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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics
How the scientific community overlooked, ignored, and denied the
catastrophic fallout of decades of nuclear testing in the American
West In December of 1950, President Harry Truman gave authorization
for the Atomic Energy Commission to conduct weapons tests and
experiments on a section of a Nevada gunnery range. Over the next
eleven years, more than a hundred detonations were conducted at the
Nevada Test Site, and radioactive debris dispersed across the
communities just downwind and through much of the country. In this
important work, James C. Rice tells the hidden story of nuclear
weapons testing and the negligence of the US government in
protecting public health. Downwind of the Atomic State focuses on
the key decisions and events shaping the Commission's mismanagement
of radiological contamination in the region, specifically on how
the risks of fallout were defined and redefined, or, importantly,
not defined at all, owing to organizational mistakes and the
impetus to keep atomic testing going at all costs. Rice shows that
although Atomic Energy Commission officials understood open-air
detonations injected radioactive debris into the atmosphere, they
did not understand, or seem to care, that the radioactivity would
irrevocably contaminate these communities. The history of the
atomic Southwest should be a wake-up call to everyone living in a
world replete with large, complex organizations managing risky
technological systems. The legacy of open-air detonations in Nevada
pushes us to ask about the kinds of risks we are unwittingly living
under today. What risks are we being exposed to by large
organizations under the guise of security and science?
Gauge theories have provided our most successful representations of
the fundamental forces of nature. How, though, do such
representations work? Interpretations of gauge theory aim to answer
this question. Through understanding how a gauge theory's
representations work, we are able to say what kind of world our
gauge theories reveal to us.
A gauge theory's representations are mathematical structures.
These may be transformed among themselves while certain features
remain the same. Do the representations related by such a gauge
transformation merely offer alternative ways of representing the
very same situation? If so, then gauge symmetry is a purely formal
property since it reflects no corresponding symmetry in
nature.
Gauging What's Real describes the representations provided by
gauge theories in both classical and quantum physics. Richard
Healey defends the thesis that gauge transformations are purely
formal symmetries of almost all the classes of representations
provided by each of our theories of fundamental forces. He argues
that evidence for classical gauge theories of forces (other than
gravity) gives us reason to believe that loops rather than points
are the locations of fundamental properties. In addition to
exploring the prospects of extending this conclusion to the quantum
gauge theories of the Standard Model of elementary particle
physics, Healey assesses the difficulties faced by attempts to base
such ontological conclusions on the success of these theories.
A short important work by Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Dutch physicist
and Nobel Prize winner.
Who Needs Nuclear Power challenges conventional thinking about the
role of civil nuclear power in a rapidly changing energy context,
where new energy carriers are penetrating markets around the world.
Against the backdrop of a global energy transition and the defining
issue of Climate Change, Chris Anastasi assesses new nuclear build
in a fast-moving sector in which new technologies and practices are
rapidly emerging. He considers various countries at different
stages of nuclear industry development, and discusses their
political, legal and technical institutions that provide the
framework for both existing nuclear facilities and new build, as
well as a country's technical capability. He also highlights the
critical issue of nuclear safety culture, exploring how
organisations go about instilling it and maintaining it in their
operations and encouraging it in their supply chains; the critical
role played by independent regulators and international
institutions in ensuring the integrity of the industry is also
highlighted. This book provides a balanced and holistic view of
nuclear power for both an expert and non-expert audience, and a
realistic assessment of the potential for this technology over the
critical period to 2050 and beyond.
In the fourty-six years that have gone by since the first volume of
Progress in Optics was published, optics has become one of the most
dynamic fields of science. The volumes in this series which have
appeared up to now contain more than 300 review articles by
distinguished research workers, which have become permanent records
for many important developments.
- Metamaterials
- Polarization Techniques
- Linear Baisotropic Mediums
- Ultrafast Optical Pulses
- Quantum Imaging
- Point-Spread Funcions
- Discrete Wigner Functions
This book reviews basic electromagnetic (EM) wave theory and
applies it specifically to lasers in order to give the reader not
only tangible examples of how the theory is manifested in real
life, but also practical knowledge about lasers, and their
operation and usage. The latter can be useful for those involved
with using lasers. As a short treatise on this subject matter, this
book is not intended to dwell deeply into the details of EM waves
nor lasers. A bibliography is provided for those who wish to
explore in more depth the topics covered in this book. Rather the
aim of this book is to offer a quick overview, which will allow the
reader to gain a competent general understanding of EM waves and
lasers.
This book provides a comprehensive survey of the technology of
flash lamp annealing (FLA) for thermal processing of
semiconductors. It gives a detailed introduction to the FLA
technology and its physical background. Advantages, drawbacks and
process issues are addressed in detail and allow the reader to
properly plan and perform their own thermal processing. Moreover,
this books gives a broad overview of the applications of flash lamp
annealing, including a comprehensive literature survey. Several
case studies of simulated temperature profiles in real material
systems give the reader the necessary insight into the underlying
physics and simulations. This book is a valuable reference work for
both novice and advanced users.
Fluid mechanics is the study of how fluids behave and interact
under various forces and in various applied situations, whether in
liquid or gas state or both. The author compiles pertinent
information that are introduced in the more advanced classes at the
senior level and at the graduate level. "Advanced Fluid Mechanics"
courses typically cover a variety of topics involving fluids in
various multiple states (phases), with both elastic and non-elastic
qualities, and flowing in complex ways. This new text will
integrate both the simple stages of fluid mechanics
("Fundamentals") with those involving more complex parameters,
including Inviscid Flow in multi-dimensions, Viscous Flow and
Turbulence, and a succinct introduction to Computational Fluid
Dynamics. It will offer exceptional pedagogy, for both classroom
use and self-instruction, including many worked-out examples,
end-of-chapter problems, and actual computer programs that can be
used to reinforce theory with real-world applications.
Professional engineers as well as Physicists and Chemists working
in the analysis of fluid behavior in complex systems will find the
contents of this book useful.All manufacturing companies involved
in any sort of systems that encompass fluids and fluid flow
analysis (e.g., heat exchangers, air conditioning and
refrigeration, chemical processes, etc.) or energy generation
(steam boilers, turbines and internal combustion engines, jet
propulsion systems, etc.), or fluid systems and fluid power (e.g.,
hydraulics, piping systems, and so on)will reap the benefits of
this text.
- Offers detailed derivation of fundamental equations for better
comprehension of more advanced mathematical analysis
-Provides groundwork for more advanced topics on boundary layer
analysis, unsteady flow, turbulent modeling, and computational
fluid dynamics
- Includes worked-out examples and end-of-chapter problems as well
as a companion web site with sample computational programs and
Solutions Manual
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