Modern Physics with Modern Computational Methods: for Scientists and Engineers 3rd Edition

Book Preface

About the dedication

In a fractured world consisting of rich and poor countries, physics has tried with varying degrees of success to reach out to
the entire world. Graduate programs in the United States and Europe have for many years offered their graduate teaching
assistantships to students from poorer countries. A graduate teaching assistantship is a way that a student from a poorer
country can get an advanced degree while paying for his/her own education. In the beginning graduate recruitment was
done almost exclusively by mail. A big pile of applications was processed by a committee within the science departments
with the members of the committees having no contact or understanding of the countries from which the students came.
More recently faculty members like myself have traveled to Latin America, the Middle East, and India. The scientists
and mathematicians I know who have traveled to these parts of the world have been surprised and felt privileged to teach
students who are so committed to their studies. Being forced to live on one’s own resources can strengthen the mind.
The graduate students are a strength of our department at University of Louisville. Within recent years, many of our best
graduate students have come from central Russia, from Palestine, and from Bengal in India. These students were recruited
by faculty members who have themselves taught in those parts of the world. To what I have said previously, I should
mention the International Centre of Theoretical Physics founded by Abdus Salam in Trieste, Italy which hosts students in
Physics, Mathematics and related topics from the developing countries for a one-year Master course with the possibility of
continuing for a PhD degree.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the physics students from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, to their teachers, to
the international scientists who have taught there, and to the International Centre of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy and
universities in England, Amsterdam, and Denmark that have offered advance courses to students from developing countries
for many years. I am presently working together with my Latin American students and colleagues to prepare a version of
this modern physics book in the Spanish language.
John C. Morrison
University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States
Birzeit University, Ramallah, Palestine
University of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica