Laszlo Solymar – författare

The past century has seen developments in communications technology probably unrivalled in any other field of human activity. Significant advances are made every year, and both our work and leisure activities are critically influenced by these developments. Getting the message explores the fascinating history of communications, starting with ancient civilisations, the Greeks and Romans, then leading through the development of the electric telegraph, and up to the present day with email and cellular phones. The technology is explained in a particularly simple and accessible way, and themes from politics, economics, and society weave in and out of the scientific ideas. The book concludes with a look at the possible future of communications, the new developments to come, and the implications these will have for our everyday lives. Lavishly illustrated, and including many original illustrations that show just how these new developments were received in their time, the book presents an informative and highly entertaining introduction to the field of communications.

Metamaterials is a young subject born in the 21st century. It is concerned with artificial materials which can have electrical and magnetic properties difficult or impossible to find in nature. The building blocks in most cases are resonant elements much smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of research in this field at a level that should appeal to final year undergraduates in physics or in electrical and electronic engineering. The mathematics is kept at a minimum; the aim is to explain the physics in simple terms and enumerate the major advances. It can be profitably read by graduate and post-graduate students in order to find out what has been done in the field outside their speciality, and by experts who may gain new insight about the inter-relationship of the physical phenomena involved.

Getting the Message is a unique and engaging exploration of the fascinating history of communications, starting with ancient civilisations, the Greeks and Romans, then leading through the development of the electric telegraph, and up to the present day with email and smartphones.The technology is explained in a particularly simple and accessible way, and themes from politics, economics, and society weave in and out of the scientific ideas. The book concludes with a look at the possible future of communications, the new developments to come, and the implications these will have for our everyday lives. Lavishly illustrated, and including many original illustrations that show just how these new developments were received in their time, the book presents an informative and highly entertaining introduction to the field of communications.This revised second edition looks at the new developments in communications over the two decades since the first edition''s release.

The past century has seen developments in communications technology probably unrivalled in any other field of human activity. Significant advances are made every year, and both our work and leisure activities are critically influenced by these developments. Getting the message explores the fascinating history of communications, starting with ancient civilisations, the Greeks and Romans, then leading through the development of the electric telegraph, and up to the present day with email and cellular phones. The technology is explained in a particularly simple and accessible way, and themes from politics, economics, and society weave in and out of the scientific ideas. The book concludes with a look at the possible future of communications, the new developments to come, and the implications these will have for our everyday lives. Lavishly illustrated, and including many original illustrations that show just how these new developments were received in their time, the book presents an informative and highly entertaining introduction to the field of communications.

An informal and highly accessible writing style, a simple treatment of mathematics, and clear guide to applications have made this book a classic text in electrical and electronic engineering. Students will find it both readable and comprehensive. The fundamental ideas relevant to the understanding of the electrical properties of materials are emphasized; in addition, topics are selected in order to explain the operation of devices having applications (or possible future applications) in engineering. The mathematics, kept deliberately to a minimum, is well within the grasp of a second-year student. This is achieved by choosing the simplest model that can display the essential properties of a phenomenom, and then examining the difference between the ideal and the actual behaviour. The whole text is designed as an undergraduate course. However most individual sections are self contained and can be used as background reading in graduate courses, and for interested persons who want to explore advances in microelectronics, lasers, nanotechnology, and several other topics that impinge on modern life.

Metamaterials is a young subject born in the 21st century. It is concerned with artificial materials which can have electrical and magnetic properties difficult or impossible to find in nature. The building blocks in most cases are resonant elements much smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of research in this field at a level that should appeal to final year undergraduates in physics or in electrical and electronic engineering. The mathematics is kept at a minimum; the aim is to explain the physics in simple terms and enumerate the major advances. It can be profitably read by graduate and post-graduate students in order to find out what has been done in the field outside their speciality, and by experts who may gain new insight about the inter-relationship of the physical phenomena involved.

Getting the Message is a unique and engaging exploration of the fascinating history of communications, starting with ancient civilisations, the Greeks and Romans, then leading through the development of the electric telegraph, and up to the present day with email and smartphones.The technology is explained in a particularly simple and accessible way, and themes from politics, economics, and society weave in and out of the scientific ideas. The book concludes with a look at the possible future of communications, the new developments to come, and the implications these will have for our everyday lives. Lavishly illustrated, and including many original illustrations that show just how these new developments were received in their time, the book presents an informative and highly entertaining introduction to the field of communications.This revised second edition looks at the new developments in communications over the two decades since the first edition's release.

