The Harvest of a Century: Discoveries of Modern Physics in 100 Episodes

Abstract

The subtitle of the book is exact: the book presents an impression of the development of physics between 1895 (Röntgen's x-rays) and 2001 (Neutrinos have mass). Each episode describes a particular discovery in about five pages in an easily readable style. More demanding explanations are presented in inserted boxes. A nice feature of the book is that many episodes contain the original drawing of the scheme of the experiment, so that the reader can see how it really happened.For most of the past century, certainly for its first half, physics was the leading science and brought fundamental discoveries in the structure of matter, including the structure of nuclei and particles, and the structure of space–time. Most of the episodes in the book concern these two general fields. Among the episodes are the discoveries of radioactivity, the atomic nucleus, the structure of the atom, quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity, accelerators, superconductivity, superfluidity, nuclear reactions in stars, and also transistors, masers, lasers, black-body radiation of the Universe and Bose–Einstein condensation of atoms in traps amongst others. The author is to be congratulated for the selection of the 100 episodes, as it must have been a difficult task. The discovery of the structure of haemoglobin in Bragg's laboratory received only two lines, and there is no mention of the explanation of the chemical bond in hydrogen molecules or on the construction of fantastic medical instruments based on discoveries in physics. Perhaps there is scope in the future for another 100 episodes of discoveries in multidisciplinary fields where physics has played an essential role. Even some discoveries in pure physics could not be included, for instance, super-heavy nuclei. I would like to recommend this book to all those who like the history of physics and admire its achievements in the past century. In particular, I would also like to recommend it to teachers of introductory courses in atomic and nuclear physics at universities. The schemes of classical experiments in some of the episodes can be used to show how it really was, and material on the physicists themselves can be used for motivating students. Some of the episodes may also be useful for high-school students.