ABC's of Quantum Mechanics /V. Rydnik; translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky

At the turn of the 20th century, physics entered into a new world, the invisible silent world of atoms, atomic nuclei and elementary particles. Our twentieth century then produced the theory that has been serving physicists so faithfully for over sixty years -- quantum mechanics. The landscape of the new world is quire unlike our own. So different that phsyicists frequently lack words to describe it. Quantum mechanics had to create new conceptions for the world of the ultrasmall, bizarre conceptions beyond the scope of pictorial imagery. Customary physical laws cease to operate in the new world. Particles lose their dimensions and acquire the properties of waves. Electrons and the other building stones of matter can pass through impenetrable barriers, or they can vanish altogether leaving only photons in their place. Those are the things quantum mechanics dealt with. This book will tell you about the origin and development of quantum mechanics, about its new concepts. It will describe how the new theory deciphered the secrets of the structure of atoms, molecules, crystals, atomic nulei, and how quantum mechanics is dealing with the problem of the most fundamental of all properties of matter --the interaction of particles and the relationships between fields and matter. Front Cover Title Page Preface Contents From classical mechanics to quantum mechanics In Lieu of an Introduction The Outlines of the New World The Temple of Classical Mechanics The Temple Collapses How the New Theory was Named Physicists Build Models Not Everything Can be Modelled The Invisible, Untouchable World Difficult but Interesting The first steps of .the new theory Heat and Light Blacker than Black Exact Laws, Not Rough Approximations The Ultraviolet Catastrophe Classical Physics at an Impasse The Way out Quanta of Energy The Elusive Quanta An Unaccountable Phenomenon Photons What is Light? The Visiting Cards of Atoms Why do Bodies Emit Light? The Biography of the Atom Written by Niels Bohr From Where do We Reckon the Energy? Excited Atoms The First Setbacks From Bohr's theory to quantum mechanics A Remarkable Article A Little about Ordinary Waves Getting Acquainted with Matter Waves Why Can't We See de Broglie Waves? The Wave is Found Two-Faced Particles Pilot Waves Together or Separately? A Visit to the Shooting Range Waves of Probability Probability Enters into Physics Cautious Predictions Waves of Particles and Particles of Waves On the Way to the Wave Law Measuring Instruments Take over The Uncertainty Relation What is to Blame, the Instrument or the Electron? An Attempt with Rather Faulty Tools Another Marvel The Uncertainty Relation Once Again Matter Waves Again The Wave Function Waves and Quanta are United Atoms, molecules, crystals Clouds in Place of Orbits Monotony in Diversity Another Marvel- But as Yet Unexplained The Atomic Architect at Work Crazy Atoms Atoms and Chemistry The Birth of a Spectrum Fat Lines and Double Lines Atoms Get Married Solid Bodies are Really Solid! Skeletons and Multistorey Structures of Crystals Insulators Can Conduct Current! How Does Current Move in a Metal? Those Wonderful 'Semi-Things' Useful 'Dirt' Generous and Greedy Atoms The interior of the atomic nucleus On the Threshold The First Step The Second Step The Search for the Mysterious Meson The Strongest Forces of All Once Again about the Stability of Nuclei Tunnels in Nuclei Does the Nucleus Consist of Shells? Where do Gamma Rays Come from? The Nucleus as a Liquid Drop? The Liquid-Drop Nucleus Splits The Secrets of Nuclear Fission How Many Nuclei Can There Be? The Nucleus as Shells and Liquid Drop Together! Particles Fly out of the Nucleus that Were Never There! The Electron Has an Accomplice Electrons are Born in Nuclei The Hungry Nucleus From atomic nuclei to elementary particles The Discovery of a New World The Invisible Dividing Line A Bit More about the Theory of Relativity The First Difficulties An Unexpected Discovery A Still More Unexpected Discovery The Birth of a "Hole" The Outlines of Emptiness Complete Emptiness? Emptiness Depends on Bodies! Matter and Fields There is No Emptiness! What the Whales Rest on Particles Change Their Guise The Two-Faced Pi-Meson A Clue to Meson Exchange The Virtual Becomes Real The Kindgdom of Virtualities The Virtual Becomes Real In the Search for New Particles Sorting the Booty Antiparticles Come into Action Particles Disintegrate Physicists Classify Interactions The Mystery of the K-Mesons Is the Left Any Different from the Right? A Way out is Found! Worlds and Antiworlds What Goes on Inside Particles? The Mysterious Resonances The Curtain Rises Resonances Get Citizenship Triplets, Octets - Quarks Old Ideas Hold One Back The Reverse of the Obvious The Ubiquitous Quantum From quantum mechanics to . . ? Indeterminable Dctcrminacies The Biography of Quantum Mechanics Quantum Mechanics Gets Its Second Wind