In the 116 year history of the Nobel Prize in Physics, only two women have won the award; Marie Curie (1903) and Maria Mayer (1963). During the 60 years between those awards, several women did work of similar calibre. This book focuses on those women, providing biographies for each that discuss both how they made their discoveries and the gender-specific reception of those discoveries. It also discusses the Nobel process and how society and the scientific community's treatment of them were influenced by their gender.

The IUTAM Symposium on Evolutionary Methods in Mechanics was held in Cracow, Poland, September 24-27, 2002. The site of the S- posium was Cracow University of Technology. The Symposium was - tended by 50 persons from 18 countries. In addition, several Polish students, Ph. D. students and research associates participated in the meeting. The Symposium provided an excellent opportunity for scholars of - chanics, computer sciences and arti?cial intelligence to interact and - change their points of view on the advanced computational and appli- tion aspects of the evolutionary methods in analysis and design of - chanical systems. Recently evolutionary methods have become the most e?ective tools for solving speci?c kinds of problems in mechanics, es- cially in structural and multidisciplinary optimization. The meeting was devotedtoboththeoreticalandpracticaldevelopmentsofcomputational mechanics methods drawing their inspiration from nature with part- ular emphasis on evolutionary models of computation such as genetic algorithms, evolutionary strategies, classi?er systems, evolutionary p- gramming and other evolutionary computation techniques in mechanics. The objective of the Symposium was to provide an international forum forfacilitatingtheexchangeofinformationamongresearchersinvolvedin computational intelligence methods based on evolutionary nature. The Symposium put special emphasis on evolutionary optimization in va- ous?eldsof mechanics. Thesubject of evolutionary optimization has- cently experienced a remarkable growth. New concepts, approaches and applicationsarebeing continually developed and exploited to provide- ?cient tools for solving a variety of optimization problems in mechanics.

Centered around the natural phenomena of relaxations and fluctuations, this monograph provides readers with a solid foundation in the linear and nonlinear Fokker-Planck equations that describe the evolution of distribution functions.

It emphasizes principles and notions of the theory (e.g. self-organization, stochastic feedback, free energy, and Markov processes), while also illustrating the wide applicability (e.g. collective behavior, multistability, front dynamics, and quantum particle distribution).

The focus is on relaxation processes in homogeneous many-body systems describable by nonlinear Fokker-Planck equations. Also treated are Langevin equations and correlation functions.

Since these phenomena are exhibited by a diverse spectrum of systems, examples and applications span the fields of physics, biology and neurophysics, mathematics, psychology, and biomechanics.

This volume features selected and peer-reviewed articles from the Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI). The chapters are written by international specialists who participated in the conference. Topics include developments based on breakthroughs in the mathematical understanding of phenomena describing systems in highly inhomogeneous and disordered media, including the KPZ universality class (describing the evolution of interfaces in two dimensions), random walks in random environment and percolative systems. PASI fosters a collaboration between North American and Latin American researchers and students. The conference that inspired this volume took place in January 2012 in both Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires. Researchers and graduate students will find timely research in probability theory, statistical physics and related disciplines.

The proceedings of the conference is devoted mainly to the mathematically rigorous approaches to the problems of quantum mechanics. The spectral properties of Schroedinger operators, including those on regions with a boundary and their generalizations, scattering theory and resonances, time-dependent Hamiltonians and quantum chaos, problems of statistical physics like spin systems, and others are discussed.

Physics: Imagination and Reality introduces the reader to major ideas and the conceptual structure of modern physics, by tracing its development from the introduction of fields into physics by Faraday and Maxwell in the last century. Because the approach is historical, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the subjects. It should appeal to anyone interested in a basic understanding of the contemporary physicists view of the physical world. It avoids all but the simplest mathematics and presents ideas and concepts in everyday language.Physics: Imagination and Reality attempts to provide educated citizens with an understanding of contemporary physics and, at the same time, shows that its ideas have a grandeur, a challenge to the imagination and an aesthetic appeal which merit its recognition as an integral part of our culture.

Physics: Imagination and Reality introduces the reader to major ideas and the conceptual structure of modern physics, by tracing its development from the introduction of fields into physics by Faraday and Maxwell in the last century. Because the approach is historical, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the subjects. It should appeal to anyone interested in a basic understanding of the contemporary physicists view of the physical world. It avoids all but the simplest mathematics and presents ideas and concepts in everyday language.Physics: Imagination and Reality attempts to provide educated citizens with an understanding of contemporary physics and, at the same time, shows that its ideas have a grandeur, a challenge to the imagination and an aesthetic appeal which merit its recognition as an integral part of our culture.

