Physics Resources

Reference and Circulating Materials
Government Documents
Journals & Other Periodicals
Databases
Internet Resources
Writing Your Paper and Citing Your Research

The Marvin K. Peterson Library has an assortment of resources to assist you in your research in physics. These resources include books, both circulating and non-circulating, government documents, journal and other periodical articles, databases and internet resources.

This physics guide will give you a selection of what resources are available, intended to be a starting point for your research. Keep in mind that you have access to the library catalog to find more resources. Some additional guides that might help you include: Finding Articles, Using the UNH Library Catalog, and citation Style Guides.

For more help, come to the library's information desk, located across from the main entrance, or call us at (203) 932-7189 or email us.

Reference and Circulating Materials

When you begin researching a topic, subject encyclopedias are a good starting point for an overview of your topic. The Peterson Library shelves its books by the Library of Congress (LC) Classification System. Books about physics begin with the call numbers QC. Engineering books relevant to physics may be found under the T classification, usually under TA. The reference room, located on the entry level of the library, houses the reference stacks where the majority of subject encyclopedias are located. Reference books are for in-library use only, and are marked with "Ref." at the beginning of their call number. Books that may be taken out are called circulating books; these are located on the intermediate and upper levels.

Here are some key words and phrases that are beneficial when looking up books and other materials on physics: Astrophysics; Ballistics; Biophysics; Capillarity; Cosmic physics; Critical phenomena (Physics); Diffusion; Dynamics; Electricity; Evaporation; Field Theory (Physics); Fluids; Force and energy; General relativity (Physics); Geophysics; Gravitation; Heat; Ions; Magnetism; Mathematical Physics; Matter; Mechanics; Medical Physics; Motion; Music-Acoustics and Physics; Nuclear Physics; Optics; Physical Metallurgy; Quantum Theory; Radiation; Solid State Physics; Sound; Statics; Statistical Physics; Surfaces (Physics); Symmetry (Physics); Thermodynamics; Viscosity; Weights and measures.

Following is a selection of both reference and circulating books that may be helpful in your research.

Advanced methods of mathematical physics QC20 .K39 2000

All was light: an introduction to Newton's Opticks QC353 .H35 1993

The analytical and numerical solution of electric and magnetic fields QC665.E4 B54 1992

Biofluid dynamics: principles and selected applications QP90.5 .K54 2006

Current methods in forensic gunshot residue analysis HV8077 .S34 2000

Engineering mechanics TA351 .H5 2001

Essentials of fluid mechanics: fundamentals and applications TA357 .C56 2008

The Facts on File dictionary of physics QC5 .F34 1981

The finite element method in heat transfer and fluid dynamics TA357 .R43 1994

Fluid dynamics: theoretical and computational approaches QC151 .W37 1993

Fluid mechanics: fundamentals and applications TA357 .C43 2006

Fundamentals of momentum, heat, and mass transfer TA357 .F87 2001

General relativity QC173.6 .K46 1990

Global power knowledge: science and technology in international affairs Q125 .G56 2006

The ideas of particle physics: an introduction for scientists QC793.2 .D6 1991

Interfacial transport phenomena QC175.2 .S59 1990

Latent heat transfer: an introduction to fundamentals TJ260 .L59 1994

The measure of the world QA465 .A264 2004

Modern recording techniques REF. TK7881.4 .H783 2005

Nanoscale energy transport and conversion: a parallel treatment of electrons, molecules, phonons, and photons TJ265 .C497 2005

Niels Bohr's times: in physics, philosophy, and polity QC773 .P35 1991

Physical metallurgy for engineers TN690 .T557 2001

Physicochemical hydrodynamics: an introduction QD453.2 .P75 1994

Programming the universe: a quantum computer scientist takes on the cosmos QC174.12 .L57 2006

Quantum field theory: a modern introduction QC174.45 .K34 1993

Symmetries, asymmetries, and the world of particles QC174.17.S9 L44 1988

Thermodynamics: an engineering approach TJ265 .C43 2002

Turbulence and random processes in fluid mechanics QA901 .L278 1992

Government Documents

The Marvin K. Peterson Library has been a Federal Depository Library since 1971. Government documents have been listed in our online catalog since 2000, and many publications are available online from the catalog. Click on the "Linked Resources" tab at the top of the catalog record screen to get to the live link to the publication.

For documents received before 2000, use other online and print indexes. You may also consult our library guide on government documents, also available in print at the Information Desk. To use this collection, come to the Information Desk, where a staff member will assist you. We will retrieve documents for you, help you find documents not listed in our catalog, and direct you to other resources.

