Table of Contents

What’s Going On Here?.- Some Physics You Need to Know.- The Chemist’s Atoms.- Gas Laws.- Hard-Sphere Atoms.- Electric Charges and Electric Forces.- Electric Fields and Electric Forces.- Magnetic Field and Magnetic Force.- Electrical Atoms and the Electron.- Waves and Light.- Time and Length at High Speeds.- Energy and Momentum at High Speeds.- The Granularity of Light.- X-Rays.- Particles as Waves.- Radioactivity and the Atomic Nucleus.- Spectra and the Bohr Atom.- The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.- Atoms, Photons, and Quantum Mechanics.- Entanglement and Non-Locality.- Epilogue.

About the Author

Charles H. Holbrow is a professional physicist who for over forty years has taught physics to undergraduates, chiefly at Colgate University but also at Caltech, Haverford College, Cornell University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, MIT, Harvard University, and the University of Vienna. His research in nuclear physics and at the interface between nuclear and atomic physics has numerous publications in leading physics journals. He has been Vice President, President Elect, President (2003) and Past President of the American Association of Physics Teachers. AAPT has awarded him a Certificate of Appreciation of his service; Harvard University has awarded him a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching; he is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Beth Parks is a physicist with ten years of experience teaching physics to undergraduates at Colgate University. Her research in experimental condensed matter physics has been published in leading scientific journals and supported by four grants from the National Science Foundation and one from Research Corporation. She has also received two National Science Foundation grants in support of educational programs, including one that funded a summer camp designed to interest 14-17-year-old girls in science by letting them explore the science of automobiles. She has been active in science outreach programs both at the K-12 level and to the general public.

Reviews

From the reviews of the second edition:“Strength of this book’s treatment is that atoms are used to link … branches of physics, enabling undergraduates to develop a more coherent understanding of the field. … a helpful summary of the material covered, longer problems are given at the end of each chapter. … The layout is clear and contains many illustrative figures. … I recommended this book as a brave attempt to inject modern physics into the very start of undergraduate life. … First-year undergraduates or advanced A-level students seeking extra material.” (Times Higher Education, May, 2011)“Holbrow and colleagues (all, Colgate Univ.) designed this book … for the first course of an innovative three-semester introductory physics sequence at Colgate. … serves to introduce students to contemporary physics quickly. … Even experienced faculty will gain valuable classroom insight from the presentation … . a physics textbook for majors, many general readers with a high school background in math and physics would find it an accessible introduction to these topics. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, advanced high school students, and general readers.” (J. R. Burciaga, Choice, Vol. 48 (9), May, 2011)