Facts of Matter and Light

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The main aim of this book is to shine a spotlight on key experiments and their crucial importance for advancing our understanding of physics. Physics is an empirical science, and experiments have always been a driving force in the development of our understanding of nature.  Facts matter.  In that sense, the book attempts to be complementary to the many popularizations of theoretical physics, and to counterbalance the frequent emphasis there on more speculative ideas.

Experimental physics is also an essential pillar in physics teaching, as well as helping broader audiences to better understand important concepts, particularly in challenging fields such as relativity or quantum physics, where our common sense intuition often fails.

Readers are taken on an historical journey, starting with “Free Fall” and culminating in “Spooky Action at a Distance”. En route they will encounter many important branches ofphysics, whose main ideas and theoretical description will be given a more empirical meaning. At the end, the reader is invited to reflect on what could be exciting and important directions for fundamental physics. All readers with an undergraduate degree in physical sciences or engineering will enjoy and learn much from this stimulating and original text.

Author Biography

Christian Maes is a professor of mathematical  physics and natural philosophy at the KU Leuven, and his research interests lie in the area of nonequilibrium phenomena, stochastic geometry and dynamical systems, and in deriving emergent features of multicomponent models. As a leading expert, Maes has made significant contributions to the study of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, particularly in the areas of fluctuation theorems, large deviations, response theory and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. His work has helped to deepen our understanding of the behavior of systems that are far from thermal equilibrium, such as those found in living cells, in driven plasma and chemical reactions, and in active matter.  He developed a strong interest in the analysis of experiments and their results as a teaching tool and as a catalyst for advancing our understanding.  

Christian Maes is on the editorial board of the Springer book seriesFundamental Theories of Physics, and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Statistical Physics, and section editor for Statistical Physics of the Annales Henri Poincaré.