How Everything Works

Making Physics Out of the Ordinary

Louis A. Bloomfield

720 pages, parution le 01/06/2006

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Résumé

A user's manual for our everyday world!

"Whether a curious layperson, a trained physicist, or a beginning physics student, most everyone will find this book an interesting and enlightening read and will go away comforted in that the world is not so strange and inexplicable after all."
From the Foreword by Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2001, and CASE/Carnegie US University Professor of the Year 2004

If you didn't know better, you might think the world was filled with magic--from the household appliances that make our lives easier to the CDs and DVDs that fill our world with sounds and images. Even a simple light bulb can seem mysterious when you stop to think about it.

Now in How Everything Works, Louis Bloomfield explains the physics behind the ordinary objects and natural phenomena all around us, and unravels the mysteries of how things work. Inside, you'll find easy-to-understand answers to scores of fascinating questions, including:

How do microwave ovens cook food, and why does metal sometimes cause sparks in a microwave?
How does an iPod use numbers to represent music?
How do CDs and DVDs use light to convey information, and why are they so colorful?
How can a CT or MRI image show a cross-sectional view of a person without actually entering the body?
Why do golf balls have dimples?
How does a pitcher make a curveball curve and knuckleball jitter about in an erratic manner?
Why is the sun red at sunrise and sunset?
How does a fluorescent lamp produce visible light?

You don't need a science or engineering background to understand How Everything Works, all you need is an active curiosity about the extraordinary world all around you.

Sommaire

Things That Move
More Things That Move
Mechanical Things
More Mechanical Things
Things Involving Fluids
Things That Move With Fluids
Thermal Things
Things That Work With Heat
Things with Resonances and Mechanical Waves
Electric Things
Magnetic and Electromagnetic Things
Electronic Things
Things That Use Electromagnetic Waves
Things That Involve Light
Optical Things
Things That Use Recent Physics
Things That Involve Materials
Things That Involve Chemical Physics
Appendix A: Relevant Mathematics
Appendix B: Units, Conversion of Uints
Glossary
Photo Credits
Index

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Wiley
Auteur(s)	Louis A. Bloomfield
Parution	01/06/2006
Nb. de pages	720
Format	22 x 29
Couverture	Relié
Poids	1638g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780471748175
ISBN13	978-0-471-74817-5