Download or read book The Instant Physicist written by Richard A. Muller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents fun cartoons alongside explanations of scientific curiosities such as chocolate having more energy than TNT, and wine being radioactive.
Download or read book Physics and Technology for Future Presidents written by Richard A. Muller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics for future world leaders Physics and Technology for Future Presidents contains the essential physics that students need in order to understand today's core science and technology issues, and to become the next generation of world leaders. From the physics of energy to climate change, and from spy technology to quantum computers, this is the only textbook to focus on the modern physics affecting the decisions of political leaders and CEOs and, consequently, the lives of every citizen. How practical are alternative energy sources? Can satellites really read license plates from space? What is the quantum physics behind iPods and supermarket scanners? And how much should we fear a terrorist nuke? This lively book empowers students possessing any level of scientific background with the tools they need to make informed decisions and to argue their views persuasively with anyone—expert or otherwise. Based on Richard Muller's renowned course at Berkeley, the book explores critical physics topics: energy and power, atoms and heat, gravity and space, nuclei and radioactivity, chain reactions and atomic bombs, electricity and magnetism, waves, light, invisible light, climate change, quantum physics, and relativity. Muller engages readers through many intriguing examples, helpful facts to remember, a fun-to-read text, and an emphasis on real-world problems rather than mathematical computation. He includes chapter summaries, essay and discussion questions, Internet research topics, and handy tips for instructors to make the classroom experience more rewarding. Accessible and entertaining, Physics and Technology for Future Presidents gives students the scientific fluency they need to become well-rounded leaders in a world driven by science and technology. Leading universities that have adopted this book include: Harvard Purdue Rice University University of Chicago Sarah Lawrence College Notre Dame Wellesley Wesleyan University of Colorado Northwestern Washington University in St. Louis University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign Fordham University of Miami George Washington University Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Download or read book Instant Physics written by Tony Rothman and published by ibooks. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all of you who break out in a sweat at the thought of thermodynamics, or freeze up at the mention of quantum mechanics, like a bolt from the blue, INSTANT PHYSICS will zap you through the fascinating history of our most basic, yet baffling, science. From the thousand-year search for proof of the existence of the ever-elusive atom to the varied and heated arguments behind the big bang theory, INSTANT PHYSICS answers all the heavy questions with a light touch. You'll learn:* How the Greek philosophers used the sledgehammer of mathematics to break apart the mysteries of the physical universe.* Why gravity is a "romantic" force.* How to tell the difference between a gluon, a meson, and a quark, even if you can't see them.INSTANT PHYSICS is crammed with special features, including chapter summaries, who's who lists, biographical and historical tidbits, and a host of illustrations, photos, equations, diagrams, and drawings.
Download or read book Physics for Future Presidents written by Richard Muller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn the science behind the headlines in this work that outlines the tools of terrorists, the dangers of nuclear power, and the reality of global warming.
Download or read book Energy for Future Presidents The Science Behind the Headlines written by Richard Muller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-08-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of "Physics for Future Presidents" returns to educate readers on the most crucial conundrum facing the nation: energy.
Download or read book The Physics Book written by Clifford A. Pickover and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A thrilling, fast-paced excursion through the history of physical discovery . . . from silly putty to string theory” (Dr. Paul Halpern, author of Collider). Following his previous volumes, The Science Book and The Math Book, acclaimed science writer Clifford Pickover returns with a richly illustrated chronology of physics, containing 250 short, entertaining, and thought-provoking entries. In addition to exploring such engaging topics as dark energy, parallel universes, the Doppler effect, the God particle, and Maxwells demon, The Physics Book extends back billions of years to the hypothetical Big Bang and forward trillions of years to a time of “quantum resurrection.” Like the previous titles in this series, The Physics Book offers a lively and accessible account of major concepts without getting bogged down in complex details.
Download or read book Eureka written by Chad Orzel and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to science, too often people say "I just don't have the brains for it" -- and leave it at that. Why is science so intimidating, and why do people let themselves feel this way? What makes one person a scientist and another disinclined even to learn how to read graphs? The idea that scientists are people who wear lab coats and are somehow smarter than the rest of us is a common, yet dangerous, misconception that puts science on an intimidating pedestal. How did science become so divorced from everyday experience? In Eureka, science popularizer Chad Orzel argues that even the people who are most forthright about hating science are doing science, often without even knowing it. Orzel shows that science is central to the human experience: every human can think like a scientist, and regularly does so in the course of everyday activities. The common misconception is that science is a body of (boring, abstract, often mathematical) facts. In truth, science is a process: Looking at the world, Thinking about what makes it work, Testing your mental model by comparing it to reality, and Telling others about your results -- all things that people do daily. By revealing the connection between the everyday activities that people do -- solving crossword puzzles, playing sports, or even watching mystery shows on television -- and the processes used to make great scientific discoveries, Eureka shows that this process is one everybody uses regularly, and something that anyone can do.
