The narrative is so strong, you can put together a timeline of the discovery of quantum theory.
Has anyone done the same for the weather? If you know of one, can you leave it in the comments?
I had hoped that Weather Experiment would be that book, but it isn't. It's not even "The pioneers who sought to see the future" as the subtitle claims. I agree with this review in the NYT; the book is about british men and (mostly) ignores the work in other places.
American James Espy and Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier get brief mentions, but this is mostly a bunch of stories/biographies about british men strung together.
The book is fine if you are expecting a bunch of human stories about people who are affiliated with the study of weather as it was practiced in England. There is a useful index. Also, "Stars in FitzRoy's Meteorological Galaxy" just before the index, gives a synopsis of the players, including the ones given short shrift or omitted in this book.
It hadn't occurred to me before reading this book that predicting the future is a form of divining the future, and had caused religious crises of faith. I also learned that accusations of data-hoarding are not new. ;-)
Do you remember what textbook you've used for Quantum? I am on a constant lookout for a good one for my classes and for research students (my education was Landau all the way, but this name just scares any physics student here!) :)
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DeleteHave you seen Richard L Liboff's "Introductory Quantum Mechanics"? Also, Tipler's "Modern Physics". I took QM from the physics dept at Cal w/ Liboff and another class through the chemistry dept which used Tipler.
DeleteThen I took group theory with a math professor who was a pioneer in quantum-classical correspondence theory. That was an intense and very fun time.
BTW, you use Landau for undergrad QM at a liberal arts school? My profs recommended it as supplementary reading. I liked having Liboff as my primary text w/ Landau and Lifshitz and Cohen-Tannoudji as supplemental texts. We were required to purchase Liboff. The others were kept (multiple copies) at the reference desk at the library for student use.
DeleteOh, no, I would not dare use Landau here! I used it in _my_ undergraduate education (in a very technical Russian university) :) I will definitely check Liboff out! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm an American whimp, or so my foreign classmates told me. In grad QM, C-T was our primary text and L2 supplementary. I found L2 very heavy going. Did you use it in the original Russian? Does it make more sense in Russian? Or were my classmates correct and I am just a whimp?
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