HSU JONG-PING - Böcker

Prof T-Y Wu is not only an eminent physicist with an encyclopedic knowledge, but also a motivational teacher and an influential policy maker in science and technology. The young Wu was inspired by Prof Y-T Yao, whose course on modern physics sparked an interest that burned during a long and productive career. Among Wu's achievements are 14 books and more than 120 papers covering subjects from atomic and molecular physics to plasmas and gases to atmospheric physics to relativity theory. Even at the age of 90 he remains active, publishing papers and lecturing on physics.Prof Wu feels grateful that he had the opportunity to educate a group of extremely talented students and, in particular, to discover T D Lee's remarkable talent. Although creative talent is no doubt a product of nature, it must also be nurtured. Prof Wu has played a crucial role for an entire generation of physicists in China and has won great respect from former students such as C N Yang, T D Lee, K Huang, and countless others. Prof Wu's love of physics and his dedication in teaching and research will always be remembered.

This collection of papers provides a broad view of the development of Lorentz and Poincaré invariance and spacetime symmetry throughout the past 100 years. The issues explored in these papers include: (1) formulations of relativity theories in which the speed of light is not a universal constant but which are consistent with the four-dimensional symmetry of the Lorentz and Poincaré groups and with experimental results, (2) analyses and discussions by Reichenbach concerning the concepts of simultaneity and physical time from a philosophical point of view, and (3) results achieved by the union of the relativity and quantum theories, marking the beginnings of quantum electrodynamics and relativistic quantum mechanics.Ten of the fundamental experiments testing special relativity are also discussed, showing that they actually support a four-dimensional spacetime based on broad Lorentz and Poincaré invariance which is more general than and includes the special theory of relativity. The generalization of the concepts of simultaneity, physical time and the nature of the speed of light within a four-dimensional spacetime framework leads to the conclusion that the symmetries embodied by the special theory of relativity can be realized using only a single postulate — the principle of relativity for physical laws.

This collection of papers presents ideas and problems arising over the past 100 years regarding classical and quantum gravity, gauge theories of gravity, and spacetime transformations of accelerated frames. Both Einstein's theory of gravity and the Yang-Mills theory are gauge invariant. The invariance principles in physics have transcended both kinetic and dynamic properties and are at the very heart of our understanding of the physical world. In this spirit, this book attempts to survey the development of various formulations for gravitational and Yang-Mills fields and spacetime transformations of accelerated frames, and to reveal their associated problems and limitations.The aim is to present some of the leading ideas and problems discussed by physicists and mathematicians. We highlight three aspects: formulations of gravity as a Yang-Mills field, first discussed by Utiyama; problems of gravitational theory, discussed by Feynman, Dyson and others; spacetime properties and the physics of fields and particles in accelerated frames of reference.These unfulfilled aspects of Einstein and Yang-Mills' profound thoughts present a great challenge to physicists and mathematicians in the 21st century.