The Investigation of the Physical World

Table of Contents

Prefaces
Part I. The Method of Physics:
1. Introduction
2. What is physics?
3. A first approach to the method
4. The value of the method
5. The operational definition
6. The language of physics
7. Observables or theoretical constructs?
8. How many physical quantities are there?
9. The precision of measurements
10. The limits of the validity of a physical law
11. The procedure of classical physics
12. The mathematical functions used in physics
13. The units of measurements
14. The dimensions of physical quantities
15. Theories, hypotheses, models
Part II. The Physics of the Reversible:
1. The divisions of classical physics
2. Velocity and acceleration
3. Curvilinear motion
4. The laws of dynamics
5. Work and energy
6. The invariants
7. Action at a distance
8. Do magnetic charges exist?
9. The field concept
10. Electromagnetism
11. Maxwell's equations
12. The electromagnetics waves
13. The polarization of material media
14. Reflection, refraction, dispersion
15. Lenses and images
16. The physical theory of vision
17. How do we really see?
18. Interference and diffraction
19. The Galilean relativity
20. Einstein's relativity
21. The Lorentz transformation
22. Length contraction and time dilation
23. The limiting velocity, the past and the future
24. The invariance of the laws of physics
25. Gravitation
26. General relativity
27. Consequences of general relativity
28. Physical theories
29. The richness of the man-nature relation
Part III. The Physics of the Irreversable:
1. Reversability and irreversability
2. Temperature and heat
3. Perfect gases
4. Heat, work, and internal energy
5. Specifics of a heat gas
6. The second law of thermo dynamics
7. The entropy
8. The nonlinear development of classical thermodynamics
9. The kinetic theory
10. Probability
11. Information
12. Information and probability
13. The transmission of informations
14. Microstates and macrostates
15. Statistical irreversability
16. Does time have an arrow
17. Fluctuations
Part IV. Microphysics:
1. The objects of physics
2. Spectral lines
3. Electrons
4. Classical models of the atom
5. Planck's quanta
6. Photons
7. The Bose–Einstein statistics
8. Bohr's atom
9. Waves and particles
10. The probabalistic interpretation
11. Spin, atoms and molecules
12. Bosons, fermions, antimatter
13. The uncertainty principle
14. The Hilbert space
15. The formalism of quantum mechanics
16. Revision of the general scheme of physics
17. Difficulties of quantum mechanics
18. Microphysics and reality
19. Determinism and indeterminism
20. Causality
21. The inductive inference
22. Quantum electrodynamics
23. The atomic nucleus
24. The second crisis of classical physics
25. Particles multiply
26. Interactions and conservations
27. Toward the grand unification
28. Materialism and mechanism in contemporary physics
Part V. The Universe:
1. General laws and historical facts
2. Form and movements of the earth
3. The earth's structure
4. The cosmogonic problem
5. The environment and the biosphere
6. The origin and evolution of life
7. Windows on the universe
8. The solar system
9. The origin of the solar system
10. The stars
11. Neutron stars, pulsars, blackholes
12. The galaxies
13. Cosmological hypotheses
14. Life in the universe
Notes
References
Indices.

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