# Book:Allan M. Munn/From Nought to Relativity

## Allan M. Munn: From Nought to Relativity: Creating the Physical World Model

Published $\text {1974}$, George Allen & Unwin.

### Contents

Preface
List of Symbols
1 Introduction
2 The primary experience that is to be modelled by the physical world picture
3 Primary experience is chopped up into percepts, and these are assembled into concepts and things
4 The concept of number is brought into the picture
5 The game of numbers
6 The essential structural form of any world picture
7 Time and distance numbers
8 The game of kinematics
9 The game is applied: How to snowball an author. The cathode ray tube and the glow on the TV screen
10 The concepts of mass and force are brought into the picture. The game of dynamics
11 The force of gravity is deduced
12 The force of friction is deduced. The game is applied to studying the motion of a toboggan
13 The game is applied to studying the motion of a rocket. The solution is not aesthetically satisfying
14 The Laws of Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Momentum are deduced. The laws are successfully applied to the problems of the falling body, and the ballistic pendulum
15 The Law of Conservation of Energy is disobeyed. The lost energy is accounted for ad hoc by introducing the concept of coefficient of elasticity
16 The Law of Conservation of Energy is properly restored to grace by defining the new concepts of temperature and heat energy.
17 The game of Mathematics is extended to differential and integral calculus
18 The more comprehensive world picture is applied to the operation of the heat engine. The Carnot cycle. Entropy, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
19 The Theory of Theories. Empirical and metaphysical theories
20 Electromagnetic phenomena
21 The new experience is quantitatively structured by the theory of electromagnetism and integrated into the evolving world picture
22 The game is applied to ammeters, electric motors and generators
23 The Law of Conservation of Energy is once more disobeyed, and once more it is restored to grace: this time by introducing the concept of energy transmission by invisible waves
24 The game of mathematics is extended to trigonometry
25 The theory is applied to the problem of the vibrating string
26 Light phenomena
27 Light is shown to be a wave
28 The electromagnetic wave is deduced from the world picture
29 The corpuscles of micro-experience: electrons and protons
30 The attempt to deduce a model for atomic structure from the world picture fails
31 The photoelectric effect. The Compton effect. The dichotomy of complementary wave and corpuscle
32 The world picture is modified and a satisfactory model for the hydrogen atom is now deduced. A look at the structures of some multi-electron atoms
33 A closer look at the question of measurement leads to the Uncertainty Principle
34 The world picture is restructured to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle. Quantum mechanics. The new game is applied to the problem of a micro-entity trapped in a well.
35 The null result obtained in the Michelson-Morley experiment leads to the death of the absolute
36 The world picture is further modified. Relativistic mechanics. The new theory is confirmed by experience. Atomic energy
37 Space-time and General relativity. The geometrizing of the force of gravity
38 An attempt to deduce a model for nuclear structure
39 Fundamental forces and more fundamental micro-entities. Quarks?
Index