93 Living Joyfully with Complexity in Chemistry and Culture......Page 107 A Confrontation with Infinity......Page 115 The Creative and Unpredictable Interaction of Science and Technology......Page 128 The Link Between Neutrino Masses and Proton Decay in Supersymmetric Unification......Page 143 The Nature of Discovery in Physics......Page 179 Symmetry in the Micro World – A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner......Page 208 Shortly after its inauguration in 1985 the Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, India, started a series of lectures by Nobel Laureates and other scientists of international renown, mostly on Physics and Astronomy. The present collection mostly consists of lectures on frontier topics. The transcript of each lecture is preceded by a short biography of the Nobel Laureate/Scientist in question. The lectures are aimed at a wide non-specialist but higher educated audience. The BM Birla Science Centre, part of the Birla Group, has blossomed into India's foremost institution for the dissemination of science. This collection consists of lectures on topics in Physics and Astronomy. The transcript of each lecture is preceded by a introduction to, and biography of, the Nobel Laureate/Scientist in question Edited By B.g. Sidharth. Includes Bibliographical References.