Series of books "Pop Science"

    Hello! We have opened a new series of books “Pop Science” with the following novelties:

    image1. Fear of physics. Spherical horse in a vacuum : the legendary book of Lawrence Krauss has been translated into 12 languages ​​of the world and written for people who have little or no knowledge of physics so that they can defeat their fear of this science. “Fear of Physics” is a lively, direct, respectful and fascinating story about everything from boiling water to the foundations of the universe. The book is filled with funny stories and illustrative examples that allow you to understand the most complex intricacies of modern scientific theories.

    2. The paradox. The nine great mysteries of physics: what is a paradox? This is a phenomenon that, at first glance, seems incomprehensible from a scientific or logical point of view. For centuries, science has been confronted with paradoxes, many of which have significantly advanced it. The paradoxes described by the author of the book, Professor Al-Khalili, relate to physics and astronomy. They baffled many of the greatest thinkers and scientists.
    Can a cat be both alive and dead at the same time? Will Achilles never really overtake a turtle, no matter how fast he runs? How can a person be ten years older than his own twin brother? After reading this book, you will receive true intellectual pleasure and even gain enlightenment!



    Fear of physics. Spherical Horse in a Vacuum
    Posted by Lawrence Krauss


    When someone at the party finds out that I am a physicist, he either immediately changes the subject, or begins to ask me about the Big Bang, other universes, superlight engines, quarks, superconductors, superstrings or supercolliders. Even those who honestly admitted that they did not like physics at school and never regretted it, often listened to stories about mystical phenomena occurring at the forefront of science, as if bewitched. Modern physics deals with the solution of many cosmic problems, which any person thinks in one way or another. However, often physics seems to people to be complex, inaccessible to understanding magic, open only to the initiates, since many studies lie in areas terribly far from their everyday experience.

    But there is a more serious obstacle that prevents many from understanding what modern physics is doing. The physical approach to solving problems and the language used by physicists are not used by most people in everyday life. For observers who are deprived of a special view of the world inherent in physicists, the motley zoo of physical phenomena seems incomprehensible, and often frightening.

    In order to introduce modern physics to the reader in my understanding, I decided not to focus on the description of specific physical theories, but to talk about the tools used by physicists in their work. If someone wants to evaluate the current state of physical science both from the point of view of human intellectual activity and from the point of view of its role in shaping our modern world view, it is much easier to do this with some initial background that gives an understanding of how all this science works. This book is not so much a textbook on survival in the jungle, but a guide on what you need to take with you on a hiking trip, how to get around dangerous rocks, where you can enjoy beautiful views and how to safely return home.

    Physicists themselves are able to continue modern research only because they are mainly guided by the same few fundamental principles that we use to study everyday life. The physical theory is currently engaged in phenomena occurring on spatio-temporal scales differing by more than six to ten orders of magnitude - this means that the ratio of the sizes of the largest objects studied by physicists to the smallest is expressed by a number consisting of one and 60 zeros. The experimental studies, however, extend to a somewhat smaller range. Nevertheless, against the background of all this zoo, the description of any phenomenon made by one physicist is usually understandable to another, because it uses no more than a dozen basic concepts.

    Partly for this reason, my book is so thin. The tools that physicists use are few in number, and although mastering them perfectly requires a degree, just to understand how they work does not require a weighty tome. In each of the six chapters (of course, if you buy this book) you will find a discussion of one of the key ideas that guide physicists in their scientific search. To illustrate these ideas, I picked up examples, in each of which I, like a musician playing a gamut, rise from the basics to the heights. The selection of examples may seem eclectic, but concentrating at the beginning of the chapter on where we are, I try to bring the reader to an understanding of where we are going at the end.

    In addition, for this reason I took the liberty of presenting the most modern concepts. Some readers will take a sigh of relief when they meet familiar ideas, although to some they may not seem quite understandable. Some of the concepts presented, being fundamental, at the same time have never been presented in the popular literature. But it is not important. I am not going to test new didactic techniques for you. I would like to give the reader a taste of physics rather than its content. I think that for non-scientists understanding of physics is more important than knowing its specific applications.

    Most importantly, in physics there are wonderful connections between the individual fragments of a picture of the world that lie beneath the surface of a painting. It is these bonds that form the fabric of physics. There is no greater joy for a scientist than to discover another such connection and test it experimentally. In the end, this makes physics a science, and if you take it seriously, you will have truly unlimited perspectives.

