E. A. Davis - Böcker

This text celebrates, in four volumes, the bicentenary of the "Philosophical Magazine" and chronicles the history of scientific development as chonicled in its pages.  Each volume previews a 50 year period and contains not only classical works but also papers of an amusing controversial nature.  Commentaries preceding each part set the papers in the context of the time: Volume One 1798-1850 reproduces, in their orignal form, many celebrated papers of Davy, Faraday and Joule, as well as many papers on the nature of light and matter.  Forewards by Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Nevill Mott and Professor John Meurig Thomas, in addition to a preface and introduction, trace the development of the "Philosophical Magazine" and provide an overview of scientific thought and achievements during the first half of the 19th century.

The use of positive muons to simulate protons in solids is a relatively new, but already successful field of research, which exploits the unique properties of the muon. This book is a collection of papers for special issues of the Philosophical Magazine Part B and the Philosophical Magazine Transactions A, together with previously unreleased material presented at a seminar on the subject. The 30 papers here are written by an international team of experts who effectively cover both the theoretical and experimental aspects of the subject.

Volume Two of the Science in the Making Series covers the scientific advancements of the day between 1850 and 1900 as reported in the Philosophical Magazine. This period culminated with the discovery of the electron, Xrays and radioactivity. This beautifully produced volume contains facsimiles of original papers by eminent scientists including Kelvin, Foucault, Clausius, Kirchhoff, Bunsen, Rydberg, Zeeman, Maxwell, Rayleigh and JJ Thomson. This volume chronicles a half a century of scientific progress, containing not only classic works but also papers of an amusing and controversial nature, reflecting the era. Papers are reproduced in their original form and are preceded by informative commentaries setting the papers in the context of their time. It includes plates of historic apparatus and portraits of celebrated scientists of the time.

This historical survey of the discovery of the electron has been published to coincide with the centenary of the discovery. The text maps the life and achievements of J.J. Thomson, with particular focus on his ideas and experiments leading to the discovery. It describes Thomson's early years and education. It then considers his career at Cambridge, first as a fellow of Trinity, later as the head of the Cavendish Laboratory and finally as Master of Trinity and national spokesman for science. The core of the book is concerned with the work undertaken at the Cavendish, culminating in the discovery of "corpuscles", later named "electrons".; In the final two chapters, the immediate aftermath and implications of the work are described. These include the creation of the subject of atomic physics as well as the broader long term developments which can be traced from vacuum valves and the transistor through to the microelectronics revolution.

During its 200-year history, the Philosophical Magazine was transformed from a journal that published papers on all aspects of science to one that specialised in physics and more latterly in condensed matter. From 1950 it became a journal of choice for electron microscopists and in this fourth and last volume of the series, appear classic papers by Hirsch, Whelan, Brown and Cockayne, amongst others. Also reproduced are seminal papers by Anderson, Mott, Spear and Sadoc on disordered and non-crystalline materials - work on which earned Anderson and Mott (along with van Vleck) the Nobel prize for Physics in 1977. Other important articles included are by Frank, Onsager, Pippard, Heine, Ziman, Thouless and Pepper. An interesting link with the past is a paper by Weaire and Phelan challenging Lord Kelvin's hundred-year old conjecture concerning the space-filling of cells with minimal interfacial area; Kelvin's paper was published in the journal in 1887. A comprehensive author index, with titles, for all four volumes completes the series.