Modern Physics (eBook)

Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts of modern physics and to the various fields of contemporary physics. The book's main goal is to help prepare engineering students for the upper division courses on devices they will later take, and to provide physics majors and engineering students an up-to-date description of contemporary physics.
The book begins with a review of the basic properties of particles and waves from the vantage point of classical physics, followed by an overview of the important ideas of new quantum theory. It describes experiments that help characterize the ways in which radiation interacts with matter. Later chapters deal with particular fields of modern physics. These include includes an account of the ideas and the technical developments that led to the ruby and helium-neon lasers, and a modern description of laser cooling and trapping of atoms. The treatment of condensed matter physics is followed by two chapters devoted to semiconductors that conclude with a phenomenological description of the semiconductor laser. Relativity and particle physics are then treated together, followed by a discussion of Feynman diagrams and particle physics.

• Develops modern quantum mechanical ideas systematically and uses these ideas consistently throughout the book
• Carefully considers fundamental subjects such as transition probabilities, crystal structure, reciprocal lattices, and Bloch theorem which are fundamental to any treatment of lasers and semiconductor devices
• Uses applets which make it possible to consider real physical systems such as many-electron atoms and semi-conductor devices

John Morrison received a BS degree in Physics from University of Santa
Clara in California. During his undergraduate years, he majored in English,
Philosophy, and Physics and served as the editor of the campus literary magazine,
the Owl. Enrolling at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland,
he received a PhD degree in theoretical Physics and moved on to postdoctoral
research at Argonne National Laboratory where he was a member of the Heavy
Atom Group.
He then went to Sweden where he received a grant from the Swedish Research
Council to build up a research group in theoretical atomic physics at
Chalmers Technical University in Goteborg, Sweden. Working together with
Ingvar Lindgren, he taught a graduate level-course in theoretical atomic physics
for a number of years. Their teaching lead to the publication of the monograph,
Atomic Many-Body Theory, which rst appeared as Volume 13 of the Springer
Series on Chemical Physics. The second edition of this book has become a
Springer classic.
Returning to the United States, John Morrison obtained a position in the
Department of Physics and Astronomy at University of Louisville where he has
taught courses in elementary physics, astronomy, modern physics, and quantum
mechanics. In recent years, he has traveled extensively in Latin America and
the Middle East maintaining contacts with scientists and mathematicians at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Technion University in Haifa. During
the Fall semester of 2009, he taught a course on computational physics at Birzeit
University near Ramallah on the West Bank, and he has recruited Palestinian
students for the graduate program in physics at University of Louisville. He
speaks English, Swedish, and Spanish, and he is currently studying Arabic and
Hebrew.

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Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts of modern physics and to the various fields of contemporary physics. The book's main goal is to help prepare engineering students for the upper division courses on devices they will later take, and to provide physics majors and engineering students an up-to-date description of contemporary physics. The book begins with a review of the basic properties of particles and waves from the vantage point of classical physics, followed by an overview of the important ideas of new quantum theory. It describes experiments that help characterize the ways in which radiation interacts with matter. Later chapters deal with particular fields of modern physics. These include includes an account of the ideas and the technical developments that led to the ruby and helium-neon lasers, and a modern description of laser cooling and trapping of atoms. The treatment of condensed matter physics is followed by two chapters devoted to semiconductors that conclude with a phenomenological description of the semiconductor laser. Relativity and particle physics are then treated together, followed by a discussion of Feynman diagrams and particle physics. Develops modern quantum mechanical ideas systematically and uses these ideas consistently throughout the book Carefully considers fundamental subjects such as transition probabilities, crystal structure, reciprocal lattices, and Bloch theorem which are fundamental to any treatment of lasers and semiconductor devices Uses applets which make it possible to consider real physical systems such as many-electron atoms and semi-conductor devices