Scale Invariance (eBook)

From Phase Transitions to Turbulence

Annick Lesne, Michel Laguës (Autoren)

eBook Download: PDF

2011 | 2012
XVI, 400 Seiten
Springer Berlin (Verlag)
978-3-642-15123-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This book presents a complete tour of formal advances and experimental results associated with the notion of scaling, in physics, chemistry and biology. The text offers a thorough conceptual background and a simple account of a wide range of applications.

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During a century, from the Van der Waals mean field description (1874) of gases to the introduction of renormalization group (RG techniques 1970), thermodynamics and statistical physics were just unable to account for the incredible universality which was observed in numerous critical phenomena. The great success of RG techniques is not only to solve perfectly this challenge of critical behaviour in thermal transitions but to introduce extremely useful tools in a wide field of daily situations where a system exhibits scale invariance.
The introduction of scaling, scale invariance and universality concepts has been a significant turn in modern physics and more generally in natural sciences. Since then, a new "physics of scaling laws and critical exponents", rooted in scaling approaches, allows quantitative descriptions of numerous phenomena, ranging from phase transitions to earthquakes, polymer conformations, heartbeat rhythm, diffusion, interface growth and roughening, DNA sequence, dynamical systems, chaos and turbulence. The chapters are jointly written by an experimentalist and a theorist. This book aims at a pedagogical overview, offering to the students and researchers a thorough conceptual background and a simple account of a wide range of applications. It presents a complete tour of both the formal advances and experimental results associated with the notion of scaling, in physics, chemistry and biology.

Inhalt

Foreword by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes.- Introduction.- Change of State in Matter.- Fractal Geometry.- Universality as a Consequence of Scale Invariance.- Diffusion.- The Percolation Transition.- Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics.- Superconducting Cuprates.- Growth Mechanisms and Interface Roughness.- Dynamical Systems, Chaos and Turbulence.- Self-Organized Critical Phenomena.- Scale Invariance in Biology.- Power and Limits of Scaling Approaches

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.11.2011
• Verlagsort: Berlin
• Sprache: englisch
• Original-Titel: Invariances d'échelle
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Atom- / Kern- / Molekularphysik
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Critical Phenomena • Critical phenomena in materials growth • Critical phenomena in natural sciences • Fractal Geometry • Growth mechanisms of materials • phase transitions • Scale invariance in biology • Scaling concepts in material physics • Scaling concepts in pyhsics • Scaling concepts in pyhsics/biology • Self-organized critical phenomena • Universality and scale invariance
• ISBN-10: 3-642-15123-X / 364215123X
• ISBN-13: 978-3-642-15123-1 / 9783642151231