Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down: Zen and the Art of Physics Demonstrations - Softcover

Ehrlich, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691028877 ISBN 13: 9780691028873

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Physics has the reputation of being difficult to understand and remote from everyday life. Robert Ehrlich, however, has spent much of his career disproving these stereotypes. In the long-awaited sequel to Turning the World Inside Out and 175 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations, he provides a new collection of physics demonstrations and experiments that prove that physics can, in fact, be "made simple" Intentionally using "low tech" and inexpensive materials from everyday life, Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down makes key principles of physics surprisingly easy to understand. After laying out the basic principles of what constitutes a successful demonstration, Ehrlich provides more than 100 examples. Some of the more intriguing include: Terminal Velocity of Falling Coffee Filters; Spinning a Penny; Dropping Two Rolls of Toilet Paper; Avalanches in a Sand Pile; When to Add the Cream to Your Coffee; Deep Knee Bends on a Bathroom Scale; Recoil Force on a Bent Straw; Swinging Your Arms While Walking; Estimating the Net Force on a Moving Book; and, of course, Why Toast Lands Jelly-Side Down. The book begins with a practical introduction on how to design physics demonstrations. The benefits of designing one's own "demos" are numerous, but primary among them is an increased understanding of basic physics. For many people who teach the principles of physics, demonstrations seem dauntingly complex, filled with hard-to-find equipment and too many possibilities for failure. The demonstrations described in this book are

About this title

Review:

"An outstanding new book of physics demonstrations."--Washington Post

"If you find the task of illustrating and humanizing the fundamental principles of the physical world daunting, Ehrlich offers a series of [100] easy 'demos' that are virtually foolproof and well described."--Science News

About the Author:

Robert Ehrlich is Professor of Physics at George Mason University. He has authored or edited sixteen books, including The Cosmological Milkshake, What If You Could Unscramble an Egg? and Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations (Princeton).

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0691028877
• ISBN 13: 9780691028873
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 210