The M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series is the result of a program of careful study, planning, and development that began in 1960.The Education Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (formerly the Science Teaching Center) was established to study the process of instruction, aids thereto, and the learning process itself, with special reference to science teaching at the university level. Generous support from a number of foundations provided the means for assembling and maintaining an experienced staff to co-operate with members of the Institute's Physics Department in the examination, improvement, and development of physics curriculum materials for students planning careers in the sciences. After careful analysis of objectives and the problems involved, preliminary versions of textbooks were prepared, tested through classroom use at M.I.T. and other institutions, re-evaluated, rewritten, and tried again. Only then were the final manuscripts undertaken.

A revision of the defining book covering the physics and classical mathematics necessary to understand electromagnetic fields in materials and at surfaces and interfaces. The third edition has been revised to address the changes in emphasis and applications that have occurred in the past twenty years.

The new edition of this easy-to-understand text, designed for a non-calculus course in statics and strength of materials, requires only a working knowledge of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. In addition to expanded coverage and better organization of information, it addresses new topics such as accuracy and precision, solution of simultaneous equations, rolling resistance, mechanical properties of materials, composite beams, reinforced concrete beans, plastic analysis of beams, design of shear connectors, and more.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of solid state physics for undergraduate students in physics, chemistry, engineering, and materials science.

Aiming to provide students with a sound understanding of existing devices in order to develop the basic tools with which they can later learn about applications and the latest devices, this study incorporates the basics of semiconductor materials and conduction processes in solids. It also introduces and relates the most commonly used semiconductor terms and concepts to a broad range of devices. In addition, the work presents the study of solid state devices including both silicon and compound semiconductors so that undergraduate students may appreciate the continuing growth in importance of exciting optoelectronic and high-speed device applications.

Not since Richard Feynman has a Nobel Prize-winning physicist written with as much panache as Robert Laughlin does in this revelatory and essential book. Laughlin proposes nothing less than a new way of understanding fundamental laws of science. In this age of superstring theories and Big-Bang cosmology, we're used to thinking of the unknown as being impossibly distant from our everyday lives. The edges of science, we're told, lie in the first nanofraction of a second of the Universe's existence, or else in realms so small that they can't be glimpsed even by the most sophisticated experimental techniques. But we haven't reached the end of science, Laughlin argues-only the end of reductionist thinking. If we consider the world of emergent properties instead, suddenly the deepest mysteries are as close as the nearest ice cube or grain of salt. And he goes farther: the most fundamental laws of physics-such as Newton's laws of motion and quantum mechanics -are in fact emergent. They are properties of large assemblages of matter, and when their exactness is examined too closely, it vanishes into nothing.A Different Universe takes us into a universe where the vacuum of space has to be considered a kind of solid matter, where sound has quantized particles just like those of light, where there are many phases of matter, not just three, and where metal resembles a liquid while superfluid helium is more like a solid. It is a universe teeming with natural phenomena still to be discovered. This is a truly mind-altering book that shows readers a surprising, exquisitely beautiful and mysterious new world.

This text on the electrical, optical, magnetic, and thermal properties of materials stresses concepts rather than mathematical formalism. Suitable for advanced undergraduates, it is intended for materials and electrical engineers who want to gain a fundamental understanding of alloys, semiconductor devices, lasers, magnetic materials, and so forth. The book is organized to be used in a one-semester course; to that end each section of applications, after the introduction to the fundamentals of electron theory, can be read independently of the others. Many examples from engineering practice serve to provide an understanding of common devices and methods. Among the modern applications covered are: high-temperature superconductors, optoelectronic materials, semiconductor device fabrication, xerography, magneto-optic memories, and amorphous ferromagnetics. The fourth edition has been revised and updated with an emphasis on the applications sections, which now cover devices of the next generation of electronics.

Superconductivity--the flow of electric current without resistance in certain materials as temperatures near absolute zero--is one of the greatest discoveries of 20th century physics, but it can seem impenetrable to those who lack a solid scientific background. Outlining the fascinating history of how superconductivity was discovered, and the race to understand its many mysterious and counter-intuitive phenomena, Stephen Blundell explains in accessible terms the theories that have been developed to explain it, and how they have influenced other areas of science, including the Higgs boson of particle physics and ideas about the early Universe. This Very Short Introduction examines the many strange phenomena observed in superconducting materials, the latest developments in high-temperature superconductivity, the potential of superconductivity to revolutionize the physics and technology of the future, and much more. It is a fascinating detective story, offering invaluable insights into some of the deepest and most beautiful ideas in physics today.

Philip Anderson was educated at University High School in Urbana, Illinois, at Harvard (BS 1943, PhD 1949), and further educated at Bell Laboratories, where his career (1949-1984) coincided with the greatest period of that remarkable institution. Starting in 1967, he shared his time with Cambridge University (until 1975) and then with Princeton, where he continued full time as Joseph Henry Professor until 1997. As an emeritus he remains active in research, and at press time he was involved in several scientific controversies about high profile subjects, in which his point of view, though unpopular at the moment, is likely to prevail eventually. His colleagues have made him one of the two physicists most often cited in the scientific literature, for several decades. His work is characterized by mathematical simplicity combined with conceptual depth, and by profound respect for experimental findings. He has explored areas outside his main discipline, the quantum theory of condensed matter (for which he won the 1977 Nobel Prize), on several occasions: his paper on what is now called the "Anderson-Higgs mechanism" was a main source for Peter Higgs' elucidation of the boson; a crucial insight led to work on the dynamics of neutron stars (pulsars); and his concept of the spin glass led far afield, to developments in practical computer algorithms and neural nets, and eventually to his involvement in the early years of the Santa Fe Institute and his co-leadership with Kenneth Arrow of two influential workshops on economics at that institution. His writing career started with a much-quoted article in Science titled "More is Different" in 1971; he was an occasional columnist for Physics Today in the 1980s and 1990s. He was more recently a reviewer of science and science-related books for the Times (London) Higher Education Supplement as well as an occasional contributor to Science, Nature, and other journals.