Theoretical Concepts in Physics

An innovative integrated approach to classical physics and the beginnings of quantum physics through a sequence of historical case studies.

Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; Case Study I. The Origins of Newton's Laws of Motion and of Gravity: 2. From Ptolemy to Kepler: the Copernican Revolution; 3. Galileo and the nature of the physical sciences; 4. Newton and the law of gravity; Case Study II. Maxwell's Equations: 5. The origin of Maxwell's equations; 6. Maxwell (1865): A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field; 7. How to rewrite the history of electromagnetism; Case Study III. Mechanics and Dynamics: Linear and Non-Linear; 8. Approaches to mechanics and dynamics; 9. The motion of fluids; 10. Dimensional analysis, chaos and self-organised criticality; Case Study IV. Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics: 11. Basic thermodynamics; 12. Kinetic theory and the origin of statistical mechanics; Case Study V. The Origins of the Concepts of Quantisation and Quanta: 13. Black-body radiation up to 1895; 14. 1895-1900: Planck and the spectrum of black-body radiation; 15. Planck's theory of black-body radiation; 16. Einstein and the quantisation of light; 17. The triumph of the light quantum hypothesis; Case Study VI. Special and General Relativity: 18. Special relativity: a study in invariance; 19. An introduction to general relativity; Case Study VII. Cosmology and Physics: 20. Cosmology; 21. Dark matter, dark energy and the inflationary paradigm; Notes; Author index; Subject index.