Quarks Quantum

The book contains several chapters on such topics as quark mixing, the double pole method, the inter-nucleon up-to-down quark bond and its implications for nuclear binding, and more. Readers should be fluent in advanced mathematics and quantum physics. Knowledge of quantum electrodynamics is welcome.

A primer on the evolution of particle physics and the search for the fundamental building blocks of matter. The book presents the full current body of understanding of particle physics in way accessible to a reader with some basic principles of physics (energy, momentum, electrical charge). This concise book tells the fascinating story of how 20th century physicists revealed layer upon layer of structure within the atom to reach the basic particles of matter, and then culminates in descriptions of current theories which form the Standard Model and the discovery of the top quark. Includes chapters on cosmology. Book includes many illustrations and photographs, and integrates the stories of the individual scientists throughout. Includes 4 color photographs, and the famous "Particle Chart".

This book takes the reader for a short journey over the structures of matter showing that their main properties can be obtained even at a quantitative level with a minimum background knowledge. The latter, besides some high school physics and mathematics, consists of the three cornerstones of science presented in chapters 1 to 3, namely the atomic idea, the wave-particle duality, and the minimization of energy as the condition for equilibrium.

Murray Gell-Mann, Physics Nobel Prize Laureate in 1969 is known for his theoretical work on elementary particle physics and the introduction of quarks and together with H. Fritzsch the “Quantum Chromodynamics”.
Based on four sections the Editor gives an overview on the work of Gell-Mann and his contributions to various aspects of the physics, related to quarks. His most important and influential papers were selected and reprinted so that the reader easily can check the original work of Gell-Mann.

This revised and extended edition of the book Fields, Symmetries, and Quarks, originally published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Hamburg, 1989, contains a new chapter on electroweak interactions which has also grown out of lectures that I have given in the meantime. In addition, a number of changes, mainly in the metric used, in the discussion of the theory of strong interactions, QCD, and in the chapter on hadron physics, have been made and errors have been corrected. The motivation for this book, however, is still the same as it was 10 years ago: This is a book on quantum field theory and our present understanding of leptons and hadrons for advanced students and the non-specialists and, in particular, the experimentalists working on problems of nuclear and hadron physics. I am grateful to Dr. S. Leupold for a very careful reading of the revised manuscript, many corrections, and helpful suggestions and to C. Traxler for producing the figures and for constructive discussions.

Are you intrigued by quantum physics, but turned off by the complexities, the mathematics and the formulas?