Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets - Softcover

Livingston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674216458 ISBN 13: 9780674216457

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets: how they guided (or misguided) Columbus; mesmerized eighteenth-century Paris but failed to fool Benjamin Franklin; lifted AC power over its rival, DC, despite all the animals, one human among them, executed along the way; led Einstein to the theory of relativity; helped defeat Hitler's U-boats; inspired writers from Plato to Dave Barry. In a way that will delight and instruct even the nonmathematical among us, James Livingston shows us how scientists today are creating magnets and superconductors that can levitate high-speed trains, produce images of our internal organs, steer high-energy particles in giant accelerators, and--last but not least--heat our morning coffee.

From the "new" science of materials to everyday technology, Driving Force makes the workings of magnets a matter of practical wonder. The book will inform and entertain technical and nontechnical readers alike and will give them a clearer sense of the force behind so much of the working world.

About this title

About the Author

James D. Livingston is a former physicist at General Electric and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

From the Back Cover

Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets and makes their workings a matter of practical wonder.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674216458
• ISBN 13: 9780674216457
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336