Jeremy I. Pfeffer – författare

Of all the inventions of man's imagination, none transcends his primal belief in the existence of invisible forces which shape a person's destiny, often in ways that make a mockery of his own efforts to do so. And of all these arcane powers, none is more enigmatic than the Divine Providence which underlies the belief in ethical monotheism. Just why does God allow bad things to happen to good or innocent people? The traditional Jewish context for such investigations was biblical exegesis, in particular the interpretation and elucidation of the Book of Job. Over twenty medieval Hebrew commentaries on the Book of Job have survived to the present day and it is the ideas concerning Providence expressed in these works that form the central core of this study. The final chapter brings the issue closer to our own times through discussion of the Scientific Revolution and the search for God's Mind -- moving away from the sphere of theological speculation to that of mathematical physics.

The emancipation of the Jews of England was largely complete when George III came to the throne in 1760. Free to live how and where they wished, the Jews had been specifically exempted from the provisions of the 1753 Marriage Act which made Christian marriage the only legal option for all others. The effect of this exemption was to put the matrimonial causes of the Jews of England exclusively in the hands of their Rabbis and Dayanim (Jewish ecclesiastical judges) for the next one hundred years. No Bet Din (Jewish ecclesiastical court) anywhere in the world has left such a complete record of its transactions -- matrimonial and proselytical -- as that contained in the extant Pinkas (minute-book) of the London Bet Din from 1805 to 1855. In all other matters, including the offences punishable by transportation, Jews were subject to the jurisdiction of the civil courts. Of the estimated 150,000 convict transportees shipped to the Australian penal colonies, some seven hundred were Jews. Matrimonial and related matters involving twenty of these miscreants are recorded in the Pinkas. Jeremy Pfeffer recounts the history of the London Bet Din during these years as revealed by the Pinkas record and relates the previously untold stories of this group of Jewish convict transportees and their families.

The emancipation of the Jews of England was largely complete when George III came to the throne in 1760. Free to live how and where they wished, the Jews had been specifically exempted from the provisions of the 1753 Marriage Act which made Christian marriage the only legal option for all others. The effect of this exemption was to put the matrimonial causes of the Jews of England exclusively in the hands of their Rabbis and Dayanim (Jewish ecclesiastical judges) for the next one hundred years. No Bet Din (Jewish ecclesiastical court) anywhere in the world has left such a complete record of its transactions -- matrimonial and proselytical -- as that contained in the extant Pinkas (minute-book) of the London Bet Din from 1805 to 1855. In all other matters, including the offences punishable by transportation, Jews were subject to the jurisdiction of the civil courts. Of the estimated 150,000 convict transportees shipped to the Australian penal colonies, some seven hundred were Jews. Matrimonial and related matters involving twenty of these miscreants are recorded in the Pinkas. Jeremy Pfeffer recounts the history of the London Bet Din during these years as revealed by the Pinkas record and relates the previously untold stories of this group of Jewish convict transportees and their families.

This second edition of the successful textbook, Modern Physics: An Introductory Text, preserves the unique blend of readability, scientific rigour and authenticity that made its predecessor so indispensible a text for non-physics science majors. As in the first edition, it sets out to present 20th century physics in a form accessible and useful to students of the life sciences, medicine, agricultural, earth and environmental sciences. It is also valuable as a first reader and source text for students majoring in the physical sciences and engineering. Two new chapters have been added, one on Einstein's elucidation of Brownian Motion and the second on Quantum Electrodynamics.Taking the discovery of the electron, the formulation of Maxwellian electromagnetism and Einstein's elucidation of Brownian motion as its starting point, the text proceeds to a comprehensive presentation of the three seminal ideas of 20th century physics: Special and General Relativity, Quantum Theory and the Nuclear Atom. From here the text moves on to the new discoveries prompted by these ideas, their impact on our understanding of natural phenomena and their application to the development and invention of the devices and technologies that define the 21st century.Questions, exercises and problems for student assignments are found at the end of each of the six parts into which the text is divided; answers to the numerical questions are at the end of the book. The techniques by which trigonometric functions, phasors (rotating vectors) and complex numbers are employed in the mathematical description of wave motion are summarised in a supplementary section. In consideration of the audience for whom the book is intended, all mathematics other than that required for descriptive or illustrative purposes has been omitted from the main body of the text and incorporated into the 47 worked examples and 11 appendices.

This second edition of the successful textbook, Modern Physics: An Introductory Text, preserves the unique blend of readability, scientific rigour and authenticity that made its predecessor so indispensible a text for non-physics science majors. As in the first edition, it sets out to present 20th century physics in a form accessible and useful to students of the life sciences, medicine, agricultural, earth and environmental sciences. It is also valuable as a first reader and source text for students majoring in the physical sciences and engineering. Two new chapters have been added, one on Einstein's elucidation of Brownian Motion and the second on Quantum Electrodynamics.Taking the discovery of the electron, the formulation of Maxwellian electromagnetism and Einstein's elucidation of Brownian motion as its starting point, the text proceeds to a comprehensive presentation of the three seminal ideas of 20th century physics: Special and General Relativity, Quantum Theory and the Nuclear Atom. From here the text moves on to the new discoveries prompted by these ideas, their impact on our understanding of natural phenomena and their application to the development and invention of the devices and technologies that define the 21st century.Questions, exercises and problems for student assignments are found at the end of each of the six parts into which the text is divided; answers to the numerical questions are at the end of the book. The techniques by which trigonometric functions, phasors (rotating vectors) and complex numbers are employed in the mathematical description of wave motion are summarised in a supplementary section. In consideration of the audience for whom the book is intended, all mathematics other than that required for descriptive or illustrative purposes has been omitted from the main body of the text and incorporated into the 47 worked examples and 11 appendices.

This book originated from the need for a suitable student text for the course “An Introduction to Modern Physics” given at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This course is open to all students who have completed the standard first-year physics courses in mechanics, optics, electricity and magnetism. Its primary goal is to produce graduates who are — whatever their field of specialisation — “modern-physics-literate”. The presentation of the course material emphasises the physical aspects of the phenomena.