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12-1-1994

Review Of "Modern Physics From α To Z°" By J. W. Rohlf

Peter J. Collings
Swarthmore College, pcollin1@swarthmore.edu

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Recommended Citation
Collings, Peter J.. (1994). "Review Of "Modern Physics From α To Z°" By J. W. Rohlf". Physics Today.
Volume 47, Issue 12. 62-63. DOI: 10.1063/1.2808751
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-physics/225

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 Physics Today
Modern Physics from α to Z °
J. W. Rohlf and Peter J. Collings

Citation: Physics Today 47(12), 62 (1994); doi: 10.1063/1.2808751

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2808751
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/47/12?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing

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 by Takeo Fujiwara and "Electron

SHADOWS OF THE
The Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
Structure of Solids" by Christian Mail-
hiot—do an excellent and authorita-
tive job of summarizing the state of
the art. However, there is no treat-
ROGER PENROSE ment of substitutionally disordered
$25.00, 457 pP metallic alloys or of single impurities
in metals. Perhaps such omissions
will be remedied in subsequent vol-
"Talk about astounding science!. .Thanks to the forceful
umes. In any case, this encyclopedia
reasoning of Shadows of the Mind, Mr. Penrose reveals several should be in the library of any insti-
worlds that are normally very hard to see, but that thanks lo his guidance tution where physics is studied.
are thrilling to imagine.... Profound." STEVEN J. ROTHMAN
—Christopher Lehmann-Haupl, The New York Times ROY BENEDEK
SIMON R. PHILLPOT
"May be the first accessible report lo a general readership Journal of Applied Physics
about the site, if not the actual substance, of the Holy Grail of Argonne, Illinois
consciousness—the precise point where quantum activity
interacts with classical physical activity in the brain."
—The Sunday Times (London| Modern Physics
from a to Z°

EINSTEIN LIVED HERE

ABRAHAM PAIS
$25.00, 304 pp
"Full Oi g o o d things—personal vignettes, scientific sketch-
es, and a lenthy account of how the press transformed Einstein
into an international celebrity and oracle."
—Wall Slreei Journal
"A wonderfully readable look (no math) at that great man
and at ourselves viewing him.... Very welcome is this
book by the most thorough and judicious of physicist-biog-
raphers."
—Philip Morrison, Scientific American
Pais's essays enrich our understanding of Einstein's
complexity, creativity, values, limitations, and hold on our
imagination."
—BooUist
J. W. Rohlf
Wiley, New York, 1994.
646 pp. $70.95 he
ISBN 0-471-57270-5
In the preface to Modern Physics from
a to Z°, James William Rohlf states
that "more is better" because extra
details are necessary to challenge the
curiosity of the "hungry student." He
goes on to argue that this approach
provides a convenient introduction to
advanced material and allows the pro-
fessor some flexibility in choosing the
pace and content of the course. Rohlf
is faithful to his motto throughout
this book and thereby has given the
physics community a new type of
modern physics text.
The book is designed to be used in
a one-semester course in modern
physics for students who have com-
pleted one year of calculus-based me-

