Fly by Night Physics How Physicists Use the Backs of Envelopes

Cover
Contents
Preface
Dimensions and fundamental constants
I. Dimensional analysis: from a not so secret to an allegedly secret weapon
	1. Dimensional analysis: a not so secret weapon
	2. From Kepler’s law to black holes
	3. Bohr’s atom and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: opposition and compromise
	4. The dull function hypothesis
	5. Match wits with Einstein over diffusion and dissipation
	6. Energy released in the first atomic bomb test
	Interlude: Math medley 1
II. Telecommunication is possible
	1. Electromagnetism: strange dimensions
	2. The emission of electromagnetic waves
	3. Electromagnetic radiation from moving point charges and Compton scattering
	4. Relativistic effects by promotion and completion
III. Quantum physics: tunneling in stars, scaling, atoms, and black holes
	1. From drawing the Schrödinger wave function to tunneling in stars
	2. Scaling and the importance of being clean
	3. The Landau problem in quantum mechanics
	4. Atomic physics
	5. Black body radiation
	A word of encouragement to the reader: on getting confused by physics
IV. Planck gave us units: black hole radiation and Einstein gravity
	1. Planck gave us God-given units
	2. A box of photons and the power of natural units
	3. Black holes have entropy: Hawking radiation
	4. When Einstein gravity meets the quantum
	Interlude: Math medley 2
V. From ideal gas to Einstein condensation
	1. Ideal Boltzmann gas
	2. Van der Waals: master of the envelope
	3. Quantum gases
	4. Guessing the Fermi-Dirac distribution
	5. Einstein condensation
VI. Symmetry and superb theorems
	Prologue to Part VI
	1. Symmetry, fearful or fearless
	2. Galileo, viscosity, and time reversal invariance
	3. Newton’s two superb theorems: where is hell?
VII. Stars, black holes, the universe, and gravity waves
	1. Stars
	2. Collapse into black holes
	3. The expanding universe
	4. Power radiated in gravity waves
	Interlude: Math medley 3
VIII. From surfing to tsunamis, from dripping faucets to mammalian lungs
	1. Water waves
	2. A physicist at the seashore
	3. Surface tension and ripples
	4. From dripping faucets to mammalian lungs and water striders
	5. Drag, viscosity, and Reynolds number
IX. From private neutrinos to charm
	Prologue to Part IX
	1. A lightning introduction to particle physics and quantum field theory
	2. Weak interaction: a few basic facts
	3. Private neutrinos
	4. Strangeness and charm
Appendices
	Cp: Critical points
	Del: Delta function
	Eg: Einstein gravity: a lightning review
	ENS: From Euler to Navier and Stokes
	FSW: Finite square well
	Gal: Galilean invariance and fluid flow
	Gr: Green functions
	Grp: Group versus phase velocity
	L: Radial part of the Laplacian
	M: Maxwell’s equations: a brief review
	N: Newton’s two superb theorems and the second square root alert
	VdW: Fly by day derivation of van der Waals’s law from first principles
Timeline
Solutions to selected exercises
Suggested reading
Index