This enlightening book, a sequel to QUIPS, QUOTES, AND QUANTA, helps readers to understand how physicists think about and look at the world. Starting with the discovery and investigation of cosmic rays, the book proceeds to cover some major areas of modern physics in laymen's terms. Unlike other books that deal with the history of physics, this volume concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists who created the new ideas, with a heavy emphasis on personal incidents and quotes. At the same time it presents, in every day language, the ideas created by these physicists. Both thematic and biographical in nature, readers will be entertained with humorous events in the lives of some famous scientists. Readers will also learn quite a lot about modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts intact.

Contents:

• Prologue
• The Birthcry of Atoms
• The Dirac Equation
• Quantum Field Theory
• The Strongest Force
• Loss of Innocence: The Atom Bomb
• Elementary Particles
• Of Matter Liquid and Solid
• Cosmology
• Black Holes
• Epilogue
• Glossary and Timeline