    Finally, I want to emphasize that physics is the same creative intellectual activity of man as art and music. Physics forms our cultural experience. I do not presume to judge which of the modern cultural heritage will be most demanded by future generations, but I am sure that ignoring the cultural aspect of our scientific tradition would be a serious mistake. In the end, it is science that forms our idea of ​​the world around us and our place in it. Scientific illiteracy is today identical to culturelessness. And the main virtue of cultural activity - whether it be art, music, literature or science - is the enrichment of our lives. Through culture, we experience joy, excitement, perceive beauty, become familiar with the secrets of the universe. The only thing, in my opinion, really distinguishes science from other things on this list, it is a higher level of education necessary in order to enjoy it. For most physicists, the main personal justification for their activities is just the pleasure, joy of discovering new laws and a sense of beauty, manifested in a combination of the variety of phenomena of the physical world and the simplicity of the laws underlying it. So, with the permission of Erica Yong, this book is devoted to the question: is an ordinary person capable of overcoming prejudices to get real pleasure from physics? Hope so. joy from the discovery of new laws and a sense of beauty, manifested in a combination of the diversity of phenomena of the physical world and the simplicity of the laws underlying it. So, with the permission of Erica Yong, this book is devoted to the question: is an ordinary person capable of overcoming prejudices to get real pleasure from physics? Hope so. joy from the discovery of new laws and a sense of beauty, manifested in a combination of the diversity of phenomena of the physical world and the simplicity of the laws underlying it. So, with the permission of Erica Yong, this book is devoted to the question: is an ordinary person capable of overcoming prejudices to get real pleasure from physics? Hope so.

    You can familiarize yourself with the book in more detail on the publisher's website.
    Contents
    Excerpt
    The book is available only in paper form.

    Paradox. Nine Great Mysteries of Physics
    Author: Jim Al-Khalili


    Paradoxes appear before us in all its diversity. While some of them are uncomplicated logical tasks with little research potential, a different paradox may turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg of an entire scientific industry. Many can be solved by careful analysis of the assumptions underlying them (one or even several may be false). Strictly speaking, such paradoxes should not be called so at all, since the task to which a solution is found can no longer be considered a paradox.

    A true paradox is a statement that leads to a vicious circle (circular argumentation that contradicts itself) or describes a situation that is impossible from the point of view of logic. But there is a tendency to use the word "paradox" in a broader context, including what I prefer to call the imaginary paradox. These puzzles have a solution. Sometimes these paradoxes contain a trick or a tricky move, which specifically should lead the reader or listener off the right path. It is worth revealing this trick - and the contradiction or logical absurdity disappears. Another version of the imaginary paradox is the statement and conclusions from it, which, although initially they look absurd or at least contradict intuition, upon closer examination they cease to seem so,

    In addition, there is a category of paradoxes in physics. All (or almost all) of these paradoxes can be solved with the help of fundamental scientific knowledge. It is about this kind of paradox that I want to talk about in a book.

    So, let's first briefly look at what a real logical paradox is, just to figure out what I'm not going to tell you here. The real paradox is a statement formulated in such a way that a vicious circle is formed from which there really is no way out.

    Here, for example, is a simple statement: "This statement is false." I think, at the first reading these words look pretty straightforward. But think about the meaning of this phrase as soon as you delve into the consequences of it - a logical paradox will become apparent. Can three simple words cause a real headache? If so, I would argue that this is a funny kind of pain, paradoxical in itself, which you will undoubtedly share with sadistic pleasure with family and friends.

    As you can see, the statement that “This statement is false”, declaring itself a lie, in itself should be a lie, and therefore, it is not false - in this case it is true, which means that it is actually false, which means that it is not false - and so on in an infinite circle.

    There are many such paradoxes, but this book is not about them.

    Instead, I will tell you about my favorite puzzles and puzzles in science, each of which is known as a paradox, but when you carefully look at the problem from the right angle, it can no longer be called a paradox. Although at first they contradict common sense, each time it turns out that some subtle aspect of physics is not taken into account in their argumentation, taking into account which, we knock out one of the pillars on which the paradox stands, and its entire magnificent building collapses . Despite the solutions found, many of them continue to be called paradoxes. Partly to blame for this is the sad fame that they acquired when they were first formulated (before we found out where the error lies). Besides presenting them in this way, we get useful tools, with which scientists comprehend some fairly complex ideas. Another thing is that solving them gives a lot of pleasure.

