Understanding Physics: Volume 3: Electron, Proton, and Neutron

Understanding Physics, Asimov #3

by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov's Understanding Physics is an extensive three-volume survey of the subject, but it is not a formal textbook.It is, rather, an informal, even anecdotal enquiry into this central branch of science. Its purpose is to communicate in a lively, readable manner the basic principles of physics; the author's chief tools are the english language, of which he is a master, and his well-established ability to transform even the most complicated concepts into clear, precise prose.The present volume, The Electron, Proton, and, Neutron (which may be read quite independently of the others) considers the physics peculiar to the 20th century and deals with the world of the infinitesimally small. Beginning with the slow woking out of the theory of atomism, Mr. Asimov proceeds to the discovery of the structure of the atom. The various aspects of subatomic physics from radioactivity to fission, from the laser to the hydrogen bomb, are explored; and the book concludes with a consideration of matters that agitate the frontiers of physics the elusive electron, the mysterious muon, and the puzzling multiplicity of baryons.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction

269 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1969

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Taveri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read from six decades ago not only explaining how atoms work but the amazing efforts scientists went through to uncover the mysteries of the inner workings.  Having been an Honours Chemistry major (with a minor in Physics) at one time, i thought i knew most of this stuff.  However in addition to all the breakthrough discoveries i learned (among other things) nuclei with even number of protons and neutrons are generally more stable than odd numbered ones and electrons don't necessarily fill up the closest empty orbits first.

The atom is quite the enigma of egineering how it is held together with the mystery of why electrons don't fly into the protons they are attracted to.  The proton is 1836 times as massive as an electron.  [1836 is an interesting number equal to 2 to power of 2 times 3 to the power of 3 times 17.  The ratio of the Earth's diameter to the height of the Great Pyramid is 50x 1836 (or 2 the third x 3 to the third x 5 squared x 17) > just saying].

The last few pages on muons, pions & lambda particles and such are loose ends.  Explanations aren't offered as to how these particles fit into the scheme of things.  [Quack* Theory replaced some of these notions where you have Hewey, Dewey & Louie fit together better (being pear shaped) when one of them is upside down (two up quacks and a down quack) forming the Ego.  When an Id enters the trio, it flips one of the up quacks down, giving it more energy, to become a SuperEgo, but more unstable (that's why Neutrons turn back into protons) releasing the Id.]

* I'm spoofing Quark Theory but defy you to find a more succint rendition. Even the colours match.

4.5 stars rounded up to five stars.


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[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was not as frustrating as reading the first two in the series. In the first books I always had the feeling I should understand (or really already know) what he was telling me. Here I thought, everything I do not know, I really do not have to know. Well, either the book is different, or I have changed.
It is nice enough. But it is a text book. Very detailed with lots of tables. And the book is really old. It stops just before quarks came into the action.
It not a bad book, but I think Asimov would have been wiser to add another book on history to his oeuvre.

[cardulelia carduelis · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason I only found out that Asimov had written a textbook when I came across said textbook in a second-hand bookstore, a few months before covid-lockdown. I was then even more surprised to discover that this was volume 3 of 3 and that he'd written many others, starting from when he was a professor of biochem, off the back of a PhD in chemistry.

I've read a few different introductory physics textbooks over the past 10 years and, pedagogically & historically, this is my favoruite one.
Chapter one, entitled The Atom, I expected to be a slog that focused on Rutherford but instead it started from the greeks, atoms being the logical conclusion of compressible gases that have no change in mass, and then a history of the 1600's pursuit of elements. Then we get into the discovery of elements and, Proust's Law, the formation of the periodic table. The chapter then wraps up with Avogadro's constant and FEM imaging! What a bombastic start. And this is emblematic of the entire volume: the expected content is there but it is also peppered with experiments, historical trivia, and with a focus on the progression of ideas rather than memorizing facts. If you aren't really a math(s) person there is also very little by the way of formulae.

The standard of modern physics education is ever-changing as the frontier grows, with older red herrings being pushed aside to make way for new content. This is often what makes old textbooks so interesting: the inclusion of material that is no longer taught and the incorrect interpretations that were cutting edge at the time. Some examples I found of the former are Faraday's Laws of Electrolysis, which neither I nor some old friends recalled having been taught, Hertz's induction experiment, as well as the fact that the term transistor is actually short for 'transfer-resistor'! I also don't recall learning about the electron-proton (as opposed to neutron-proton) model of the nucleus, but that might be my terrible memory..
For the latter, it was so interesting to see that 'no fractional charge' existed (quarks hadn't been discovered yet! They aren't even mentioned, even though Gell-mann & Zweig's papers were circulating, SLAC hadn't started their groundbreaking diffraction experiment), or that Goeppert-Mayer's nuclear shell model is "still the subject of considerable controversy". This is 3 years after her and the other two Germans won the Nobel for it. What's the controversy? I've been googling around for a couple of days, reading old journals and more modern summaries but can't see a controversy. Was the controversy that it didn't fit so well with the liquid drop model? But that model didn't predict magic numbers! If anyone knows, let me know!
Also, the neutrino was still massless when this book was written, oscillations weren't discovered till '98!
[ A bit of an aside, all the neutrino experiments are a little bit genius aren't they? Look up how they measured the helicity of the neutrino if you don't believe me ;) ]
One other dating section was that on fission power:

If anything goes wrong with the control system, matters are so arranged that the cadmium rods fall inward of themselves, quenching the reaction. This is a fail-safe situation and a quarter-century of experience shows that nuclear reactors are quite safe when properly designed.

This was before Chernobyl & 3-mile island...

Other highlights:
- a detailed explanation of dinode and trinode tubes
- a breakdown of the features of the periodic table, including all of the anomalies and the overlaps with subshells in smaller shells. Definitely more of a chemistry perspective since nothing like spin-orbit couplings were even mentioned but a concise and thorough breakdown nonetheless.
- a beautiful, concise description of Peltier elements that I immediately forwarded to my students
- generally a focus on empirical progression and smaller experiments I hadn't heard of.

Overall this is a cracking standalone read, that can be read as a book rather than a textbook. It's a lot of fun for those well-versed in the subject matter as it provides a very different approach to content and narrative than more modern teaching, but is also an excellent introductory text (even with the few out-of-date passages it contains).
I've come out of this an even bigger fan of Asimov's writing! Highly recommended.


Berkeley Lab's Bevatron gets a shoutout a few times in the book, naemdly for the discovery of the anti-proton.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written in the mid-sixties, just before the standard model reached modern form. It mentions Murray Gellman's eight-fold way but not the full standard model. However, it does take on quantum mechanics and antimatter, and Bohr atom, and a slew of particles found in atom smashers. Fairly good source on this topic, plus it talks about the wonders of the age, like radios and TVs, and nuclear reactors and bombs.

[Tell Tale Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

-Gregory Kerkman

[Dean Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading: Good. Understanding: Not so much.
Fortunately the facts were not terribly relevant to me, but the Physicists/scientists' struggles were. The importance of some discoveries were not realized for many to hundreds of years after they were first made. We got to the current world of astronomy, chemistry, physics and all technology in a very Herky-jerky, fits and starts fashion. I am left with this overall thought: Be careful about what you think you know because you are probably wrong (even if you are right, today).

[Curtiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good Doctor presents a comprehensive treatment of every aspect of physics in this three-volume edition, which covers the field of Kinematics in Volume 1 Motion, Sound & Heat.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this series of books long ago and lost them when I moved out of my parents' house. They were, by far, the best science texts I have ever read.

[Ebrahim Ahmed]

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