GALILEO UNBOUND:PATH ACROSS LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING

GALILEO UNBOUND:PATH ACROSS LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING

Stories from the history of the science of motion, from chaos theory to black holes, from population dynamics to Einstein and entanglement, Galileo Unbound traces the history of physics that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to the view of our lives as trajectories traversing a phase space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of trajectories through spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Table of Contents:     Chapter 1: Flight of the Swallows         - Introduction to motion and trajectories     Chapter 2: A New Scientist         - Galileo's beginnings     Chapter 3: Galileo's Trajectory         - Publication of Two New Sciences     Chapter 4: On the Shoulders of Giants         - 100 years from Newton to Lagrange     Chapter 5: Geometry on my Mind         - The beginnings of abstract spaces     Chapter 6: The Tangled Tale of Phase Space         - The geometry of dynamics     Chapter 7: The Lens of Gravity         - From Einstein to Wheeler         - The Golden Age of General Relativity     Chapter 8: On the Quantum Footpath         - Quantum dynamics     Chapter 9: From Butterflies to Hurricanes         - Chaos theory     Chapter 10: Darwin in the Clockworks         - Evolutionary dynamics     Chapter 11: The Measure of Life         - Population dynamics "the richness of the story-telling of the present book, which is able to let even the non-erudite reader to appreciate what the erudite scholar (probably) takes for granted" -- Salvatore Esposito, Contemporary Physics Journal "Highly Recommended." -- CHOICE "Using very few equations, Nolte looks at nearly every area of physics and even includes chapters on chaos and Darwinian evolution. Some of the phase space illustrations are complicated, but Nolte does an excellent job of developing these from the basic ideas of a trajectory through physical space. There is an unexpressed argument here that it may be better for the uninitiated to learn about the sciences through phase space concepts. By learning about the sciences in this way, one gains an appreciation for the symmetry and beauty of the theories without having to learn the advanced mathematics." -- Professor Eric Kincanon, Gonzaga University "David Nolte, in Galileo Unbound draws a continuous line starting from Galileo, to Newton, Lagrange and Poincaré, all the way to Darwin and beyond." -- Nature Astronomy In this book I trace the history of physics from a new perspective, beginning with Galileo's parabolic trajectory, and following the concept of a "trajectory" as it changed to serve changing needs in evolutionary dynamics, neural networks, economic dynamics and general relativity, among others.  The book developed out of the dynamics course I was teaching to undergraduate physics majors at Purdue University, as I came across the real stories behind the physicists and mathematicians who struggled to define the permanent properties of things that change.  The stories were fascinating, and I decided to weave them together into a form that was accessible to anyone interested in the history of science. The real stories behind the physics of chaos theory and complex systems, showing how scientists struggled to find what was constant in the midst of change. David D. Nolte, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Dept of Physics, Purdue University, USA David D. Nolte is the Edward M. Purcell Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. His research areas have included experimental high-energy physics, cosmology, semiconductor physics, laser physics and biophysics. He received his BA from Cornell University in 1981, his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, and a post-doctoral appointment at AT&T Bell Labs before joining the faculty at Purdue. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the AAAS. In 2005, he received the Herbert Newby McCoy Award of Purdue University. He is the inventor of the BioCD and Biodynamic Imaging and is the technical founder of two biotech companies using interferometry and holography for diagnostic screening.