HYPERSPACE
A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes,
chanics and electrodynamics. All of
the traditional topics of such a course
are treated in detail, and this alone
could easily produce arigorouscourse
Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension in modern physics. But there is much
MICHIO KAKU more. Interwoven with the tradi-
$25 00, 359 pp tional topics, and in additional chap-
ters at the end, are many topics from
the advances of physics in the past
"As thought-provoking as Stephen Hawking ...Lucid, lively, and full of enter-
half century. Quarks, leptons and the
taining glimpses of (he researchers involved. A worthy successor to the popular physics texts four forces of nature are introduced
of George Garnow." , early, discussed at various times
—Kirkus Keviews
throughout the text and covered in
"Mesmerizing.... Succeeds marvelously by combining a little math, a little history and biogra- detail in two chapters near the end.
phy, a little science fiction, and a lot of fun." , The quantum Hall effect, high-Tc su-
1 r
—Washington Post Book World perconductivity, scanning tunneling
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"A rollercoaster of an intellectual ride through the extraordinary world of black holes, worm- namics and the early universe are all
.holes parallel universes, higher dimension, and time travel." . , .,. discussed at the appropriate times.
—Philadelphia Inquirer The chief strength of the book lies in
its treating the recent advances along
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OXFORD I'NIVKRSITY PRIiSS ganized and coherent way. An in-
structor who desires to teach a chal-
lenging course that includes some of
Circle number 23 on Reader Service Card
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 BOOKS
the most exciting developments of the ionic exchange and transport. The clude the stochastic variety. How-
past few decades will find more than author has also introduced substan- ever, despite its title, this book is not
enough material in Rohlfs book. tial new material on subjects or really about stochastic dynamical sys-
There are a few pedagogical weak- glasses that have emerged or grown tems, which would pertain to the
nesses that limit the utility of this in significance in recent years, such qualitative analysis of dynamical
book as a text in a modern physics as fast-ion conductors, heavy-metal models. It is instead an introduction
course. Its coverage is massive for a fluoride glasses and glass corrosion to stochastic processes and stochastic
one-semester course, and its style is and dissolution in water. differential equations. Stochastic dy-
quite terse. Often the most impor- Doremus's book serves as both an namical systems are the focus of re-
tant aspect of a new concept is given introduction and a reference to the cent research publications by Ludwig
first, followed by a good deal of dis- current field of glass science. It Arnold and his collaborators (for ex-
cussion and the requisite develop- should prove useful as a textbook for ample, Arnold and Hans Crauel's
ment. A student who requires ample advanced undergraduate and first- "Random Dynamical Systems", in Lec-
background, a logical development of year graduate students, as well as an ture Notes in Mathematics 1486,
new concepts and carefully selected updated, broadly based reference for Springer-Verlag, 1991), but I was hop-
examples will be frustrated. There researchers and technologists work- ing for a textbook treatment.
are more than the typical number of ing in the field. While a large number On the other hand, the need for a
examples scattered throughout the of books have appeared in recent text like Honerkamp's is clear. As
text, but most call for the mere plug- years on such specialized glass topics the author states in his preface,
ging of numbers into formulae. The as sol-gels, fluorides, optical fibers, "Probability theory is not afforded the
examples suffer as well from a layout bioglasses and glass ceramics, there appropriate attention" in classical
that does not clearly mark the end of are very few books like this one, which theoretical physics courses, even
an example; readers may often think provides a comprehensive overview of though probabilistic techniques—
the discussion is still about the exam- glass in a single volume. One disap- ranging from data analysis to the
ple when in fact it is a continuation pointment, however, at least from my modeling of complex systems—are es-
of the text preceding the example. perspective, is the limited discussion sential tools for physicists. He at-
The level and coverage are similar and updating of the section on optical tempts in this book to remedy this
to Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick's properties, although the author does situation. Stochastic Dynamical Sys-
Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, provide an excellent list of references tems is written as a text for a gradu-
Solids, Nuclei, and Particles (Wiley, in this area. Nonetheless, if one is to ate course in probability and stochas-
1985), and it is more advanced than have only a single reference on glassy tic processes, and its level makes it
Modern Physics by Raymond A. Ser- materials on the shelf, this book is accessible to first-year graduate stu-
way, Clement J. Moses and Curt A. certainly a good candidate. dents. Its scope is vast, which, I be-
Moyer (Saunders College, 1989). The The author has had a distin- lieve, is both its major advantage and
inclusion of so many contemporary top- guished career in both industry and its major shortcoming. I can best
ics and the up-to-date nature of the academia, first with the General Elec- illustrate this by trying to delineate
discussion, however, set it apart from tric Research Laboratory in Schnec- the range of topics covered.
other modern physics texts. tady, New York and, since 1971, as a The initial chapters of the book
PETER J. COLLINGS faculty member in the materials en- cover basic notions of probability the-
Swarthmore College gineering department at Rensselaer ory—from the definition of a random
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Polytechnic Institute, where he is the variable to such notions as cumulants
New York Professor of Glass and Ce- and factor analysis. As is appropriate
ramics. He thus merges the insights for a physics text, there is mention,
Glass Science and expertise of an academic re-
searcher with the practical experience
but no extensive use, of such concepts
as Borel sets, nor is the notation on-
Robert H. Doremus of an industrial scientist as he selects erously mathematical.
Wiley, New York, 1994. and presents his material, never los- Subsequent chapters cover the
Second edition. 339 pp. ing sight of the need for a definitive analysis of linear stochastic differen-
$74.95 he ISBN 0-471-89174-6 university textbook on glass science. tial equations, Brownian motion, Fok-
This book is the first revision and GEORGE H. SIGEL JR ker-Planck equations, path integral
expansion of a text published more Rutgers University methods and even graph theoretic
than 20 years ago. The original vol- New Brunswick, New Jersey techniques for perturbation solution
ume has served as a valuable refer- of nonlinear stochastic differential
ence and course textbook on glass equations. There is a succinct, prac-
science for both students and re- Stochastic Dynamical tical guide to the different calculii
searchers in the field. In this new (Stratanovich and Ito) for the treat-
edition, Robert Doremus provides a Systems ment of systems with white noise ("In
broad, updated overview of the fun- physical equations one tends to
damental structure and microstruc- Joseph Honerkamp choose the Stratonovich interpreta-
ture of glasses, as well as treatments VCH, New York, 1994. tion [because] white noise is always
of their mechanical, optical, chemical 535 pp. $100.00 he an idealization"). The final sections
and electrical properties. The focus, ISBN 1-56081-563-9 cover data analysis, with an extensive
however, is the basic understanding Stochastic Dynamical Systems is an treatment of time series by linear
of glasses rather than a comprehen- excellent translation (by Kata Linden- filtering and autoregressive moving
sive compilation or tabulation of prop- berg) and expansion of the German average methods. A major omission
erties. Some of the topics covered are edition published in 1989. As a neo- is a discussion of recent nonlinear
glass formation and processing, phase phyte in stochastic processes, I ap- methods for the fitting of time series.
separation, viscous behavior, surface proached it with the fervent hope that This topic is extensively covered in
properties, gaseous diffusion and in- it would expand my knowledge of de- volume 58 of Physica D and in the
teractions, chemical durability, and terministic dynamical systems to in- review by Henry Abarbanel et al. in

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