How Everything Works
Making Physics Out of the Ordinary
1. Auflage Juni 2006
736 Seiten, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Kurzbeschreibung
By explaining the physics behind ordinary objects, this book unravels the mysteries of how things work. Using familiar examples from everyday life and modern technology, this book explains the seemingly inexplicable phenomena we encounter all around us. As it examines everything from roller coasters to radio, musical instruments to makeup, and knuckleballs to nuclear weapons, How Everything Works provides the answers to such questions as why the sky is blue, why metal is a problem in microwave ovens, and why some clothes require dry cleaning. With fascinating and fun real-life examples that provide the answers to scores of questions, How Everything Works is nothing short of a user's manual to our everyday world.
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.
Chapter 2. More Things That Move.
Chapter 3. Mechanical Things.
Chapter 4. More Mechanical Things.
Chapter 5. Things Involving Fluids.
Chapter 6. Things That Move With Fluids.
Chapter 7. Thermal Things.
Chapter 8. Things That Work With Heat.
Chapter 9. Things with Resonances and Mechanical Waves.
Chapter 10. Electric Things.
Chapter 11. Magnetic and Electromagnetic Things.
Chapter 12. Electronic Things.
Chapter 13. Things That Use Electromagnetic Waves.
Chapter 14. Things That Involve Light.
Chapter 15. Optical Things.
Chapter 16. Things That Use Recent Physics.
Chapter 17. Things That Involve Materials.
Chapter 18. Things That Involve Chemical Physics.
Appendix A: Relevant Mathematics.
Appendix B: Units, Conversion of Uints.
Glossary.
Photo Credits.
Index.
Although Bloomfield demonstrates considerable knowledge about the history of science and technology, his aim is clearly to explain how things work rather than how they were developed. Thus his treatment of the transistor very appropriately jumps straight to the field-effect transistor, which is fairly easy to understand, without first explaining its more complex predecessor, the bipolar transistor.
Bloomfield also shows excellent judgment about how far to dive in. (One exception here is his cursory treatment of magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that is admittedly very difficult to explain in anything other than a superficial manner.) His section on the microwave oven, for example, helped me finally to understand how a cavity magnetron works. Bloomfield also straightened me out on the difference between a turbojet engine (above, right) and a turbofan engine (left), a distinction I hadn't at all appreciated. And he even clued me in on why the front fork of a child's bike isn't curved forward. All but the most hard-core technophile should find many similar moments of enlightenment in this delightfully informative book.--David Schneider
