Arts and Science 2D06 - 2018/19
Links for Help with the Course Material (currently being updated)

Links of Historical Interest

Here are several Weblinks to sites that have good discussions of the history (and people) of the subject:

• Brian Greene's Elegant Universe
  This is the Web version of the famous PBS/Nova miniseries on relativity, quantum mechanics, and the new frontier of string theory. For a visually stunning tour through these frontier topics, you can't beat this site. The streaming is no longer available in Canada, but the links on the site are also well worth exploring. Brian Greene - a reputable theoretical physicist as well as impressively multitalented speaker, writer, and (!) one-time actor - is the writer and narrator of this series.
  
  Brian Greene has written two excellent books on these subjects, The Elegant Universe (on which the PBS series was based), and the newer The Fabric of the Cosmos. Both are very good; the newer one goes farther and is the best one around of its type in the literature.


• "Galileo and Einstein"
  By Michael Fowler, University of Virginia. This is a rich resource for the history of thought in physics from the ancient Greeks through to Einstein - very readable, just the right length and style, and mostly quite well researched. Lots of our key players are here: Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, then a big jump to Einstein. You can find both personal biographical material for all of these, and discussions of their thought and how they arrived at them. Very much worth reading. And, try out the nice collection of applets on the same site, many of which are interactive.
  
  (For an animated brief talk giving an overview of Plato's and Aristotle's contributions, Thanassis Psaltis (2018 2D06 TA) recommends

  Plato and Aristotle.)
  


• Galileo
  A Web version of the PBS Nova production on Galileo. The streaming is unavailable, but try out the interactive simulations of his crucial experiments and read what historian Dava Sobel has to say about his life and times.


• Isaac Newton (I)
  Isaac Newton (II)
  Does modern Western civilization have the shape it does because of one key figure -- Newton? These sites provides a good introduction to all the basics of Newton's life, early education, and how his ideas developed on light, calculus, gravitation, and the laws of force.


• Albert Einstein
  ... is surely one of a handful of greatest thinkers in human history. See this very nicely assembled tour through Einstein's personal story - biographical details and his remarkable step-by-step assembly of special and general relativity. It goes on to describe his role in politics and world science in the "nuclear age" before and after World War II.
  
  Also, See Fowler's lectures (the link given above under "Galileo and Einstein") for readable material on special relativity. This contains the clearest explanation of the twin paradox that I have seen.


• Niels Bohr
  Louis de Broglie
  Straightforward, concise histories of two of the most influential scientists of the 20th century.


• Werner Heisenberg
  Another fine Web Exhibit put together by the American Institute of Physics (like the one for Einstein above). Read about Heisenberg's struggles as a graduate student, his possibly-shady history during World War II, and his philosophical thought as well as the ultra-famous Uncertainty Principle. Look through this AIP site for biographies of several other 20th century figures.