文档介绍：Concepts of Mass in Contemporary
Physics and Philosophy
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Concepts of Mass
in Contemporary Physics
and Philosophy
❋
Max Jammer
princeton university press
princeton, new jersey
Copyright © 2000 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jammer, Max.
Concepts of mass in contemporary physics and philosophy /
Max Jammer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-01017-X (cl: alk. paper)
1. Mass (Physics). 2. Physics—Philosophy. I. Title.
1999
—dc21 99-24113
This book has posed in Palatino
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of ANSI/NISO –1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper)
Printed in the United States of America
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❋ Contents ❋
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 3
Chapter 1
Inertial Mass 5
Chapter 2
Relativistic Mass 41
Chapter 3
The Mass-Energy Relation 62
Chapter 4
Gravitational Mass and the Principle of Equivalence 90
Chapter 5
The Nature of Mass 143
Index 169
v
❋ Preface ❋
This book intends to provide prehensive and self-contained
study of the concept of mass as defined, employed, and interpreted
in contemporary theoretical and experimental physics and as critically
examined in the modern philosophy of science. It studies in particular
how far, if at all, present-day physics contributes to a more profound
understanding of the nature of mass.
In order to make this book accessible not only to the professional
physicist but also to the nonspecialist interested in the foundations of
physics, unnecessary technicalities plicated mathematical cal-
culations have been avoided without, however, impairing the accuracy
and