内容简介
Roger Penrose, one of the most accomplished scientists of our time, presents the only comprehensive and comprehensible account of the physics of the universe. From the very first attempts by the Greeks to grapple with the complexities of our known world to the latest application of infinity in physics, The Road to Reality carefully explores the movement of the smallest atomic particles and reaches into the vastness of intergalactic space. Here, Penrose examines the mathematical foundations of the physical universe, exposing the underlying beauty of physics and giving us one the most important works in modern science writing.
作者简介
Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their joint contribution to our understanding of the universe. His books include The Emperor's New Mind, Shadows of the Mind, and The Nature of Space and Time, which he wrote with Hawking. He has lectured extensively at universities throughout America. He lives in Oxford.
目录
Preface
Acknowledgements
Notation
Prologue
1 The roots of science
1.1 The cluest for the forces that shape the world
1.2 Mathematical truth
1.3 Is Plato's mathematical world 'real'?
1.4 Three worlds and three deep mysteries
1.5 The Good, the True, and the Beautiful
2 An ancient theorem and a modern question
2.1 The Pythagorean theorem
2.2 Euclid's postulates
2.3 Similar-areas proof of the Pythagorean theorem
2.4 Hyperbolic geometry: conformal picture
2.5 Other representations of hyperbolic geometry
2.6 Historical aspects of hyperbolic geometry
2.7 Relation to physical space
3 Kinds of number in the physical world
3.1 A Pythagorean catastrophe?
3.2 The real-number system
3.3 Real numbers in the physical world
3.4 Do natural numbers need the physical world?
3.5 Discrete numbers in the physical world
4 Magical complex numbers
4.1 The magic number 'i'
4.2 Solving equations with complex numbers
4.3 Convergence of power series
4.4 Caspar Wessel's complex plane
4.5 How to construct the Mandelbrot set
5 Geometry of logarithms, powers, and roots
5.1 Geometry of complex algebra
5.2 The idea of the complex logarithm
5.3 Multiple valuedness, natural logarithms
5.4 Complex powers
5.5 Some relations to modern particle physics
6 Real-number calculus
6.1 What makes an honest function?
6.2 Slopes of functions
6.3 Higher derivatives; C~-smooth functions
6.4 The 'Eulerian' notion of a function?
6.5 The rules of differentiation
6.6 Integration
7 Complex-number calculus
7.1 Complex smoothness; holomorphic functions
7.2 Contour integration
7.3 Power series from complex smoothness
7.4 Analytic continuation
8 Riemann surfaces and complex mappings
8.1 The idea of a Riemann surface
8.2 Conformal mappings
8.3 The Riemann sphere
8.4 The genus of a compact Riemann surface
8.5 The Riemann mapping theorem
9 Fourier decomposition and hyperfunctions
9.1 Fourier series
9.2 Functions on a circle
9.3 Frequency splitting on the Riemann sphere
9.4 The Fourier transform
9.5 Frequency splitting from the Fourier transform
9.6 What kind of function is appropriate?
9.7 Hyperfunctions
10 Surfaces
11 Hypercomplex numbers
12 Manifolds of n dimensions
13 Symmetry groups
14 Calculus on manifolds
15 Fibre bundles and gauge connections
16 The ladder of infinity
17 Spacetime
18 Minkowskian geometry
19 The classical fields of maxwell and Einstein
20 Lagrangians and Hamiltonians
21 The quantum particle
22 Quantum algebra, geometry, and spin
23 The entangled quantum world
24 Dirac's electron and antiparticles
25 The standard model of particle physics
26 Quantum field theory
27 The Big Bang and its thermodynamic legacy
28 Speculative theories of the early universe
29 The measurement paradox
30 Gravity's rode in quantum state reduction
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