β Scribed by Michael W. Friedlander
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective story behind the discovery and study of cosmic rays, a story that stretches from the early days of subatomic particle physics in the 1890s to the frontiers of high-energy astrophysics today. Writing for the amateur scientist and the educated general reader, Michael Friedlander, a cosmic ray researcher, relates the history of cosmic ray science from its accidental discovery to its present status. He explains how cosmic rays are identified and how their energies are measured, then surveys current knowledge and theories of thin cosmic rain. The most thorough, up-to-date, and readable account of these intriguing phenomena, his book makes us party to the search into the nature, behavior, and origins of cosmic raysβand into the sources of their enormous energy, sometimes hundreds of millions times greater than the energy achievable in the most powerful earthbound particle accelerators. As this search led unexpectedly to the discovery of new particles such as the muon, pion, kaon, and hyperon, and as it reveals scenes of awesome violence in the cosmos and offers clues about black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, quasars, and neutrinos, we see clearly why cosmic rays remain central to an astonishingly diverse range of research studies on scales infinitesimally small and large. Attractively illustrated, engagingly written, this is a fascinating inside look at a science at the center of our understanding of our universe. (20001030)
Title Page......Page 3
Contents......Page 7
1 / The Early Days......Page 11
2 / Identifying Cosmic Rays......Page 24
3 / The Earthβs Magnetic Influence......Page 46
4 / Particles From the Sun......Page 66
5 / Cosmic Rays in the Galaxy......Page 82
6 / The Energy Spectrum......Page 113
7 / Ultra-High Energies......Page 127
8 / Nuclear Clues......Page 136
9 / The Origin of Cosmic Rays......Page 151
10 / Cosmic Electrons and Gamma Rays......Page 171
11 / Cosmic Neutrinos......Page 186
12 / The Subnuclear World......Page 198
13 / Footprints and Souvenirs......Page 216
14 / Epilogue......Page 232
Works Cited......Page 237
Bibliographical Note......Page 239
Acknowledgments......Page 241
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Tells the long-running detective story behind the discovery and study of cosmic rays. A theme of his story is the technology of detection, for snaring a proton moving nearly at light speed is 'no mean trick."
Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective st
<p> Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective
<p> Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective