Research guides: PHY100H5: What's Physics Got to Do With It?: Find Books and Articles

Databases for Finding Articles

While the sources in the column to the left are great starting points, you can get the primary sources - the original journal articles - in a number of these excellent science databases.

Remember to search Web of Science and Scopus using Boolean AND and OR operators.

Web of Science: Core Collection This link opens in a new window
A major multidisciplinary database, Web of Science also contains a gateway to our free EndNote subscription.

Scopus
A major multidisciplinary database for the social sciences, life sciences, health sciences, physical sciences, and arts and humanities.

PubMed This link opens in a new window
Major database of medical and biomedical research.

Compendex / Inspec / GeoBASE
Major databases for energy, geography, geology, climate science, technology and engineering.

INSPEC This link opens in a new window
Engineering citation information including abstracts, and full-text access to journal articles, conference papers, videos, and books.
MathSciNet This link opens in a new window
Citation information including abstracts for research published by the American Mathematical Society. Also features full-text articles and reviews.

ADS: the NASA Astrophysics Data System
arXiv.org
arXiv® is a free distribution service and an open archive for scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. arXiv is a collaboratively funded, community-supported resource founded by Paul Ginsparg in 1991 and maintained and operated by Cornell University.

Authoritative Electronic Starting Points

Below is a list of quality secondary / tertiary sources that will help you get started:

Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia
The definitive scientific resource with topics ranging across all scientific disciplines including astronomy, atmospheric science, chemistry, computer science, earth science, energy sources, life science, materials, mathematics, medicine, physics, planetary science, plant science, power technology, space science.
Gale Encyclopedia of Science
The encyclopedia covers all major areas of science, engineering, technology, as well as mathematics and the medical and health sciences, while providing a comprehensive overview of current scientific knowledge and technology.
Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
Nature ELS encompasses 3,000 original peer-reviewed articles written by an international roster of 5,000 experts in their fields. Nature ELS elucidates contemporary biological and biomedical sciences. 6,000 color illustrations bring the text to life while 30,000 internal cross references and 30,000 external bibliographic references for further reading direct undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs and professional scientist to the next level of research.
Knovel Science Books and Reference Sources
Knovel provides access to online reference resources in the sciences.
Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics
This resource is oriented towards scholars. Its introductory section has good primers on relativity, quantum theory and related topics.
Dictionary of Physics
Routledge, 2013
A Dictionary of Physics
Oxford University Press, 2019