The electrical properties of materials are fundamental to many devices encountered in daily life and in today's industry, ranging from the semiconductors used in microelectronics to the dielectric materials in liquid crystal displays, the magnetic materials in the motors of electric cars and the superconducting materials in MRI scanners. All stem from the response of electrons to electric and magnetic fields. This book explains the phenomena, reviews the best materials, and presents the most relevant applications. The behaviour of electrons in atoms, liquids, solids, and periodic crystals is described, and the possibilities of new artificial materials are discussed. In themselves, electrons are intriguing, sometimes displaying particle-type and other times wave-type behaviour. Full understanding of wave properties requires quantum mechanics, often seen as a barrier due to the unfamiliarity of the concepts involved and the complexity of the mathematical apparatus needed. A key aim is to overcome these difficulties. Underpinning theory is explained as simply as possible. Classical and quantum mechanics are used as appropriate, in each case giving a full development and often presenting complementary viewpoints. Examples are presented in a comprehensive set of problems. This flexible approach allows full understanding both of fundamentals (for example, the properties of atoms in different columns of the periodic table) and of applications (the design of a new laser based on an artificially engineered band structure). The contents have been successfully refined over more than 50 years and are especially suitable for undergraduates and postgraduates in Materials and Electrical Engineering.

The electrical properties of materials are fundamental to many devices encountered in daily life and in today's industry, ranging from the semiconductors used in microelectronics to the dielectric materials in liquid crystal displays, the magnetic materials in the motors of electric cars and the superconducting materials in MRI scanners. All stem from the response of electrons to electric and magnetic fields. This book explains the phenomena, reviews the best materials, and presents the most relevant applications. The behaviour of electrons in atoms, liquids, solids, and periodic crystals is described, and the possibilities of new artificial materials are discussed. In themselves, electrons are intriguing, sometimes displaying particle-type and other times wave-type behaviour. Full understanding of wave properties requires quantum mechanics, often seen as a barrier due to the unfamiliarity of the concepts involved and the complexity of the mathematical apparatus needed. A key aim is to overcome these difficulties. Underpinning theory is explained as simply as possible. Classical and quantum mechanics are used as appropriate, in each case giving a full development and often presenting complementary viewpoints. Examples are presented in a comprehensive set of problems. This flexible approach allows full understanding both of fundamentals (for example, the properties of atoms in different columns of the periodic table) and of applications (the design of a new laser based on an artificially engineered band structure). The contents have been successfully refined over more than 50 years and are especially suitable for undergraduates and postgraduates in Materials and Electrical Engineering.

The electrical properties of materials are fundamental to many devices encountered in daily life and in today's industry, ranging from the semiconductors used in microelectronics to the dielectric materials in liquid crystal displays, the magnetic materials in the motors of electric cars and the superconducting materials in MRI scanners. All stem from the response of electrons to electric and magnetic fields. This book explains the phenomena, reviews the best materials, and presents the most relevant applications. The behaviour of electrons in atoms, liquids, solids, and periodic crystals is described, and the possibilities of new artificial materials are discussed. In themselves, electrons are intriguing, sometimes displaying particle-type and other times wave-type behaviour. Full understanding of wave properties requires quantum mechanics, often seen as a barrier due to the unfamiliarity of the concepts involved and the complexity of the mathematical apparatus needed. A key aim is to overcome these difficulties. Underpinning theory is explained as simply as possible. Classical and quantum mechanics are used as appropriate, in each case giving a full development and often presenting complementary viewpoints. Examples are presented in a comprehensive set of problems. This flexible approach allows full understanding both of fundamentals (for example, the properties of atoms in different columns of the periodic table) and of applications (the design of a new laser based on an artificially engineered band structure). The contents have been successfully refined over more than 50 years and are especially suitable for undergraduates and postgraduates in Materials and Electrical Engineering.

Metamaterials is a young subject born in the 21st century. It is concerned with artificial materials which can have electrical and magnetic properties difficult or impossible to find in nature. The building blocks in most cases are resonant elements much smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of research in this field at a level that should appeal to final year undergraduates in physics or in electrical and electronic engineering. The mathematics is kept at a minimum; the aim is to explain the physics in simple terms and enumerate the major advances. It can be profitably read by graduate and post-graduate students in order to find out what has been done in the field outside their speciality, and by experts who may gain new insight about the inter-relationship of the physical phenomena involved.

