Problems And Puzzles In Electric Fields

This book aims at making readers develop a better understanding of electrostatic fields using the form of problems and puzzles (summarized as “questions” hereafter) and answers, instead of tedious explanations in ordinary textbooks. The book is filled with the questions with unexpected answers and questions often misunderstood or rarely completely understood, most of which are original. The questions in the book look simple and very easy to answer at a glance; nevertheless, once students try to solve them, they will find that the questions are really tough nuts to crack. Teachers can also use the questions in the book in their classes. Not only from an academic or an educational point of view, the book is useful also to engineers working in such fields as electrical discharges and their applications, high voltage equipment in DC and AC circuits as well as electrostatic devices. This is because the book introduces various practical applications related to electrostatic fields. The original ideas of the book are based on the following Japanese book written by one of author; T. Takuma: Panorama of Electric Fields (in Japanese) IEE, Japan, 2003. This English version of the book has been thoroughly revised and improved with several new questions added.

This book is the product of more than half a century of leadership and innovation in physics education. When the first edition of University Physics by Francis W. Sears and Mark W. Zemansky was published in 1949, it was revolutionary among calculus-based physics textbooks in its emphasis on the fundamental principles of physics and how to apply them. The success of University Physics with generations of (several million) students and educators around the world is a testament to the merits of this approach and to the many innovations it has introduced subsequently. In preparing this First Australian SI edition, our aim was to create a text that is the future of Physics Education in Australia. We have further enhanced and developed University Physics to assimilate the best ideas from education research with enhanced problem-solving instruction, pioneering visual and conceptual pedagogy, the first systematically enhanced problems, and the most pedagogically proven and widely used online homework and tutorial system in the world, Mastering Physics.

The goal of this Volume "Conceptual Foundations of Materials: A standard model for ground- and excited-state properties" is to present the fundamentals of electronic structure theory that are central to the understanding and prediction of materials phenomena and properties. The emphasis is on foundations and concepts. The Sections are designed to offer a broad and comprehensive perspective of the field. They cover the basic aspects of modern electronic structure approaches and highlight their applications to the structural (ground state, vibrational, dynamic and thermodynamic, etc.) and electronic (spectroscopic, dielectric, magnetic, transport, etc.) properties of real materials including solids, clusters, liquids, and nanostructure materials. This framework also forms a basis for studies of emergent properties arising from low-energy electron correlations and interactions such as the quantum Hall effects, superconductivity, and other cooperative phenomena. Although some of the basics and models for solids were developed in the early part of the last century by figures such as Bloch, Pauli, Fermi, and Slater, the field of electronic structure theory went through a phenomenal growth during the past two decades, leading to new concepts, understandings, and predictive capabilities for determining the ground- and excited-state properties of real, complex materials from first principles. For example, theory can now be used to predict the existence and properties of materials not previously realized in nature or in the laboratory. Computer experiments can be performed to examine the behavior of individual atoms in a particular process, to analyze the importance of different mechanisms, or just to see what happen if one varies the interactions and parameters in the simulation. Also, with ab initio calculations, one can determine from first principles important interaction parameters which are needed in model studies of complex processes or highly correlated systems. Each time a new material or a novel form of a material is discovered, electronic structure theory inevitably plays a fundamental role in unraveling its properties. Provides the foundations of the field of condensed matter physics An excellent supplementary text for classes on condensed matter physics/solid state physics Volume covers current work at the forefront Presentations are accessible to nonspecialists, with focus on underlying fundamentals

Progress in Physics has been created for publications on advanced studies in theoretical and experimental physics, including related themes from mathematics.

Science, Technology and Global Problems documents the proceedings of the International Symposium on Trends and Perspectives in Development of Science and Technology and their Impact on the Solution of Contemporary Global Problems held in Tallinn, USSR on January 8-12, 1979. This compilation discusses the character of global problems in the year 2000, prospects of development of leading branches of science and technology, and its capacity to solve global problems. The topics include global problems in the year 2000 and the role of science in their solution; science and technology as factors for future global development; road to scientific-technological culture; and responsibility of scientists in the period of crisis. The energy situation in the world (problems and prospects); mathematics and progress in science and technology; role of information and communication in the solution of global problems; and global public health problems and ways of resolving them are also deliberated in this text. This book is a useful source for students and researchers conducting work on the development of science and technology in solving global problems.

This book contains contributions to the 172. WE-Heraeus-Seminar “Atoms and Molecules in Strong External Fields,” which took place April 7–11 1997 at the Phys- zentrum Bad Honnef (Germany). The designation “strong fields” applies to external static magnetic, and/or electric fields that are sufficiently intense to cause alterations in the atomic or molecular str- ture and dynamics. The specific topics treated are the behavior and properties of atoms in strong static fields, the fundamental aspects and electronic structure of molecules in strong magnetic fields, the dynamics and aspects of chaos in highly excited R- berg atoms in external fields, matter in the atmosphere of astrophysical objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars), and quantum nanostructures in strong magnetic fields. It is obvious that the elaboration of the corresponding properties in these regimes causes the greatest difficulties, and is incomplete even today. Present-day technology has made it possible for many research groups to study the behavior of matter in strong external fields, both experimentally and theore- cally, where the phrase “experimentally” includes the astronomical observations. - derstanding these systems requires the development of modern theories and powerful computational techniques. Interdisciplinary collaborations will be helpful and useful in developing more efficient methods to understand these important systems. Hence the idea was to bring together people from different fields like atomic and molecular physics, theoretical chemistry, astrophysics and all those colleagues interested in aspects of few-body systems in external fields.

Particularly intense lightning discharges can produce transient luminous events above thunderclouds, termed sprites, elves and jets. These short lived optical emissions in the mesosphere can reach from the tops of thunderclouds up to the ionosphere; they provide direct evidence of coupling from the lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere. Sprites are arguably the most dramatic recent discovery in solar-terrestrial physics. Shortly after the first ground based video recordings of sprites, observations on board the Space Shuttle detected sprites and elves occurring all around the world. These reports led to detailed sprite observations in North America, South America, Australia, Japan, and Europe. Subsequently, sprites were detected from other space platforms such as the International Space Station and the ROCSAT satellite. During the past 15 years, more than 200 contributions on sprites have been published in the scientific literature to document this rapidly evolving new research area.

Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem was first published in 1958. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This is Volume II of the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, a series published in cooperation with the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota. The series editors are Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell, who are also co-editors, with Michael Scriven, of this volume. The ten papers by eleven authors which make up the content of this volume are the result of collaborative research of the Center in philosophical and methodological problems of science in general and psychology in particular. The contributors are Paul Oppenheim, Hilary Putnam, Carl G. Hempel, Michael Scriven, Arthur Pap, Wilfrid Sellars, H. Gavin Alexander, P.F. Strawson, Karl Zener, Herbert Feigl, and Paul E. Meehl. In addition, an extensive discussion of "Internationality and the Mental" by Wilfrid Sellars and Roderick Chisholm is presented in an appendix. In a review of this volume the journal Psychiatric Quarterly commented: "These essays will not prove easy for the layman to read, but he can hardly fail to find his effort rewarded if he is persistent. For the professional behavioral scientist increased awareness and caution-in his use of scientific language, and thinking about scientific theory-should result." One of the papers in this volume, "The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'" by Herbert Feigl, has been published by the University of Minnesota Press with further discussion by Dr. Feigl as a separate book, The "Mental" and the "Physical" The Essay and a Postscript.