Publisher's Synopsis
The 20th century has been the century of physics,a period of unparalleled scientific advances fueled primarily by discoveries by physicists. The 20th century also represents the life span of the American Physical Society, not coincidentally, and to celebrate both its own centennial and this remarkable century, the APS has prepared a book highlighting the seminal discoveries of the 20th century, with invited articles by the world's most eminent living physicists, including 12 physics Nobel Prize winners. Included will be chapters by R. Richardson on superfludity, J. Lebowitz on statistical mechanics, P. deGennes on granular material, J. Hopfield on neural networks, C. Wieman on matter waves, A. Pais on high energy physics in the early 20th century . The book will contain about 40 chapters on a broad range of topics in physics written in an engaging and personal style. While the technical level is high, these are not review articles, but rather perspectives on discoveries written by those scientists most closely assoicated with the original work as well future directions of research. The book will be promoted to the meeting attendees in advance of the March meeting, and should be of interest to the broad scientific community. Ben Bederson, professor of physics at NYU, was editor in chief of the APS journals from 1986-1997. He is also editor of the Advances in Atomic Physics Series (Academic Press).