This book is dedicated to the Soviet theoretician Yakov Ilich Frenkel (1894 - 1952), whose work in solid and liquid state physics is considered to be the golden foundation of twentieth century physics. Best known are the Frenkel pairs (defects), kinetic theory of liquids, theory of mobile dislocations (Frenkel- Kontorova solitons). Today, the electron theory of solids is inconceivable without excitons - the quasiparticles he introduced in 1930. Frenkel also contributed important concepts to classical electrodynamics (which now go under Feynmana s appellation "Frenkela s Fields") and to nuclear physics (the Bohr-Frenkel drop model). The book surveys the genesis and ramifications of Yakov Frenkela s scientific achievements. Special attention is paid to Frenkela s civic convictions, his fight against official Soviet philosophy for the acceptance and development of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics in the Soviet Union of the 1920sa "1940s, a crucial thirty-year period in the history of Russian physics following the October Revolution. Much of the book is based on a wealth of archival documents, personal reminiscences and of Frenkela s letters. Thanks to his trenchant observations, a vivid picture emerges of scientists, universities and cultures in Europe, the United States and various cities of the Soviet Union. The book is richly illustrated by unique photos and copies of drawings and portraits from Frenkela s own hand.

These proceedings emphasize new mathematical problems discussed in line with white noise analysis. Many papers deal with mathematical questions arising from actual phenomena. Various applications to stochastic differential equations, quantum field theory, functional integration such as Feynman integrals and limit theorems in probability are also discussed.

These proceedings emphasize new mathematical problems discussed in line with white noise analysis. Many papers deal with mathematical questions arising from actual phenomena. Various applications to stochastic differential equations, quantum field theory, functional integration such as Feynman integrals, limit theorems in probability are also discussed.

The study of phase transitions is among the most fascinating fields in physics. Originally limited to transition phenomena in equilibrium systems, this field has outgrown its classical confines during the last two decades. The behavior of far from equilibrium systems has received more and more attention and has been an extremely active and productive subject of research for physicists, chemists and biologists. Their studies have brought about a more unified vision of the laws which govern self-organization processes of physico-chemical and biological sys tems. A major achievement has been the extension of the notion of phase transi tion to instabilities which occur only in open nonlinear systems. The notion of phase transition has been proven fruitful in apphcation to nonequilibrium ins- bihties known for about eight decades, like certain hydrodynamic instabilities, as well as in the case of the more recently discovered instabilities in quantum optical systems such as the laser, in chemical systems such as the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction and in biological systems. Even outside the realm of natural sciences, this notion is now used in economics and sociology. In this monograph we show that the notion of phase transition can be extend ed even further. It apphes also to a new class of transition phenomena which occur only in nonequilibrium systems subjected to a randomly fluctuating en vironment."

This book should be considered as an introduction to a special dass of hierarchical systems of optimal control, where subsystems are described by partial differential equations of various types. Optimization is carried out by means of a two-level scheme, where the center optimizes coordination for the upper level and subsystems find the optimal solutions for independent local problems. The main algorithm is a method of iterative aggregation. The coordinator solves the problern with macrovariables, whose number is less than the number of initial variables. This problern is often very simple. On the lower level, we have the usual optimal control problems of math ematical physics, which are far simpler than the initial statements. Thus, the decomposition (or reduction to problems ofless dimensions) is obtained. The algorithm constructs a sequence of so-called disaggregated solutions that are feasible for the main problern and converge to its optimal solutionunder certain assumptions ( e.g., under strict convexity of the input functions). Thus, we bridge the gap between two disciplines: optimization theory of large-scale systems and mathematical physics. The first motivation was a special model of branch planning, where the final product obeys a preset assortment relation. The ratio coefficient is maximized. Constraints are given in the form of linear inequalities with block diagonal structure of the part of a matrix that corresponds to subsystems. The central coordinator assem bles the final production from the components produced by the subsystems."

Physics has been applied to medical diagnosis for very nearly 400 years, and has now become an essential element of medical practice. This book concentrates on the theoretical basis of the physics which supports diagnostic techniques in modern clinical practice. Arising out of over a decade of teaching a course on medical physics to third year undergraduate students, the book has been structured so that individuals with a non-physics background, such as medical students or practitioners, can also benefit.

Based on several recent courses given to mathematical physics students, this volume is an introduction to bundle theory. It aims to provide newcomers to the field with solid foundations in topological K-theory. A fundamental theme, emphasized in the book, centers around the gluing of local bundle data related to bundles into a global object. One renewed motivation for studying this subject, comes from quantum field theory, where topological invariants play an important role.

This book is about the importance of random phenomena occurring in nature. Cases are selected in which randomness is most important or crucial, such as Brownian motion, certain reactions in Physical Chemistry and Biology, and intermittency in magnetic field generation by turbulent fluid motion, etc. Due to "almighty chance" the structures can originate from chaos even in linear problems. This idea is complementary as well as competes with a basic concept of synergetics where structures appear mainly due to the pan-linear nature of phenomena. This book takes a new look at the problem of structure formation in random media, qualitative physical representation of modern conceptions, intermittency, fractals, percolation and many examples from different fields of science.

