The original edition of Introduction to Nuclear and
Particle Physics was used with great success for single-semester courses on
nuclear and particle physics offered by American and Canadian universities at
the undergraduate level. It was also translated into German, and used overseas.
Being less formal but well-written, this book is a good vehicle for learning
the more intuitive rather than formal aspects of the subject. It is therefore
of value to scientists with a minimal background in quantum mechanics, but is
sufficiently substantive to have been recommended for graduate students
interested in the fields covered in the text.
In
the second edition, the material begins with an exceptionally clear development
of Rutherford scattering and, in the four following chapters, discusses sundry
phenomenological issues concerning nuclear properties and structure, and
general applications of radioactivity and of the nuclear force. This is
followed by two chapters dealing with interactions of particles in matter, and
how these characteristics are used to detect and identify such particles. A
chapter on accelerators rounds out the experimental aspects of the field. The
final seven chapters deal with elementary-particle phenomena, both before and
after the realization of the Standard Model. This is interspersed with
discussion of symmetries in classical physics and in the quantum domain,
bringing into full focus the issues concerning CP violation, isotopic spin, and
other symmetries. The final three chapters are devoted to the Standard Model
and to possibly new physics beyond it, emphasizing unification of forces, super
symmetry, and other exciting areas of current research.
The
book contains several appendices on related subjects, such as special
relativity, the nature of symmetry groups, etc. There are also many examples
and problems in the text that are of value in gauging the reader's
understanding of the material.
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