Of clocks and time /

• Κύριος συγγραφέας: Hüwel, Lutz (συγγραφέας.)
• Μορφή: Ηλ. βιβλίο
• Γλώσσα: English
• Έκδοση: San Rafael [Καλιφόρνια] : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2018.
• Σειρά: IOP concise physics.
• Θέματα: Χρόνος > Μέτρηση; Χρόνος; Χώρος και χρόνος

Of Clocks and Time takes readers on a five-stop journey through the physics and technology--and occasional bits of applications and history--of timekeeping. The author offers conceptual vistas and qualitative images, along with equations, quantitative relations, and rigorous definitions. The book in...

Πίνακας περιεχομένων:

• 1. Days, months and years
• 1.1. A first discourse on measurement, units and precision
• 1.2. What we see in the sky--stars, planets, Sun and Moon
• 1.3. What the solar system looks like
• 1.4. What a day makes
• 1.5. Discovering the laws of motion
• 1.6. Absolute space and time
• 1.7. A bit of mechanics--or why the solar system is stable
• 1.8. Not quite a clock yet--the Antikythera mechanism
• 2. Hours, minutes and seconds
• 2.1. Origins of the metric system and the SI unit of time
• 2.2. A generic clock
• 2.3. Toy clock I : bouncing bead in a box
• 2.4. Friction I : spoiling the bouncing bead
• 2.5. Toy clock II : the simple harmonic oscillator
• 2.6. Friction II : spoiling the simple harmonic oscillator
• 2.7. Toy clock III : the pendulum
• 2.8. Resonance and feedback
• 2.9. Numbers for comparison
• 2.10. From Huygens to shortt--how the pendulum revolutionized time-keeping
• 3. From milliseconds to attoseconds : is there a limit?
• 3.1. From quartz vibrations...
• 3.2. ...to quartz clocks
• 3.3. The first atomic clock was not one
• 3.4. Dancing electrons are making waves--the old-fashioned way
• 3.5. Inner workings and limits of atomic clocks
• 3.6. How time fared in the quantum revolution
• 3.7. Inside the hydrogen atom
• 3.8. Quanta make their entrance
• 3.9. Precisely specified fuzziness
• 3.10. Does nature play dice?
• 3.11. Fountain clocks--state-of-the-art time-keeping
• 3.12. A better clock--the ABC of clock comparison
• 3.13. Who needs it?
• 4. Space and time forever entwined
• 4.1. The ether and the birth of interferometry
• 4.2. c = 299 792 458 m s-1 for everyone
• 4.3. The principle of relativity
• 4.4. A first (boring) application
• 4.5. Moving clocks must run slow
• 4.6. When lightning strikes twice--was it or was it not simultaneous?
• 4.7. Running makes you thinner
• 4.8. Why gravity must slow down clocks
• 4.9. A pair of twins most famous
• 4.10. The invariant space-time interval
• 5. Deep time or getting old
• 5.1. Earth's age--a cautionary tale
• 5.2. Built on sand--the hourglass as an analogue to radioactive dating
• 5.3. Survival graphs and aging
• 5.4. The neutron and other unstable characters
• 5.5. Radioactive dating of rocks
• 6. From beginning to end
• 6.1. The fixed stars in their crystal sphere revisited
• 6.2. The cosmic egg
• 6.3. Supporting evidence 1--ancient light
• 6.4. Supporting evidence 2--it is elementary
• 6.5. Supporting evidence 3--it is dark at night
• 6.6. Standard candles and a very long ladder
• 6.7. Was there anything before the Big Bang?
• 6.8. Will it end?
• 6.9. The long now.