Geniuses are few and far between. Most of them will have honors and prizes showered upon them. But there will be exceptions, numerous exceptions: We dont know how many because they never make it; they fall by the wayside. They believe themselves to be alone in a hostile world, unable to adapt, unable to bring their ideas to fruition. They detest their inferiors and detest even more their superiors. One such genius, a historian with acute observations about the past and the future, was immortalized by Ibsen in his play Hedda Gabler. The Portrait of a Genius tells a similar story. Dramatis personae are the following: Helen Gascoigne, young, beautiful, uncompromising; Leslie Brock, the dean of the faculty who wants to bed her; George Turner, Helens devoted husband, a scientist not burdened with great leaps of imagination; Esmund, the reckless genius who invents an entirely new kind of computer; and finally, Rosalind, girlfriend and admirer of Esmund.

These plays cover one thousand years of the ancient world from the golden age of Athens to 5th century Alexandria. The protagonists are Anaxagoras, Archimedes and Hypatia, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers. All three of them came into conflict with the prevalent views of the time.Anaxagoras maintained that the sun was a big burning rock of the size of the Peleponnesus. He was condemned to death on the charge of impiety. Archimedes, the first example of the efficacy of technology combined with science, built fortifications that could withstand the might of the Roman Army. His popular fame rests on him shouting Eureka and jumping naked out of his bath when he discovered the laws of Hydrostatics. He is also known by his statement: give me a fixed point and I shall move the Earth.Hypatia was a philosopher and mathematician, a believer in the old faith. She was hacked to death by a bunch of monks at the instigation of Cyril, a Saint of the Christian Church.

Assassination of prominent people occurred in all countries at all times over the history of mankind. They are not random events in the sense that there is always a motive behind them. In our analysis we shall more or less adhere to the following criteria: (i) The victim must be a public personage, (ii) The assassination must be premeditated, (iii) It must be done by stealth, (iv) There must be a motive and (v) The assassin aims only at the death of the person selected.In Part I we give a chronology of all major assassinations from biblical times onward. The number of assassinations in any particular year may often be seen to bear some strong correlation with the historical events unfolding. There is actually a year, 1934, that presages most major conflicts in Europe. Part II contains brief biographies of both victims and perpetrators. It is not unusual that he who arranges an assassination will be assassinated in his turn. As stated in Matthews gospel: They that take the sword shall perish with the sword. The various categories of assassinations `are discussed in Part III together with definitions and classifications and with descriptions of historical periods dominated by assassinations, as for example the French Wars of Religion.

The present book is about history, written through the satirical eyes of a Hungarian refugee in the early 1960s, a few years after he settled in England. The title Past, Present and Future, together with the subtitle An Irreverent Treatment of History, explains beautifully what the book is about. Brief but profound historical judgments are made about everything that matters: socialism, capitalism, communism, Nazism, colonialism, revolution, science, religion, war and peace, and stability and anarchy. The common factor is power. Everything is explained by the love of power by individuals, groups, social classes, dictators, and nationsby people who are high up and by people who are low down.

The novel is set in the Soviet Union. It describes a well known episode in the Cold War when Soviet fighters shot down a Korean passenger plane on the 1st September 1983. The story is based on the official Soviet statements, issued on the 2nd, 3rd and 6th September. Only the third one admitted that their fighters had brought down the plane. Behind this succession of contradictory versions lies a debate. What went on behind the scenes?The main character is Nikolai Taranenko in charge of the Electronics Laboratory of the Soviet Armed Forces. He is brilliant in his job, greatly respected by the authorities. After destroying the plane the Soviet leadership realised that it was a blunder. The KGB arrested Taranenko blaming him for the lack of a device that could have recognised the plane as being a passenger plane. But then Taranenko turns the tables

This book has been written for those who know already a lot about what happened in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. It is at times controversial, at times humorous, and, I hope, constantly provocative. My aim is for readers to say or at least think, Yes, I can now see things more clearly. The principal events of Soviet history are discussed. The central thesis is that the Soviet Union was far from unique, that its ideology bore nearly exclusively the marks of a religion and most of its functioning was derived from the French Revolution, from Nazi Germany, and from Imperial Russia. There is a lot written about the purges, a prediction made in 1984 about the demise of the Soviet Union and a short play about the unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev. The book ends with a light touchjokes about the Soviet system.