Download or read book The Little Book of String Theory written by Steven S. Gubser and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-08 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential beginner's guide to string theory The Little Book of String Theory offers a short, accessible, and entertaining introduction to one of the most talked-about areas of physics today. String theory has been called the "theory of everything." It seeks to describe all the fundamental forces of nature. It encompasses gravity and quantum mechanics in one unifying theory. But it is unproven and fraught with controversy. After reading this book, you'll be able to draw your own conclusions about string theory. Steve Gubser begins by explaining Einstein's famous equation E = mc2, quantum mechanics, and black holes. He then gives readers a crash course in string theory and the core ideas behind it. In plain English and with a minimum of mathematics, Gubser covers strings, branes, string dualities, extra dimensions, curved spacetime, quantum fluctuations, symmetry, and supersymmetry. He describes efforts to link string theory to experimental physics and uses analogies that nonscientists can understand. How does Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu relate to quantum mechanics? What would it be like to fall into a black hole? Why is dancing a waltz similar to contemplating a string duality? Find out in the pages of this book. The Little Book of String Theory is the essential, most up-to-date beginner's guide to this elegant, multidimensional field of physics.
Download or read book Entrepreneurship for Physicists written by Davide Iannuzzi and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physicists are very smart people. Still, when it comes to moving their ideas from university to market, they often lack the basic set of know-hows that could help them succeed in the technology transfer process. To fill this gap, Entrepreneurship for Physicists: A Practical Guide to Move Ideas from University to Market offers a concise analysis of the key ingredients that enable entrepreneurs to bring added value to their customers. After a short discussion on why university physicists should pay more attention to this aspect of their professional life, the book dives into a set of theories, models, and tools that could help an academic scientist transform an idea into customer added value. The reader will be introduced to effectuation theory, internal resource analysis, external landscape analysis, value capture, lean startup method, business canvases, financial projections, and to a series of topics that, albeit often neglected, do play a fundamental role in technology transfer, such as trust, communication, and persuasion. In the last chapter, the book explains howmost of the concepts discussed actually find application in the career of scientists in a much broader sense.
Download or read book Existential Physics written by Sabine Hossenfelder and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An informed and entertaining guide to what science can and cannot tell us.” —The Wall Street Journal “Stimulating . . . encourage[s] readers to push past well-trod assumptions […] and have fun doing so.” —Science Magazine From renowned physicist and creator of the YouTube series “Science without the Gobbledygook,” a book that takes a no-nonsense approach to life’s biggest questions, and wrestles with what physics really says about the human condition Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely. According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate. In this lively, thought-provoking book, Hossenfelder takes on the biggest questions in physics: Does the past still exist? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? She lays out how far physicists are on the way to answering these questions, where the current limits are, and what questions might well remain unanswerable forever. Her book offers a no-nonsense yet entertaining take on some of the toughest riddles in existence, and will give the reader a solid grasp on what we know—and what we don’t know.
Download or read book The Trouble with Physics written by Lee Smolin and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text
Download or read book For the Love of Physics written by Walter Lewin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote one such fan. When Lewin’s lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.” For more than thirty years as a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,” writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don’t approach like a physicist—yet.” Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions. Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy—arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy—he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes. “For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing—the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute—as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.
Download or read book Fashion Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe written by Roger Penrose and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading physicists questions some of the most fashionable ideas in physics today, including string theory What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas—string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. Arguing that string theory has veered away from physical reality by positing six extra hidden dimensions, Penrose cautions that the fashionable nature of a theory can cloud our judgment of its plausibility. In the case of quantum mechanics, its stunning success in explaining the atomic universe has led to an uncritical faith that it must also apply to reasonably massive objects, and Penrose responds by suggesting possible changes in quantum theory. Turning to cosmology, he argues that most of the current fantastical ideas about the origins of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may lie behind them. Finally, Penrose describes how fashion, faith, and fantasy have ironically also shaped his own work, from twistor theory, a possible alternative to string theory that is beginning to acquire a fashionable status, to "conformal cyclic cosmology," an idea so fantastic that it could be called "conformal crazy cosmology." The result is an important critique of some of the most significant developments in physics today from one of its most eminent figures.
Download or read book Everywhere and Everywhen written by Nick Huggett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, written for the general reader, explores the fundamental issues concerning the nature of time and space, and quantum mechanics. It shows how physics and philosophy work together to answer some of the deepest questions ever asked about the world.
Download or read book The Physics of Noise written by Edoardo Milotti and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a physicist, "noise" is not just about sounds, but refers to any random physical process that blurs measurements, and in so doing stands in the way of scientific knowledge. This book deals with the most common types of noise, their properties, and some of their unexpected virtues. The text explains the most useful mathematical concepts related to noise. Finally, the book aims at making this subject more widely known and to stimulate the interest for its study in young physicists.
Download or read book Physics in Minutes written by Giles Sparrow and published by Quercus Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics in Minutes covers everything you need to know about physics, condensed into 200 key topics. Each idea is explained in clear, accessible language, building from the basics, such as mechanics, waves and particles, to more complex topics, including neutrinos, string theory and dark matter. Based on scientific research proving that the brain best absorbs information visually, illustrations accompany the text to aid quick comprehension and easy recollection. This convenient and compact reference book is ideal for anyone interested in how our world works. Chapters include: Newton's Laws of Motion, Schrödinger's cat, Magnetism, Superconductivity, Fission and fusion, Higgs Boson, Entropy, Dark matter.
Download or read book What Is Real written by Adam Becker and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A thorough, illuminating exploration of the most consequential controversy raging in modern science." --New York Times Book Review An Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review Longlisted for PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Longlisted for Goodreads Choice Award Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's solipsistic and poorly reasoned Copenhagen interpretation. Indeed, questioning it has long meant professional ruin, yet some daring physicists, such as John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett, persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth. "An excellent, accessible account." --Wall Street Journal "Splendid. . . . Deeply detailed research, accompanied by charming anecdotes about the scientists." --Washington Post