Here is a list of selected documents that may be of interest:

Aerospace GP 3.22/2:222/

Beyond Einstein: from the Big Bang to black holes NAS 1.83:2002-10-510-GSFC

International comparison of guarded hot plate apparatus using national and regional reference materials C 13.46:1444

International Geophysical Year 50th Anniversary: report (to accompany H. Con. Res. 189) Y 1.1/8:108-422

Introduction to environmental geophysics EP 10.15:2003016497

Trapped ions and laser cooling, V selected publications of the Ion Storage Group, NIST Time and Frequency Division C 13.46:1523

A frequency- and time-domain investigation into the geometric optics approximation for wireless indoor applications C 60.10:00-379

Journals and Other Periodicals

Here is a sampling of physics journals, found via the Journals link on the Library homepage:

Acoustical science and technology; Acta physica Polonica; Active and passive electronic components; Advances in high energy physics; American journal of physics; Fiber optics news; Journal of mathematical physics; Journal of research of the National Bureau of Standards; Journal of vibration and control; Nonlinear processes in geophysics; Nuclear physics; Open thermodynamics journal; Physics essays; Semiconductor physics, quantum electronics, and optoelectronics; Spectroscopy.

If you need help finding journal articles, please see our guide called Finding Articles.

Databases

The best way to find articles on physics is to follow the library's databases link and go into the subject listing that includes sciences. Some general/multidisciplinary databases also might prove helpful. You will need to log on with your UNH username and password same as you use for your UNH email logon. The following is a list of the databases that are most relevant for physics.

Science Databases

DIRECTORY OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS Freely available online journals, organized by subject. Link leads directly to Physics section. Hosted at Lund University, Sweden, a co-project of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and Open Access Institute, Budapest. Follow the subject tree to Astonomy and Physics, where you will find 52 journals presently dedicated to physics.

Engineering Village 2 A suite of engineering databases, including Compendex, the most comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database in the world.

GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the geosciences, providing access to worldwide geological and geographic literature.

HighWire Press is the world's largest archive of free full-text science.

INFOMINE (Scholarly Internet Resource Collections) A University of California site organizing by topic, includes freely available scholarly Internet databases and web sites.

IRIS (Illinois Researcher Information Service) The IRIS Database, updated daily, currently contains over 8,600 active federal and private funding opportunities in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. In addition to funding opportunities for faculty, the IRIS Database also contains fellowships and scholarships for grad students and undergrads. E-mail alert service available.

K-Essentials (Knovel) Full-text reference content from 30+ publishers that includes books, databases and conference proceedings all presented on the same interface.

Open Science Directory Search tool for open access journals and journals in special programs for developing countries. About 13,000 journals are now available.

Science Reference Center is helpful for all science research projects. Included in this database are reference books, journals, biographies, and images.

ScienceDirect Web Editions An index to books, journals, reviews, conference proceedings, videos published by Elsevier. Some full text articles are available.

Other Databases of Interest

Criminal Justice Periodicals Index from ProQuest touches upon physics topics such as ballistics.

FirstSearch contains a suite of databases. FirstSearch is available for use in the Peterson Library only. The following databases can be helpful with physics research:

Article First: OCLC index of articles from the contents pages of journals
ECO: An OCLC collection of scholarly journals
Ebooks: OCLC catalog of online electronic books available through libraries worldwide
PerAbs: Periodical abstracts from general and academic journals
SIRS Researcher: Social, scientific, economic, and political issues worldwide
WilsonSelectPlus: Full text articles in science, humanities, education and business

GreenFILE provides information on "all aspects of human impact to the environment," including legal, educational, agricultural, technological, health and other aspects.

General Databases:

Academic OneFile A source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources. Dating back to 1980, over half full-text.

Dissertations [or DAI, Dissertation Abstracts International] is a database of North American and European dissertations and theses. Included are citations and abstracts for all academic disciplines. Part of the FirstSearch database. In library use only; please ask at Information/Reference Desk for help accessing.

Dissertations and Thesis at the University of New Haven Search citations and abstracts of dissertations and theses submitted by the University of New Haven and published in UMI's Dissertation Abstracts database. Download full text dissertations and theses published after 1996.

ECO [Electronic Collections On-line] is a special collection of online scholarly journals, all available full-text. Part of the FirstSearch database. In library use only; please ask at Information/Reference Desk for help accessing.

Expanded Academic Index contains balanced coverage from 3,000 indexed and 1,900 full-text titles in a wide variety of disciplines.

Online Handbooks and Manuals

Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Online McGraw-Hill) Biographies of scientists, encyclopedia articles, news, multimedia and more.

ENGnetBASE: Engineering Handbooks Online Run your search and the results will be relevant chapters from online textbooks. A search for physics yields more than 5000 results.

Environment & Environmental Engineering Collection (Knovel Books) Knovel is an online technical reference collection used by applied scientists and practicing engineers. Currently containing 524 titles in this collection, search physics and get results like Fundamentals of Semiconductors-Physics and Material Properties and the Encyclopedia of Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry online.

Handbook of Chemistry and Physics Online (CRC) Corresponds to the 89^th print edition and provides data needed by chemists, physicists, and engineers on the properties of inorganic and organic compounds.

Internet Resources

Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics

Fundamental Physical Constants

Physics World

UCSB High Energy Physics

University of New Haven Virtual Reference Shelf: Science & Technology

Associations & Organizations:

AIP Center for History of Physics Newsletter

American Association of Physics Teachers

American Institute of Physics

American Physics Society

Center for History of Physics