Author:
Pickover, Clifford A.
Imprint:Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.
Descriptionix, 514 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Note:Introduction and backdrop -- The laws of nature -- The lawgivers -- Is it fair to name a law after a person? -- Theories and laws -- Do we discover or invent laws? -- Simple mathematics and reality -- What is reality really? -- Book organization and purpose -- Distribution of law discovers through time -- Where the lawgivers lived -- When will the last law be discovered? -- 250 B.C.-1700 A.D. -- Archimedes' principle of buoyancy, c. 250 B.C. -- Kepler's laws of planetary motion, 1609 and 1618 -- Snell's law of refraction, 1621 -- Hooke's law of elasticity, 1660 -- Boyle's gas law, 1662 -- Newton's laws of motion, gravitation, and cooling, 1687 and 1701 -- 1700-1800 -- Bernoulli's law of fluid dynamics, 1738 -- Lambert's law of emission, 1760 -- Bode's law of planetary distances, 1766 -- Coulomb's law of electrostatics, 1785 -- Charles's gas law, 1787 -- 1800-1900 -- Dalton's law of partial pressures, 1801 -- Henry's gas law, 1802 -- Gay-Lussac's law of combining gas volumes, 1808 -- Avogadro's gas law, 1811 -- Brewster's law of light polarization, 1815 -- The Dulong-Petit law of specific heats, 1819 -- The Biot-Savart law of magnetic force, 1820 -- Fourier's law of heat conduction, 1822 -- Ampere's circuital law of electromagnetism, 1825 -- Ohm's law of electricity, 1827 -- Graham's law of effusion, 1829 -- Faraday's laws of induction and electrolysis, 1831 and 1833 -- Gauss's laws of electricity and magnetism, 1835 -- Poiseuille's law of fluid flow, 1840 -- Joule's law of electric heating, 1840Kirchhoff's electrical circuit and thermal radiation laws, 1845 and 1859 -- Clausius's law of thermodynamics, 1850 -- Stoke's law of viscosity, 1851 -- Beer's law of absorption, 1852 -- The Wiedemann-Franz law of conductivity, 1853 -- Fick's laws of diffusion, 1855 -- Buys-Ballot's wind and pressure law, 1857 -- Eotovos's law of capillarity, 1866 -- Kohlrausch's laws of conductivity, 1874 and 1875 -- Curie's magnetism law and the Curie-Weiss law, 1895, generalized in 1907 -- 1900 and beyond -- Planck's law of radiation, 1900 -- Bragg's law of crystal diffraction, 1913 -- Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, 1927 -- Hubble's law of cosmic expansion, 1929 -- The great contenders which says farewell to the laws and lawgivers by cataloging a far-ranging second set of eponymous laws, 1600-1700, 1700-1800, 1800-1900,1900 and beyond -- Final comments on the beauty of mathematics in science -- The beauty of mathematics -- Great equations of science -- Listmania and human achievement -- "The greatest equations ever" -- Nicaragua postage stamp list -- Physics and religion.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (p. [501]-503) and index.
