Taming the Atom: The Emergence of the Visible Microworld (Penguin science) - Softcover

Baeyer, Hans Christian Von

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140156216 ISBN 13: 9780140156218

Publisher: Penguin, 1994

Synopsis

While the quantum theory of the internal structure of atoms remains a matter of theory, inaccessible to everyday experience, atoms themselves have become increasingly tangible and perceptible in recent years. The invention of the scanning-tunnelling microscope has made it possible to photograph them, and atomic traps are making it possible to isolate individual atoms in ways that are vastly increasing our understanding of their behaviour. Much recent science writing has concentrated on the far reaches of theory - particle physics, quantum theory and cosmology. In this book Von Baeyer shows how this links into the world we inhabit and how electron clouds and probability waves add up to the physical, tangible world of objects.

About this title

About the Author

Hans Christian von Baeyer is Chancellor Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. His essays in Discover, The Sciences, Reader¿s Digest and The Gettysburg Review have won him several awards, including the 1990 Science Journalism Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a 1991 National Magazine Award. He has also written over seventy technical and popular articles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0140156216
• ISBN 13: 9780140156218
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256