Word: quantum
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Born in Hungary two years before the publication of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, Von Neumann grew up during the scientific breakthrough that produced the quantum theory, nuclear physics, the atomic and hydrogen bombs. After studying and teaching at leading European universities, he came to the U.S. in 1930 to teach mathematical physics at Princeton, moved on in 1933 to join the Institute for Advanced Study. He became a U.S. citizen...
...pure ideas and are looked at mainly in terms of what tangible objects they will produce," he maintained. Weisskopf cited the theory of electromagnetic fields, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, "one of the greatest ideas human thinking ever brought about," the Darwinian concept of evolution, and the little known quantum theory as examples of scientific ideas with profound philosophical implications...
...established only two course rules: "Questions can't be prompted by some other Caltech course, and they have to be prompted by some natural phenomenon." In 18 months Feynman's gifted students, mostly sophomores and juniors, have pushed far beyond the standard range into subjects, e.g., quantum mechanics and relativity, that normally belong to the graduate years...
...free elective system and "the untrammeled right of the undergraduate to make his own mistakes." He concedes that the General Education program "produces bright, interchangeable students in quantity with almost no pain," but condemns the system as "a reduction in the classroom for average consumption of a certain average quantum of information about the behavior of Western...
Astronomy, Hoyle explains, has hardly digested the "third revolution" of physics (relativity, quantum theory, etc.), and now it is forced to cope with a "fourth revolution": the recent discovery of mesons and numerous other short-lived subatomic particles that are only dimly understood. Mysteries and contradictions are popping up everywhere, and new mathematical tools are being devised for attacking them. Hoyle believes that all the current confusion in astronomy calls for bold theorizing. So in his book he blazes away. Some of his frontier theories...