Resag J. Feynman and His Physics. The Life and Science of an Extraordinary Man

New York: Springer, 2018. — 328 p. — (Springer Biographies).Adolescent Years and the Principle of Least Action
Childhood, High School and MIT
Feynman’s Father Melville and His Passion for Natural Science
Joan – Feynman’s Talented Sister
High School Days
Arline, the Love of His Life
Going to MIT: Feynman Learns Quantum Mechanics – And We Can Learn with Him
Feynman, the Free-Thinker
Theory of Relativity and Quantum Waves
Forces and Stresses in Molecules
Light Saves as Much Time as It Can: Fermat’s Principle
Reflection and Refraction of Light
Fermat’s Principle and the Speed of Light
Waves Take Every Possible Path
How Objects Move: Newton’s Laws of Motion
The Principle of Least Action – A Cornerstone of Physics
Feynman in Princeton
Feynman and the Philosophers: When Is an Object Real?
Wheeler Has Always Been Crazy
Mysterious QED
Electrons Without Self-interaction – Is that Possible?
The Radiation Resistance of Oscillating Electrons
Retarded and Advanced Fields: Forward and Backward in Time
Electrodynamics Without Fields and the Principle of Least Action
Monster Minds – Face to Face with the Geniuses
The Action in Quantum Mechanics
Dirac’s Brilliant Idea
Path Integrals: A New Approach to Quantum Theory
Something Is Wrong
Radioactivity and the Manhattan Project
Radioactivity: Atomic Nuclei in the Quest for Stability
Some Atomic Nuclei Can Be Split
America Builds the Bomb
Marriage with Arline
Going to Los Alamos
You Need to Know What You’re Doing
Annoying Censors and Cracking Safes
Farewell to Arline
The Bomb Explodes
Going to Cornell
Depressed and Burnt Out
Physics Becomes Fun Again
The Problem of Negative Energies
The Dirac Sea
Antiparticles and Virtual Particles
The Masterpiece: Feynman Diagrams and Antiparticles
Disturbed Quantum Waves: Non-relativistic Perturbation Theory
Perturbation Theory in QED: Feynman Diagrams
Back to the Future
Why There Are Antiparticles
Antiparticles Solve the Problem of Negative Energies
Feynman’s Tool Box
Energy Levels in the Hydrogen Atom
The First Surprise: The Lamb Shift
The Second Surprise: The Magnetic Moment of the Electron
The Shelter Island Conference
Hans Bethe Calculates the Lamb Shift – At Least Non-relativistically
The Relativistic Lamb Shift – “I Can Do It!”
The Tamed Infinity
Julian Schwinger – The Perfectionist of the Abstract
Calculating the g-Factor
The Pocono Conference – Schwinger’s Triumph and Feynman’s Disaster
Feynman Won’t Give up
Freeman Dyson – It Doesn’t Work Without Mathematics
Three Equivalent Languages
Brazil and the Move to Caltech
Cornell or Caltech?
Mary Lou
Caltech – Here I Want to Be
The Particle Zoo Keeps on Growing
Physics at Low Temperatures
Supercold Surprises: Superconductivity and Superfluidity
Quantum Mechanics Is Essential
Atoms in Equal Quantum Step: The Bose–Einstein Condensate
Why Does Helium Become Superfluid?
Quantum Excitations: Phonons and Rotons
Looking for the Wave Function
Right and Left: The Violation of Mirror Symmetry
Why Most Particles Decay – And Some Do not
Strangeness Makes Particles Live Longer
The τ-θ Puzzle: Two Particles or just One?
Are the Laws of Nature Mirror Symmetric?
The Weak Interaction Violates Mirror Symmetry
Matter and Antimatter: That Small Difference
Lee and Yang: Neutrinos Are Left
Feynman: The Weak Interaction Prefers Left
Feynman and Gell-Mann: An Unmatched Pair
From Researcher to Teacher and Nobel Prizewinner
Gweneth – The Woman of a Lifetime
Nobel Prize in Physics : Feynman, Schwinger, Tomonaga
An Encyclopedia on the Head of a Pin
Microscopes for the Nanoworld
Hands Control Hands
Nanomachines
Fast Computers are Tiny
Feynman’s Competition for Nanotechnology
The Rocky Road to Application
The Feynman Lectures
Maintaining the Fascination
What is Time?
The Laws of Motion
Idealizations – Are Fields Real?
Strange Quantum Mechanics: The Double-Slit Experiment
Particles and Waves
Which Hole Does the Electron Pass Through?
Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics
Gravity and Quantum Theory
Why is Gravity So Weak?
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
Gravitons: The Quanta of Gravity
Do We Actually Need a Quantum Theory of Gravity?
From the Spin of Gravitons to Einstein’s Field Equations
The Total Energy of the Universe
Wanted: A Quantum Theory of Gravity
Quarks, Computers, and the Challenger Disaster
Symmetries in Physics
Gell-Mann’s Eightfold Way – A Periodic Table of Particles
Quarks: Constituents of Baryons and Mesons
Are Quarks Real?
Feynman and the Search for Quarks
Bjorken Scaling – It Worked, but Hardly Anyone Understood It
Feynman’s Parton Model of the Proton
From Partons to Quantum Chromodynamics
Quarks – Locked up Forever and yet Sometimes Almost Free
The Standard Model Emerges
Computers
Parallel Computers and the Connection Machine
Cellular Automata: Simple Rules Create Complex Behavior
Simulating Nature – Is the World a Computer?
The Symmetry of Time: Reversible Computation
Simulating Space and Time
Quantum Mechanics and Computers
Simulating the Electron Spin
Entangled Spins and Spooky Action at a Distance
Local Hidden Variables: Is Quantum Mechanics Incomplete?
The Nonlocal Quantum World
The Last Years and the Challenger Disaster
A Shock to the World: The Challenger Accident
Feynman on the Commission
O-Rings in Ice Water
Nature Cannot Be Fooled
This Dying Is Boring
Feynman’s Legacy
Sources and Literature