Modern Physics for Science and Engineering

Although the Greek scholars Aristotle and Eratosthenes performed measure-

ments and calculations that today we would call physics, the discipline of physics

has its roots in the work of Galileo and Newton and others in the scientifi c revo-

lution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The knowledge and practice

of physics grew steadily for 200 to 300 years until another revolution in physics

took place, which is the subject of this book. Physicists distinguish classical physics,

which was mostly developed before 1895, from modern physics, which is based on

discoveries made after 1895. The precise year is un important, but monumental

changes occurred in physics around 1900.

The long reign of Queen Victoria of England, from 1837 to 1901, saw

considerable changes in social, political, and intellectual realms, but perhaps

none so important as the remarkable achievements that occurred in physics. For

example, the description and predictions of electromagnetism by Maxwell are

partly responsible for the rapid telecommunications of today. It was also during

this period that thermodynamics rose to become an exact science. None of these

achievements, however, have had the ramifications of the discoveries and appli-

cations of modern physics that would occur in the twentieth century. The world

would never be the same.