Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books LLC

Lee and Wang,  "Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions".  American Physical Society,  1956.  Physical Review 104 (1) October 1, 1956  Original printed wrappers.  Fine condition.  We offer the entire weekly issue in its (SCARCE) original wrappers.

T. D. Lee Columbia University, New York, New York & C. N. Yang Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York: "Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions". Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee were awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for their work "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles". The work of Yang and Lee came to destroy the "law of conservation of parity," which had been assumed to be a fundamental law of nature; it predicted that beta particles, which are emitted by a radioactive nucleus, would fly off in any direction, regardless of the spin of the nucleus. In 1957 ("Experimental Test of Parity Conservation in Beta Decay" pr, 4 Feb 1957), using atoms of cobalt-60, W.S. Wu (et alia) showed that beta particles were more likely to be emitted in a particular direction that depended on the spin of the cobalt nuclei. Broken parity (symmetry) essentially means that something virtual (shadowy, but real in a special sense and widely used in physics; it has real physical consequences, since it creates all the forces of nature) has become observable (real in the ordinary everyday sense that it can be detected, measured, observed, and used. "Until 1956 the overwhelming majority of physicist believed that parity conservation is never violated in nature. Any new theory without evidence that went against this ingrained belief would almost certainly be dismissed. The belief in parity conservation was too strong an accepted paradigm to be challenged. Then in 1956 two Chinese physicists Yang and Lee first pointed out the exception and theoretically predicted non-conservation of parity. Initially there was predictable skepticism and it took further convincing work and subsequent experimental verification by a Chinese woman Wu and her colleagues and in 1957 the physicist community abandoned a long held belief in conservation of parity. Yang and Lee were not only vindicated, they received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this intellectual feat."  $1,450.

Hemrann Weyl.  Zur quantentheoretischen Berechnung molekularer Bindungsenergien.  Offprint:  Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. 1930.  Pp 285-294.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good copy. 

ALso, with Part II.  1931.  Pp 33-39.  Good copy.  Original wrappers. 

The two papers:  $175

Richard C. Tolman.  "A General Theory of Energy Partition with Applications to Quantum Theory".  In: The Physical Review, volume XI, second series, number 4, pp 261-276 (in the volume of pp 253-337).  Original printed wrappers.  Good copy.  $125

Freeman J. Dyson.  "Heisenberg Operators in Quantum Electrodynamics, I."  Offprint: The Physical Review, vol 82, no 3, pp 428-439, May 1, 1951.  Fine copy in the original wrappers.  $225

Ludwik Silberstein.  "Contribution to the Quantum Theory of Spectrum Emission: Spectra of Atomic Systems Containing a Complex Nucleus."  Offprint:  Philosophical Magazine, vol xxxix, January 1920. 

Original printed wrappers.pp 46-66.  Inscribed, "with the author's best regards, 21.I.1920".  $125

Silberstein was as we all know an interesting thinker, working early and with some elegance in relativity, though he did run into a spot of bother with Einstein in which the good Dr. Silberstein fared not so well. I've always rather "liked" Silberstein for his early work. 

 

E.L. Hill and R. Landshoff, "The Dirac Electron Theory", a full-issue article in Reviews of Modern Physics, volume 10, number 2, April 1938.  Pp 87-132.  Original orane wrappers.  Fine copy.  $95

E. L. Hill was Professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota. He authored numerous articles on relativity and quantum theory in the 1930s and 1940s.

Pauli on Dirac

Wolfgang Pauli.  "On Dirac's New Method of Field Quantization."  American Physical Society, as published in the Reviews of Modern Physics, July 1943 (volume 15, number 3).  The pauli article occupies the entire issue of pp 175-207.  We offer the paper in the original orange wrappers, a lovely, Very Fine copy.  $250

_____.  Another copy, not quite as pretty, but still a solid Fine.  $150

And from two years earlier, a related article by Pauli, from the same journal:

"Relativistic Field Theories of Elementary Particles".  In Reviews of Modern Physics, July 1941, volume 13, number 3, pp 203-232 (in the issue of pp 171-232).  Original wrappers.  Fine copy.  $85

Introduction to Quanta and Planck's Constant

Max Planck.  "Ueber irreversible Strahlungsvorgaenge."  In:  Annalen der Physik, series 4, volume 1, 1900.  The Planck article occupies pp 69-122 in the volume of 792pp.  Very good copy, in half-cloth and marbled boards.  $500.00

_____.  Another copy, this bound in half-leather with raised bands.  Very good copy as well. $600

Pauli, Wolfgang and M.E. Rose.  "Remarks on the Polarization Effects in the Positron Theory", in The Physical Review, volume 49, #6, 15 March 1936.  THe Pauli/Rose occupies pp462-466 in the issue of pp 425-480.  Offered in the original green wrappers for the bi-weekly issue.  Fresh copy.  Fine condition.  $150

The Extention of the Doppler Shift, 1846

Christian Doppler. “Bemerkungen zu meiner Theorie des farbigen Lichtes der Doppelsterne etc. mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf die von Herrn Dr. Ballot zu Utrecht dagegen erhobenen Bedenken”. Published in the Annalen der Physik, by the publisher Johann Ambrosius Barth, in Leipzig, 1846, band 68, no. 5, part 1, pages 1-35. ¶ First edition $1500.00

Offered as part of the entire half-year of the publication, numbering some 582pp. The volume is bound in black half-cloth and very dark green/black mrabled boards. Exlibris (a) Provinzial Gewebbschele zu Aachen, then (b) Deutsche akademie der Luftfahrtforschung, and then (c) Wright Field Library (Dayton, Ohio), and finally (d) the Library of Congress. There are ownership rubber stamps on text block page edge at top and bottom, a stamped gilt title on the bottom of the spine, and two scant stamps on the contents page, and that's it. Very nice, tight, fresh copy.

This is a further extention of Doppler's epochal “Ueber das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels,” which appeared in Abhandlungen der Konigl. Böhmischen Gesellschaft derWissenschaften, (5th ser., 2 (1842), 465, and which was also published separately in Prague in the same year, 1842) in which the idea of motion is expressed to both source and observer. “ The Doppler Theory/Doppler shift is of monumental applicability and importance, providing the foundation for sonar and radar, as well as for the general acceptance of the cosmological theory of the Big Bang (showing how the shift in the spectra of astronomical entities allows for the measurement of the rate of recession relative to the Earth.

“In 1846 Doppler published a revised version of his principle where he considered both the motion of the source and the motion of the observer. Later, a French physicist, Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (1818–1896), who made one of the first measurements of the velocity of light, generalized Doppler’s work by applying his theory not only to sound but also to light.”-- A. Roguin, "Christian Doppler, the Man Behind the Effect". The British Journal of Radiology, 75 (2002), 615–619

Also contained in this volume is a significant paper by Michael Faraday, the first German edition of "Thoughts on Ray Vibration", which suggests that no ether or other vibrating material is responsible for the transmission of light. 

Bibliography of Doppler’s work. In: Stoll I, editor. The Phenomenon of Doppler. Prague, Czechoslovakia: Czech Technical University, 1992:76–80.