The Mysterious Universe is a science book by the British astrophysicist Sir James Jeans. It is an expanded version of the Rede Lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1930, and begins with a full-page citation of the famous passage in Plato’s Republic, Book VII, laying out the allegory of the cave. It makes frequent reference to the quantum theory of radiation, begun by Max Planck in 1900, to Einstein’s general relativity, and to the new theories of quantum mechanics of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, of whose philosophical perplexities the author seemed well aware. This New Revised Edition was first published in 1932. A popular book to this day, and a valuable addition to any reader’s science book collection.
This book can be described as a student's edition of the author's Dynamical Theory of Gases. It is written, however, with the needs of the student of physics and physical chemistry in mind, and those parts of which the interest was mainly mathematical have been discarded. This does not mean that the book contains no serious mathematical discussion; the discussion in particular of the distribution law is quite detailed; but in the main the mathematics is concerned with the discussion of particular phenomena rather than with the discussion of fundamentals.
First published in 1936, this volume contains six of the Halley Stewart Lectures – originally founded "For Research towards the Christian Ideal in All Social Life" – by some of the greatest of English scientists of the mid-20th century, each a leading authority in his respective field: cosmology, physics, meteorology, medicine and genetics. The final lecture considers the relationship between scientific knowledge and human ideals, commenting on the paradox that a century which produced such scientific advance also witnessed the most concentrated period of social, economic and political turmoil in world history.
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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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