A Thin Cosmic Rain

A Thin Cosmic Rain
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 255
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674009899
ISBN-13 : 0674009894
Rating : 4/5 (894 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Thin Cosmic Rain by : Michael W. Friedlander

Download or read book A Thin Cosmic Rain written by Michael W. Friedlander and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002-11-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective story behind the discovery and study of cosmic rays, a story that stretches from the early days of subatomic particle physics in the 1890s to the frontiers of high-energy astrophysics today. Writing for the amateur scientist and the educated general reader, Michael Friedlander, a cosmic ray researcher, relates the history of cosmic ray science from its accidental discovery to its present status. He explains how cosmic rays are identified and how their energies are measured, then surveys current knowledge and theories of thin cosmic rain. The most thorough, up-to-date, and readable account of these intriguing phenomena, his book makes us party to the search into the nature, behavior, and origins of cosmic rays—and into the sources of their enormous energy, sometimes hundreds of millions times greater than the energy achievable in the most powerful earthbound particle accelerators. As this search led unexpectedly to the discovery of new particles such as the muon, pion, kaon, and hyperon, and as it reveals scenes of awesome violence in the cosmos and offers clues about black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, quasars, and neutrinos, we see clearly why cosmic rays remain central to an astonishingly diverse range of research studies on scales infinitesimally small and large. Attractively illustrated, engagingly written, this is a fascinating inside look at a science at the center of our understanding of our universe.


A Thin Cosmic Rain Related Books

A Thin Cosmic Rain
Language: en
Pages: 255
Authors: Michael W. Friedlander
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002-11-30 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they
Chandra's Cosmos
Language: en
Pages: 273
Authors: Wallace H. Tucker
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-03-28 - Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the most powerful X-ray telescope ever built, was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia. Since then, Chand
An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics
Language: en
Pages: 1361
Authors: Bradley W. Carroll
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-09-07 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics is a comprehensive, well-organized and engaging text covering every major area of modern astrophysics, from the solar sys
The Particle Century
Language: en
Pages: 282
Authors: G Fraser
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1998-01-01 - Publisher: CRC Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the first attempts to split the atom to the discovery of the top quark, the 20th century has witnessed a revolution in basic physics. Probing successively
Astroparticle Physics
Language: en
Pages: 616
Authors: Claus Grupen
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-01-27 - Publisher: Springer Nature

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Describes the branch of astronomy in which processes in the universe are investigated with experimental methods employed in particle-physics experiments. After