This book is about the importance of random phenomena occurring in nature. Cases are selected in which randomness is most important or crucial, such as Brownian motion, certain reactions in Physical Chemistry and Biology, and intermittency in magnetic field generation by turbulent fluid motion, etc. Due to "almighty chance" the structures can originate from chaos even in linear problems. This idea is complementary as well as competes with a basic concept of synergetics where structures appear mainly due to the pan-linear nature of phenomena. This book takes a new look at the problem of structure formation in random media, qualitative physical representation of modern conceptions, intermittency, fractals, percolation and many examples from different fields of science.

This volume will be the first reference book devoted specially to the Yang-Baxter equation. The subject relates to broad areas including solvable models in statistical mechanics, factorized S matrices, quantum inverse scattering method, quantum groups, knot theory and conformal field theory. The articles assembled here cover major works from the pioneering papers to classical Yang-Baxter equation, its quantization, variety of solutions, constructions and recent generalizations to higher genus solutions.

This is the second volume in the series that focuses on the International Objective Measurement Workshops and the work of Georg Rasch. In the area of practice, two major clusters of new work are reported in this volume: a national pilot study of computer-adaptive testing in professional licensure and applications of a type of Rasch model called the Facet Model.

Recounts the experiences, appointments and achievements of this eminent scientist. Dealing systematically with Bondi's childhood in Austria, arrival in Cambridge and his important contributions to the field of mathematics before his appointment as Master of Churchill College, Cambridge, the book conveys how an initially strictly academic career led to a range of positions in the public sector finishing with a return to academia.

A general overview of the use of utility distribution poles, including for electric supply and communications applications Overhead Distribution Lines: Design and Applications provides information on the design and use of power and communication distribution lines. An excellent resource for those in the power and communication utilities industry, this book presents information on the physical characteristics of utility poles, overhead supply and communication cables, installation practices, joint-usage issues, and safety rules, including the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC), California-specific rules, and others. It describes how to select the proper poles for specific applications. The especially valuable final chapter provides examples showing how it all works in practice, providing a background allowing more effective use of related industry software. Rather than delving into detailed design and installation techniques, this book serves as an overview for engineers and non-technical audiences alike. At the same time, it serves as a compendium of technical information not readily available elsewhere. This unique book: Offers an overview of pole structures, pole installation and maintenance, wires and cables, and cable installation and maintenance--with examples Provides information on national standards documents such as the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC), ANSI O5.1, California General Order 95, and more Explores the "sag-tension" relationship between wires and poles Includes appendices that cover properties of messenger strands, wireless attachments, solution of equations to determine sag, under uniform and point loads Overhead Distribution Lines: Design and Applications offers readers an understanding of the basic principles and various issues related to electric supply and communications distribution lines. It is a valuable resource for utility engineers, as well as those without a technical background.

How did the universe begin and how will it end?
What is matter?
What is mind, and can it survive death?
What are time and space, and how do they relate to ideas about God?
Is the order of the universe the result of accident or design?

The most profound and age-old questions of existence -- for centuries the focus of religion and philosophy -- may soon be answered through the extraordinary advances of a field of science known as the new physics. In this illuminating work, Paul Davies, author of the acclaimed Other Worlds and The Edge of Infinity, writes that the discoveries of 20th-century physics -- relativity and the quantum theory -- are now pointing the way to a new appreciation of man and his place in the universe. They could, in fact, bring within our grasp a unified description of all creation. Demanding a radical reformulation of the most fundamental aspects of reality and a way of thinking that is in closer accord with mysticism than materialism, the new physics, says Davies, offers a surer path to God than religion.

Described by The Washington Post as "impressive," God and the New Physics is a fascinating look at the impact of science on what were formerly religious issues. Elegantly written, a book for both scholars and lay readers of science, it is, according to the Christian Science Monitor, a "provocative...rewarding intellectual romp."

As the interaction of mathematics and theoretical physics continues to intensify, the theories developed in mathematics are being applied to physics, and conversely. This book centers around the theory of primitive forms which currently plays an active and key role in topological field theory (theoretical physics), but was originally developed as a mathematical notion to define a "good period mapping" for a family of analytic structures.

The invited papers in this volume are expository in nature by participants of the Taniguchi Symposium on "Topological Field Theory, Primitive Forms and Related Topics" and the RIMS Symposium bearing the same title, both held in Kyoto. The papers reflect the broad research of some of the world's leading mathematical physicists, and should serve as an excellent resource for researchers as well as graduate students of both disciplines.