Dirk Ter Haar

Master of Modern Physics (eBook, PDF)

The Scientific Contributions of H. A. Kramers

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

The Dutch scientist Hendrik Kramers (1894-1952) was one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the twentieth century--and one of a mere handful who have made major contributions across the whole field. Physicists know his name from, among other things, the Kramers dispersion theory, the Kramers-Heisenberg dispersion formulae, the Kramers opacity formula, the Kramers degeneracy, and the Kramers-Kronig relations. Yet few people know more than the name, or recognize the full depth and range of his contributions. In this book, D. ter Haar seeks to change that. He presents for the first time anywhere a comprehensive discussion of Kramers's scientific work, and reprints twelve of his most important papers.

The author shows us that Kramers's remarkable and diverse work makes him at least the equal of such celebrated physicists as Fermi and Landau. He takes us through Kramers's groundbreaking research in such subjects as quantum theory, quantum electrodynamics, statistical mechanics, and solid-state physics. The papers he reprints include Kramers's derivation of the dispersion formulae that led to Heisenberg's matrix mechanics; his classic paper on the Brownian-motion approach to chemical reactions; a pioneering paper on polymers; and a paper on renormalization, a concept first introduced by Kramers and now one of the basic ideas of modern field theory.

This book will change how we view the course of twentieth-century science and will show that Kramers was indeed one of the masters of modern physics.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Oktober 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780691219523
• Artikelnr.: 60066685

Autorenporträt

D. ter Haar is Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and the author of numerous books about physics, including Elements of Statistical Mechanics.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
1
Introduction
3
2
The Old Quantum Theory
9
3
Quantum Mechanics
31
4
Quantum Electrodynamics
59
5
Statistical Mechanics, Solid-State Physics, and Low-Temperature Physics
67
6
The Kramers Problem and Polymer Physics
93
7
Miscellaneous Topics
109
A
On the Scattering of Radiation by Atoms
121
B
Some Remarks on Heisenberg's Quantum Mechanics
145
C
Wave Mechanics and Half-Odd-Integral Quantisation
151
D
The Scattering of Light by Atoms
163
E
General Theory of Paramagnetic Rotation in Crystals
173
F
Classical Relativistic Spin-Theory and Its Quantization
187
G
On the Eigenvalue Problem in a One-Dimensional Field of Force
195
H
The Use of Charge-Conjugated Wavefunctions in the Hole Theory of the
Electron
203
I
Brownian Motion in a Field of Force and the Diffusion Model of Chemical
Reactions
213
J
Statistics of the Two-Dimensional Ferromagnet
231
K
Fundamental Difficulties of a Theory of Particles
249
L
The Behavior of Macromolecules in Inhomogeneous Flow
257
References
273
Publications of H. A. Kramers
277
Index
283