The New World of Mr Tompkins
The New World of Mr Tompkins
Mr Tompkins is back! The mild-mannered bank clerk with the short attention span and vivid imagination has inspired, charmed and informed young and old alike since the publication of the hugely successful Mr Tompkins in Paperback (by George Gamow) in 1965. In this 1999 book, he returns in a new set of adventures exploring the extreme edges of the universe - the smallest, the largest, the fastest, the farthest. Through his experiences and his dreams, you are there at Mr Tompkins' shoulder watching and taking part in the merry dance of cosmic mysteries: Einstein's relativity, bizarre effects near light-speed, the birth and death of the universe, black holes, quarks, space warps and antimatter, the fuzzy world of the quantum, and that ultimate cosmic mystery of all … love. This text is revised, updated and expanded by best-selling popular-science author Russell Stannard (who wrote the much-acclaimed Uncle Albert series of books for children).
- A paperback edition of the hugely successful and highly reviewed The New World of Mr Tompkins
- The book is a revised and updated version of Mr Tompkins in Paperback, one of the classic popular science books of the twentieth century, which sold more than 100,000 copies and has been translated into 17 languages
- Revised by Russell Stannard, a famous and successful popular science writer in his own right (particularly for the best-selling Uncle Albert series)
Reviews & endorsements
"[Mr. Tompkins's] adventures and mishaps illuminate in startling fashion the oddities of relativity and quantum theory. Much loved by physics students a generation ago, Mr. Tompkins now embarks on some new escapades, courtesy of coauthor Stannard, who updated the original tales and added illustrations in Gamow's appealingly simple style." Science News
"This revision makes Mr Tompkins not only more accessible to the present generation of both scientists and nonscientists, but more in tune with current science and sensibilities." Science Books and Films
"The best just got better....It is absolutely the best place to get a feel for the most important scientific ideas of the 20th century. It is also a perfect way to get to visual grips with relativity theory and quantum mechanics." The Independent
"The real measure of Stannard is that the new material is covered comprehensibily and in a style that matches the original." The Times Higher Education Supplement
"The best just got better...It is absolutely the best place to get a feel for the most important scientific ideas of the 20th century. It is also a perfect way to get to visual grips with relativity theory and quantum mechanics." The Independent
"The reader will get both entertainment and plenty of information about modern physics." Scientific American
"...a lovely book which I am sure everyone interested in modern physics, from the age of eleven upwards, will enjoy enormously." Nature
"If newcomers who have not seen the original read the book, they will find a charming, whimsical introduction to modern physics...The New World...is a unique book." Physics Today
Product details
August 2001Paperback
9780521639927
272 pages
214 × 138 × 16 mm
0.37kg
53 b/w illus. 2 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- Revisor's foreword
- Gamow's preface
- 1. City speed limit
- 2. The professor's lecture on relativity which caused Mr Tompkins' dream
- 3. Mr Tompkins takes a holiday
- 4. Notes of the professor's lecture on curved space
- 5. Mr Tompkins visits a closed universe
- 6. Cosmic opera
- 7. Black holes, heat death and blow torch
- 8. Quantum snooker
- 9. The quantum safari
- 10. Maxwell's demon
- 11. The merry tribe of electrons
- 11.1/2. The remainder of the previous lecture through which Mr Tompkins dozed
- 12. Inside the nucleus
- 13. The woodcarver
- 14. Holes in nothing
- 15. Visiting the 'atom smasher'
- 16. The professor's last lecture
- 17. Epilogue.
