How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life - Softcover

Bloomfield, Louis A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471381519 ISBN 13: 9780471381518

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2001

Synopsis

Written primarily for a one-term, undergraduate level course, this book attempts to convey an understanding and appreciation for the concepts and principles of Physics by finding them within specific objects of everyday experience. It's primary market are liberal arts students who are seeking a connection between science and the world they live in; among its many secondary markets are the growing number of institutions offering courses with scientific real-world context. These courses may also be offered to students from the Sciences, Engineering, Architecture, and other technical fields.

About this title

From the Back Cover

HOW THINGS WORK is about ordinary objects and the physics concepts that make them possible. Its cover illustrates how often waves appears in our world. While ocean surf is clearly an example of waves (p. 250), so is the light form the lighthouse, the rippling motion of the guitar strings, and the sound emerging from the CD in its player.

When you pluck a guitar song, you fill it with waves. The strength of these waves and the timbre of the resulting sound depend upon where and how you plucked the string and on the structure of the guitar itself. You can distinguish a guitar from a piano or help by listening for the unique mixture of waves on its strings (p. 242).

A lighthouse uses an enormous lens to bend light waves from its lamp into a narrow beam that sailors can see for a hundred kilometers. A large–diameter lens is needed because waves leaving a small–diameter lens spread outward like ripples on a pond and can′t stay together as a bright, narrow beam (p. 427).

A CD encodes the air pressure fluctuations in sound waves as a pattern of tiny pits on its shiny surface. The CD player reads these pits with a laser to reproduce the recorded sound. Arcs of audio and error–recovery information are arranged in a spinal around the disk′s center so that a scratch outward from the middle of the disk is unlikely to cause any noticeable loss of music (p. 424).

About the Author

Lou Bloomfield is a highly dedicated teacher and one of the most popular professors at University of Virginia, and was the recipient of the 1998 State of Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award.   Lou has given talks all over the country on teaching physics through everyday objects.  He has extreme attention to detail and knowledge of technical physics. He is very tech savvy and has been able to provide many of the photos and illustrations for the text himself.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0471381519
• ISBN 13: 9780471381518
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 536