Table Of Content

THEMES AND | © wn i FROM GV -- MODERN ai) PHYSICS Wy OK MULp aya ap _| | BETSY DEE fIl W \ mee LONGING FOR THE HARMONIES DATE DUE PRINTEDINU.S.A. GAYLORD 3 3220 00043 6878 rane‘ LONGING FOR THE HARMONIES Themes and Variations from Modern Physics Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN LIBRARY 1700 LIDA STREET PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91103 DT W: W: Norton & Company: New York: London Copyright © 1987 by Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Ltd., 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario L3R 1B4. Printed in the United States of America. First published as a Norton paperback 1989 The text of this book is composed in Century Schoolbook, with display type set in Century Old Style. Composition and manufacturing by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc. Book design by Bernard Klein. The lines from T. S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” are from Four Quartets, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.; copyright © 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilczek, Frank. Longing for the harmonies. Includes index. 1. Physics. 2. Physics—Philosophy. 3. Harmony (Philosophy) I. Devine, Betsy. II. Title. QC21.2.W52 1987 530 87-7653 ISBN 0-393-3059b-1 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10110 W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 37 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3NU 34567890 To Amity AND MIRA: In vain does the God of War growl, snarl, roar, and try to interrupt with bombards, trumpets, and his whole tarantaran. ... Let us despise the barbaric neighings which echo through these noble lands and awaken our understanding and longing for the harmonies. —Kepler Contents Introduction xi xv Acknowledgments i. Uniformity of Parts Prelude i: Reply to Keats (on the Rainbow) 1. The Nature of Color: We Are All Color-blind 2. Spectra: Music of the Spheres 38. Earth-stuff and Star-stuff Rhapsody on ./ (The World Between) ii. Uniformity of Structure 25 Prelude ii: Radical Conservatism 4. The Cosmic Order of Galaxies 29 34 Doppler Shift 38 5, Expansion and Uniformity 41 6. Inferno and Afterglow 49 Three Ages viii / Contents tii. Transformations Prelude iii: Treiman’s Theorem 55 7. New Star 58 8. The Weak Interaction 62 Ego and Survival 71 tv. Inevitability Prelude iv: Levels of Equilibrium 75 9. Universal Chemistry 78 10. Cooking with Gobar 84 11. Explosions and Fluorescence 89 v. Quantal Reality Prelude v: In the First Circle 99 12. Light as Waves 102 13. Light as Lumps 109 14. Laves 113 15. Branching Worlds 119 Frustration and Uncertainty 130 A Quantum Lottery 133 vi. Radical Uniformity in Microcosm Prelude vi: Back to Pythagoras 137 16. The Indistinguishable 143 17. Fields 155 Maxwell Redux 165 Virtual Particles 170