- Paperback: 234 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford (5 Nov 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0198539770
- ISBN-13: 978-0198539773
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 1.4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,597,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Charles Ruhla has written a splendid book ... which the new students of such things will find accessible and entertaining. This is a lovely book which will stimulate the imagination of any reader, whether a freshman student or a lecturer quarrying the text for ideas for courses. I strongly recommend it. (Professor P.L. Knight, Imperial College, London,. Contemporary Physics, 1993, volume 34, number 3 )
Product Description
This is an introduction to the ideas of randomness that are central to much of modern physics and have overthrown the "clock-work universe" conceptions of earlier centuries. The author shows how the laws of probability and statistics were developed by such mathematicians as Fermat, Pascal, and Gauss, and how they received their first major application in physics in the kinetic theory of gases developed by Maxwell and Boltzmann. Here the use of statistics is necessary because the number of particles involved is too great for a deterministic calculation. But soon the mathematician and physicist Poincare demonstrated the unpredictability if certain systems containing only a small number of bodies, because of extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. He thus became a founder of chaos theory. Finally, with the advent of quantum theory, physics seemed to be based on an essential randomness, whose reality was debated by Bohr and Einstein till the end of their lives. Only recently, in the experiments of Alain Aspect, has a convincing demonstration been given the inescapable randomness of quantum theory is a fact of nature. Professor Ruhla guides the reader skilfully through all these developments and provides mathematical details in appendices. The book provides an accessible introduction to the modern physicist's conception of the world of cause and chance.
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3 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Chances are, you'll like this book
1 May 2003
Format:Paperback
If you ever read one book on quantum theory, then this is the book you should read. Especially if you want to understand Bell's Inequality and how the experiments done by Alain Aspect in the 1980's verified that the inequality is violated.
I first heard of Bell's inequality and the EPR Paradox while reading an article by David Mermin in "Science News" and did not understand it at all. Then I read Robert Adair's account of it in "The Great Design" (a good book to have) and I began to gain a rudimentary appreciation of what was going on. But it wasn't until I read Ruhla's "Physics of Chance" that I learned how to derive the predictions of quantum theory - the predictions which show that two distant objects can exert influence on one another, "faster than the speed of light."
But Bell's Inequality is not the only subject in here. The text begins with rather simple treatments of probability, applied to coin tosses and telephone queues, on to Boltzmann Statistics, and then finally to quantum theory. So as your reading through the chapters in the book, you pick up the "tools" you need as you go along, in order to understand the more difficult material later on.
Ruhla's writing style is engaging, although silly at times. ...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A wonderful overview of statistical physics
13 Mar 2003
Format:Paperback
This book is extraordinarily well written and illustrated. It introduces the major themes of statistical physics at a level that shold be readily accessible to senior undergraduates or scientists and engineers who are non-specialists. Highly recommended; a gem!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Impresive exposition of theory and experiment
6 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
For anyone not afraid of a little mathematics and graphs, this book provides a wonderful account of some of the ways in which probability plays a role in physics. It takes a selection of standard topics but treats them in a serious, careful and well written way, via a "horizontal integration" of math theory, its meaning within physics and its experimental verification. Topics include measurement error, the Maxwell velocity distribution for an ideal gas, Boltzmann's statistical physics, deterministic chaos illustrated by a compass needle undergoing forced oscillations, a detailed account of the quantum theory of interference and an "inseparable photons" experiment. For an introduction to these subjects, this book is surely better than your college textbook.
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