Word: quantum
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...nonprofit research institute set up by the Bamberger family with profits from their department stores. The I.A.S. proved to be the perfect intellectual playground for Von Neumann's boundless genius. He threw himself with enthusiasm into one intractable problem after another, ranging from the abstract mathematics of quantum mechanics to the practical problems of weather prediction, hydrology and the patterns of artillery fire...
Shockley, a very competitive and sometimes infuriating man, was determined to make his imprint on the discovery. He searched for an explanation of the effect from what was then known of the quantum physics of semiconductors. In a remarkable series of insights made over a few short weeks, he greatly extended the understanding of semiconductor materials and developed the underlying theory of another, much more robust amplifying device--a kind of sandwich made of a crystal with varying impurities added, which came to be known as the junction transistor. By 1951 Shockley's co-workers made his semiconductor sandwich...
...intellectual triumphs of our century, which stems from what is called quantum physics, is the understanding of how very high temperatures can create matter. Temperature is inseparable from radiation. Even in empty space, radiation has energy, and thanks to Einstein's special theory of relativity we know that energy is equivalent to mass, or matter. Laboratory scientists have been turning electromagnetic radiation into mass since the 1930s. (The inverse of that process, turning mass into energy, makes nuclear bombs...
...certainly incomplete. We need a more sophisticated view of what is meant by "empty space," which turns out not to be empty at all. There are also serious philosophical problems created by the Big Bang, which can be described but not explained. Worse, nobody has been able to reconcile quantum physics with the other great triumph of 20th century physics: Einstein's theory of gravitation. Until that is done, the true nature of our universe will remain beyond...
...Planck presents his quantum theory at a meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin...