Ebook reads for the materials researcher
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Ebook reads for the materials researcher I spend a significant amount of my spare time in reading. Almost all of the books that I read are in ebook form. I only buy a paper book when I absolutely must have it immediately and it’s unavailable as an ebook. I use the Kindle app on my iPad for technical books because of the color graphics and equations. I use my Kindle device for fiction and other non-technical books. All of the following books that I’m recommending are available in ebook form. Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics, by Nancy Forbes and Basil Mahon, published by Prometheus Books in 2014, is far more than just a biography of Faraday and Maxwell. The theme of the book is the story of how the idea of electric and magnetic fields triumphed over physical objections involving rejection of action at a distance. The main protagonists are Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, two of the giants in the development of our understanding of electricity and magnetism. The book describes how Faraday rose from poverty to become one of the most respected scientists in the world. An apprenticeship with Humphry Davy propelled Faraday forward. At that time studies in electricity and magnetism were an arcane art. Faraday used a deeply methodological approach to experiments to gain critical insights into the field. However, his knowledge of mathematics and formalism was greatly lacking. Maxwell was able to use his knowledge of mathematics to develop the equations that bear his name that unified electricity and magnetism, but these results were driven by the detailed experimental results obtained by Faraday. Humphry Davy, Heinrich Hetz, Charles Augustin Coulomb, Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Oliver Heaviside, and others played important roles in the lives of Faraday and Maxwell, and are given credit for their roles in the development of these and other ideas.
Emmy Noether’s Wonderful Theorem, by Dwight E. Neuenschwander, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 2011, combines a very readable biography of Emmy Noether with an exposition of work related to the theorem in the calculus of variations that bears her name, which has had major implications for many areas of modern science. The book details her struggles through an era that did not for the most part allow women a place in the halls of academia as well as during the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. In spite of those obstacles, she was able to complete a course of study at the University of Erlangen and pass the exams that allowed her to obtain the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. She then studied at the University of Göttingen, obtaining a doctoral degree under Paul A. Gordon. She returned to Göttingen later at the invitation of David Hilbert and Felix Klein, but had to lecture under Hilbert’s name because women were not allowed on university faculty in Germany at that time. She fled to the United States because of the rise of Nazism, but died at a relatively young age following what was thought to be ro
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