    At first glance, many of the puzzles we are going to talk about are truly real and not imaginary para-docks. Here's the thing. Take, for example, a simplified version of the famous time traveler paradox: what if you went back in time and killed a younger version of yourself? What will happen to you killer? Do you jump out of reality because you did not allow yourself to grow up? In this case, you still have not reached the age at which you became a time-traveling killer; who then killed the younger version of you? Elder, you have a flawless alibi: you never existed-wali! So, if you did not live to travel back in time and kill the younger self, then you did not kill the younger yourself, which means you survived to the age when you went back in time and killed yourself, so you did it, then you didn’t live - and so on. It looks like an ideal logical paradox. Physicists have not yet completely ruled out the possibility of time travel, of course, only in theory. So how do we get out of the vicious circle of this paradox? I will examine this particular case in Chapter 7.

    Not all imaginary paradoxes require scientific knowledge to solve. To demonstrate this, I devoted Chapter 1 to a few imaginary paradoxes that can be solved using common sense and logic alone. What I mean? Imagine a simple statistical paradox in which it is quite easy to draw the wrong conclusion based on the basic correlation: it is known that in cities with a large number of churches the crime rate is usually higher. It sounds rather paradoxical, unless you think that the church encourages crime and lawlessness, which sounds rather doubtful regardless of your attitude to religion and morality. But the answer is very simple. For cities with a large population, both a greater number of churches and higher absolute crime rates are naturally characteristic.

    The fact that B follows from A and C follows from A does not mean that C follows from B and vice versa.

    Here is another example of a simple puzzle, which on first reading seems paradoxical, but the explanation eliminates this paradox. It was presented to me several years ago by my colleague and close friend, a professor of physics from Scotland. He said that "every Scot coming south to England raises the average IQ of both countries." The bottom line is this: since all Scots claim to be smarter than the British, every Scot living in England will increase the average IQ of its inhabitants, but leaving Scotland is such a stupid undertaking that only the most stupid of the Scots will do so, Scotland’s highest average IQ. As you can see, at first glance, this statement sounds rather paradoxical,

    After we take a little fun in Chapter 1 by looking at a few well-known paradoxes that can be solved without the help of science, we will move on to nine physics paradoxes that I have selected for you. Having formulated another paradox, I will reveal its true nature. I will show how paradoxes dissipate like smoke, it is only necessary to expose the underlying logic, which turns out to be erroneous, or explain why in fact they are not a problem. All these paradoxes are quite interesting because they provide food for the mind, and also because they have a solution. In order for the paradox to cease to be a paradox-som, you need to know where to look, where to look for the Achilles heel, which can be carefully probed, armed with an in-depth understanding of science.

    The names of some paradoxes are familiar to you. For example, the Schrodinger cat paradox is that the unfortunate animal was closed in an airtight box, and until we open it, the cat will be both alive and dead. Less well-known, but still familiar to many, the demon of Maxwell is a mythical creature sitting in another sealed box; it seems to be able to violate the second law of thermodynamics by arranging the contents of this box. To understand these paradoxes and their solutions, some scientific preparation is required. So I set myself the task of presenting these scientific ideas to you as clearly and without fuss as possible, so that you can appreciate the conclusions from them without diving into the depths of mathematical analysis, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics.

    In this book, I have also collected several paradoxes from the university course of the theory of relativity, which I have been teaching for 14 years. For example, Einstein's ideas about space and time have become fertile ground for logical puzzles such as the pole and shed paradox (also known as the barn and pole paradox), the twin paradox, and the killed grandfather paradox. In other paradoxes, for example, those relating to the cat and the demon, according to some, it is high time to put an end to the sense of accomplishment.

    When I selected applicants for my list of the greatest mysteries of physics, I did not set out to state the most important unsolved problems of science (what is the nature of dark matter and energy that make up 95% of the universe, or what happened (if at all) before the Big Bang). These are extremely difficult and deep questions - scientists have yet to find their solution. Some of these puzzles (for example, the composition of dark matter, which accounts for most of the mass of galaxies), may well be solved in the near future if we continue to make new exciting discoveries using particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. Other puzzles, such as an accurate description of what happened before the Big Bang, may never be solved.

    What I wanted to achieve in this book was to compile a fairly broad and sensible sample. All the paradoxes we are going to talk about are related to deep questions of the nature of time and space, as well as the characteristics of the Universe on a very large and very small scale. Some of them predict theories that at first glance seem very strange, but become clearer if you carefully understand the ideas that lie behind them. Let's see if we can put an end to all these paradoxes, and in the process, dear reader, we will get a lot of pleasure from broadening our horizons.

    The book can be found in more detail on the publisher's website.
    Contents
    Excerpt

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