Lewis Carroll Epstein is the author of layman's books on physics that use an idiosyncratic mix of cartoons and single-page brain teasers to pull the reader into advanced concepts in classical mechanics, quantum theory, and relativity. [1] [2]
His books "Thinking Physics" and "Thinking Physics is Gedanken Physics" have been republished for almost 30 years, the former being on the Exploratorium recommended science reading list. [3] [4] [5] He credits his teaching style to experience presenting technical testimony to trial juries and congressional hearings. [6]
Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in the absence of gravity. General relativity explains the law of gravitation and its relation to the forces of nature. It applies to the cosmological and astrophysical realm, including astronomy.
The Large Scale Structure of Space–Time is a 1973 treatise on the theoretical physics of spacetime by the physicist Stephen Hawking and the mathematician George Ellis. It is intended for specialists in general relativity rather than newcomers.
The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While now most often used in Alice-related contexts, the association of a "Cheshire cat" with grinning predates the 1865 book. It has transcended the context of literature and become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television, as well as in cross-disciplinary studies, from business to science. Often it is shown in the context of a person or idea that is purposefully confusing or enigmatic. One distinguishing feature of the Alice-style Cheshire Cat is the periodic gradual disappearance of its body, leaving only one last visible trace: its iconic grin. He belongs to the Duchess.
Mikhail Naumovich Epstein is a Russian-American literary scholar, essayist, and cultural theorist best known for his contributions to the study of Russian postmodernism. He is the Emeritus S. C. Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. His writings encompass Russian literature and intellectual history, the philosophy of religion, the creation of new ideas in the age of electronic media, semiotics, and interdisciplinary approaches in the humanities. His works have been translated into over 26 languages.
In the history of physics, aether theories proposed the existence of a medium, a space-filling substance or field as a transmission medium for the propagation of electromagnetic or gravitational forces. Since the development of special relativity, theories using a substantial aether fell out of use in modern physics, and are now replaced by more abstract models.
Paul G. Hewitt is an American physicist, former boxer, uranium prospector, author, and cartoonist. Born in Saugus, Massachusetts, Hewitt lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with his wife.
Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He was formerly a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) department of physics. He also is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and he has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, where he has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He is known for his atheism, his vocal critique of theism and defence of naturalism. He is considered a prolific public speaker and science popularizer. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.
Gravitation is a widely adopted textbook on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, written by Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler. It was originally published by W. H. Freeman and Company in 1973 and reprinted by Princeton University Press in 2017. It is frequently abbreviated MTW. The cover illustration, drawn by Kenneth Gwin, is a line drawing of an apple with cuts in the skin to show the geodesics on its surface.
Charles William Misner was an American physicist and one of the authors of Gravitation. His specialties included general relativity and cosmology. His work has also provided early foundations for studies of quantum gravity and numerical relativity.
Dennis Overbye is a science writer specializing in physics and cosmology and is the cosmic affairs correspondent for The New York Times.
Monarch Books was an American publishing firm in the late 1950s/early 1960s which specialised in pulp novels. Some of these, like Jack the Ripper (1960), were movie tie-ins.
Lillian Stewart Carl is an American author of mystery, fantasy and science-fiction novels.
Edwin Floriman Taylor is an American physicist known for his contributions to the teaching of physics. Taylor was editor of the American Journal of Physics, and is author of several introductory books to physics. In 1998 he was awarded the Oersted Medal for his contributions to the teaching of physics.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and Anglican deacon. His most notable works are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871). He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. His poems Jabberwocky (1871) and The Hunting of the Snark (1876) are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. Some of Alice's nonsensical wonderland logic reflects his published work on mathematical logic.
In a publishing career spanning 80 years (1930–2010), popular mathematics and science writer Martin Gardner (1914–2010) authored or edited over 100 books and countless articles, columns and reviews.
A Slower Speed of Light is a freeware video game developed by MIT Game Lab that demonstrates the effects of special relativity by gradually slowing down the speed of light to a walking pace. The game runs on the Unity engine using its open-source OpenRelativity toolkit.
K. C. Cole is an American science writer, author, radio commentator and professor emerita at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She has covered science for The Los Angeles Times since 1994, as well as writing for many other publications, and has been described as "the queen of the metaphor in science writing".
Jürgen Renn is a German historian of science, and since 2022 Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena.
Andrew J. Hanson is an American theoretical physicist and computer scientist. Hanson is best known in theoretical physics as the co-discoverer of the Eguchi–Hanson metric, the first Gravitational instanton. This Einstein metric is asymptotically locally Euclidean and self-dual, closely parallel to the Yang-Mills instanton. He is also known as the co-author of Constrained Hamiltonian Systems and of Gravitation, Gauge Theories, and Differential Geometry, which attempted to bridge the gap between theoretical physicists and mathematicians at a time when concepts relevant to the two disciplines were rapidly unifying. His subsequent work in computer science focused on computer graphics and visualization of exotic mathematical objects, including widely used images of the Calabi-Yau quintic cross-sections used to represent the hidden dimensions of 10-dimensional string theory. He is the author of Visualizing Quaternions.
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