The theme of the study is the determination of just how much of a galaxy's stellar output is reprocessed through the interstellar medium. Many techniques are described and observations over a wide range of wavelengths are discussed.

The erratic motion of pollen grains and other tiny particles suspended in liquid is known as Brownian motion, after its discoverer, Robert Brown, a botanist who worked in 1828, in London. He turned over the problem of why this motion occurred to physicists who were investigating kinetic theory and thermodynamics; at a time when the existence of molecules had yet to be established. In 1900, Henri Poincare lectured on this topic to the 1900 International Congress of Physicists, in Paris Wic95]. At this time, Louis Bachelier, a thesis student of Poincare, made a monumental breakthrough with his...

This volume deals with fundamental problems of the natural sciences and the philosophy of nature. The issues addressed touch upon the many research areas of Hans Primas, and they reflect both the depth and the breadth of his interests, ranging from nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, theoretical chemistry, theory reduction, the measurement problem, holism and realism in quantum theory, to the dialogue between W. Pauli and C. G. Jung. Each individual contribution is prefaced by a short editorial introduction, relating diverse topics to each other and embedding them in a wider frame.

Today many important directions of research are being pursued more or less independently of each other. These are, for instance, strings and mem branes, induced gravity, embedding of spacetime into a higher dimensional space, the brane world scenario, the quantum theory in curved spaces, Fock Schwinger proper time formalism, parametrized relativistic quantum the ory, quantum gravity, wormholes and the problem of "time machines," spin and supersymmetry, geometric calculus based on Clifford algebra, various interpretations of quantum mechanics including the Everett interpretation, and the...

In the first century after its discovery, the electron has come to be a fundamental element in the analysis of physical aspects of nature.
This book is devoted to the construction of a deductive theory of the electron, starting from first principles and using a simple mathematical tool, geometric analysis. Its purpose is to present a comprehensive theory of the electron to the point where a connection can be made with the main approaches to the study of the electron in physics.
The introduction describes the methodology. Chapter 2 presents the concept of space-time-action...

Classical spin is described in terms of velocities and acceleration so that knowledge of advanced mathematics is not required. Written in the three-dimensional notation of vector calculus, it can be followed by undergraduate physics students, although some notions of Lagrangian dynamics and group theory are required. It is intended as a general course at a postgraduate level for all-purpose physicists.
This book presents a unified approach to classical and quantum mechanics of spinning particles, with symmetry principles as the starting point.
A classical concept of an elementary...

'Et moi, ..., si j'avait su comment en revenir, One service mathematics has rendered the human race. It has put common sense back je n'y serais point aile.' Jules Verne where it belongs, on the topmost shel.f next to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. Eric T. Bell able to do something with it. o. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a...

Computer Simulation in Chemical Physics contains the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute held at CORISA, Alghero, Sardinia, in September 1992.

The International Conference on Finsler and Lagrange Geometry and its Applications: A Meeting of Minds, took place August 13-20, 1998 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. The main objective of this meeting was to help acquaint North American geometers with the extensive modern literature on Finsler geometry and Lagrange geometry of the Japanese and European schools, each with its own venerable history, on the one hand, and to communicate recent advances in stochastic theory and Hodge theory for Finsler manifolds by the younger North American school, on the other. The intent was...

Nonperturbative quantum field theory means the evaluation and investigation of quantum field theory be yond perturbation theory, andincludes a wide range o fp rob lems. It has been one oft he most fascinating topics of theoretical physical research in the past few decades and, in addition, it is closely linked with the investigation ofthe structure ofmatter. That isw hy an enormous number of papers has been de voted tot he treatment oft hese problems, and it would go beyond the scope of this preface - and even oft he whole book - to give areview of these developments. Thus we confine...