Peter T. Landsberg

Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition takes us on a journey that explores the limits of our scientific knowledge, emphasizing the gaps that are left. The book starts with everyday concepts such as temperature, and proceeds to energy, the Periodic Table, and then to more advanced ideas. The author examines the nature of time and entropy, chaos, quantum theory, cosmology, and some aspects of mathematics, confirming that our understanding is necessarily incomplete. Using references to historical figures in science as well as thought-provoking illustrations, Seeking Ultimates encourages you to consider your scientific knowledge in a new light. You will be able to reassess your belief in "truths" as presented (such as mathematical theorems) and to reconsider philosophical issues of theology and happiness. A comprehensive glossary explains in clear language the technical terms so that nonscientists can enjoy the text.

Innovative and wide-ranging, this treatment combines precise mathematic style with strong physical intuition. Written by a well-known physicist for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the book's broad spectrum of applications includes negative temperatures and heat capacities, general and special relativistic effects, black hole thermodynamics, gravitational collapse, energy conversion problems, and efficiencies including simple heat pump theory. The basic ideas and mathematical formulation of thermodynamics are presented in a modern, clear way with the Carath odory method, which is employed fully, but in simple terms and without advanced mathematics. Statistical mechanics are based on ideas from information theory, and the simpler ideal systems are covered in close connection with the thermodynamic treatment. Mathematical steps are displayed in detail, and abundant problems include worked solutions.

This book is devoted to the main aspects of the physics of recombination in semiconductors. It is the first book to deal exclusively and comprehensively with the subject, and as such is a self-contained volume, introducing the concepts and mechanisms of recombination from a fundamental point of view. Professor Landsberg is an internationally acknowledged expert in this field, and while not neglecting the occasional historical insights, he takes the reader to the frontiers of current research. Following initial chapters on semiconductor statistics and recombination statistics, the text moves on to examine the main recombination mechanisms: Auger effects, impact ionisation, radiative recombination, defect and multiphonon recombination. The final chapter deals with the topical subject of quantum wells and low-dimensional structures. Altogether the book covers a remarkably wide area of semiconductor physics. The book will be of importance to physicists, electronic engineers and applied mathematicians who are studying or researching the physics and applications of semiconductors. Some parts of the book will be accessible to final-year undergraduates.

Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition takes us on a journey that explores the limits of our scientific knowledge, emphasizing the gaps that are left. The book starts with everyday concepts such as temperature, and proceeds to energy, the Periodic Table, and then to more advanced ideas. The author examines the nature of time and entropy, chaos, quantum theory, cosmology, and some aspects of mathematics, confirming that our understanding is necessarily incomplete. Using references to historical figures in science as well as thought-provoking illustrations, Seeking Ultimates encourages you to consider your scientific knowledge in a new light. You will be able to reassess your belief in "truths" as presented (such as mathematical theorems) and to reconsider philosophical issues of theology and happiness. A comprehensive glossary explains in clear language the technical terms so that nonscientists can enjoy the text.