The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science

Crease, Robert P.

ISBN 10: 1400061318 / ISBN 13: 9781400061310

Published by Random House, New York, 2003

About this Item

8vo, 244 pp.

Seller Inventory # 068333

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science
• Publisher: Random House, New York
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400061318
• ISBN 13: 9781400061310
• Binding: hardcover
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Fine copy in fine dust jacket
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science & Engineering

About this title

Synopsis

We see the first measurement of the earth's circumference, accomplished in the third century B. C. by Eratosthenes using sticks, shadows, and simple geometry. We visit Foucault's mesmerizing pendulum, a cannonball suspended from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris that allows us to see the rotation of the earth on its axis. We meet Galileo - the only scientist with two experiments in the top ten - drawing on his musical training to measure the speed of falling bodies. And we travel to the quantum world, in the most beautiful experiment of all.

About the Authors

Robert P. Crease is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York, and historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

<b>Robert P. Crease</b> is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York, and historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He writes a monthly column, “Critical Point,” for <i>Physics World</i> magazine. His books include <i>Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory; The Play of Nature: Experimentation as Performance; The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics</i> (with Charles C. Mann); and―with Robert Serber―<i>Peace & War: Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science</i>. Crease’s translations include <i>American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn</i>. He lectures widely, and his articles and reviews have appeared in <i>The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian,</i> and elsewhere. He lives in New York City.