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In the first half of the 19th century geometry changedradically, and withina century it helped to revolutionizeboth mathematics and physics. It alsoput the epistemologyand the philosophy of science on a new footing. In thisvolume a sound overview of this development is given byleadingmathematicians, physicists, philosophers, andhistorians of science. This interdisciplinary approach givesthis collection a unique character. It can be used byscientists and students, but it also addresses a generalreadership. ... Read more

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Harmless articles
These harmless little articles are not terribly useful, but I was prompted to make some remarks on Gauss. Houzel writes on "The Birth of Non-Euclidean Geometry" and summarises the facts. Basically, in Gauss's correspondence and Nachlass one can find evidence of both conceptual and technical insights on non-Euclidean geometry. Perhaps the clearest technical result is the formula for the circumference of a circle, k(pi/2)(e^(r/k)-e^(-r/k)). This is one instance of the marked analogy with spherical geometry, where circles scale as the sine of the radius, whereas here in hyperbolic geometry they scale as the hyperbolic sine. Even so, one must confess that there is no evidence of Gauss having attacked non-Euclidean geometry on the basis of differential geometry and curvature, although obviously "it is difficult to think that Gauss had not seen the relation". When it comes to assessing Gauss's claims, after the publications of Bolyai and Lobachevsky, that this was known to him already, one should perhaps remember that he made similar claims regarding elliptic functions---saying that Abel had only a third of his results and so on---and that in this case there is more compelling evidence that he was essentially right. Gauss shows up again in Volkert's article on "Mathematical Progress as Synthesis of Intuition and Calculus". Although his thesis is trivially correct, Volkert gets the Gauss stuff all wrong. The discussion concerns Gauss's 1799 doctoral dissertation on the fundamental theorem of algebra. Supposedly, the problem with Gauss's proof, which is supposed to exemplify "an advancement of intuition in relation to calculus" is that "the continuity of the plane ... wasn't exactified". Of course, anyone with the slightest understanding of mathematics will know that "the continuity of the plane" is no more an issue in this proof of Gauss that in Euclid's proposition 1 or any other geometrical work whatsoever during the two thousand years between them. The real issue in Gauss's proof is the nature of algebraic curves, as of course Gauss himself knew. One wonders if Volkert even bothered to read the paper since he claims that "the existance of the point of intersection is treated by Gauss as something absolutely clear; he says nothing about it", which is plainly false. Gauss says a lot about it (properly understood) in a long footnote that shows that he recognised the problem and, I would argue, recognised that his proof was incomplete. ... Read more

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This is a major revision of a classic, best selling reference book. Originally published by the American Institute of Physics under the title "Physics Vade Mecum" in 1981, and then the second edition in 1989 with the new title "A Physicist's Desk Reference", this third edition has been completely updated and modernized to reflect current modern physics. The book is a concise compilation of the most frequently used physics data and formulae with their derivations. This revision has six more chapters than the second edition, outdated chapters dropped, and new chapters added on atmospheric physics, electricity and magnetism, elementary particle physics, fluid dynamics, geophysics, nonlinear physics, particle accelerators, polymer physics, and quantum theory. There is a new last chapter on practical laboratory data. The references and bibliographies have been updated.This book is an indispensable tool for the researcher, professional and student in physics as well as other scientists who use physics data. The editors of this volume are Richard Cohen, author of the first two chapters of PDR and the "Physics Quick Reference Guide"; David Lide, one of the editors of the previous two editions and the editor of the "CRC Handbook of Physics and Chemistry"; and George Trigg, editor of the "Encyclopedia of Physics" and the "Encyclopedia of Applied Physics" (VCH). The market for this classic reference book includes the practicing scientist, including engineers, chemists, and biologists; and students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Quite ok
I am not certain if I can say that this book is more of a professional asset, or more of an entertainment. It's a nice book to read. I can't say it's a good book to work with.

The AIP desk reference contains a good deal of equations and expressions. It contains a bit of everything, and therefore One should not expect to find -precisely- what One wants.

Should you buy it? Probably. Is it going to help you? Maybe more on a psychological level, because it's nice to hold the whole spectrum of physics in one hand.

Keep up with physics
It is difficult for physicists to keep track of the latest findings in their field. By necessity, if you work in physics, you often have to specialise. Yet for intellectual reasons, if nothing else, it is good to keep up with what is in your occupation.

For decades, the American Institute of Physics has tried to help, with earlier versions of this book. This is the latest update, from 2003. Compared to, say, the 1981 edition, there have been large changes. Perhaps foremost is the current prominence of computational ideas. Reflecting the decades-long surge of Moore's Law and the now ubiquitous computing power available to most physicists. So much so that simulations are now a de facto equal partner of theory and observation.

The book also describes the current boundaries of particle physics, with updates on recent accelerator capabilities and results. If progress seems naggingly slow here, remember the sheer cost of those accelerators and the long lead time between design and first light. ... Read more

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Market: Physicists, interested lay readers, and historians of science. This survey of the history of electrodynamics provides insight into the revolutionary advances made in physics during 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries. The first volume covers the theories of classical physics from the time of Plato to the end of the 19th century. The second volume examines the origins of the discoveries that paved the way for modern physics with the emphasis on special relativity, quantum theories, general relativity, matrix mechanics, and wave mechanics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fundamental to understand how scientific ideas evolved over time
This is a book by E.T. Whittaker, of"A Course of Modern Analysis"-fame (please check it out on Amazon if you have never heard of that classic).
For scientists and engineers, it is fundamental to have a minimum understanding of how scientific ideas evolved over time. Recall the debate over the particle versus wave nature of light, and how the two schools of thought took turns as the mainstream theory until they were reconciled in the beginning of the twentieth century (well, not really: there are some rough edges lingering still). The same happens with the currently out-of-favor theory of ether; after abandoning the idea of ether upon the establishment of the theory of Special Relativity, Einstein himself revisited the concept of ether in a different fashion when developing his broader-scoped General Relativity (he actually developed 3 diverse ether models then; check out "Einstein and the Ether" by Ludwik Kostro for an account of this episode). The history of the ether hypothesis is in fact the history of a number of competing theories, each of which entailing a different set of properties for this elusive would-be medium (substance?). Whether replacing one another or co-existing side by side, these theories were very important for the development of physics as we know it today. In this book Whittaker offers an account of that will prove enjoyable, possibly insightful, to physicists and other scientists in general.
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Force is one of the most elementary concepts that must be understood in order to understand modern science; it is discussed extensively in textbooks at all levels and is a requirement in most science guidelines. It is also one of the most challenging - how could one idea be involved in such disparate physical phenomena as gravity and radioactivity? Forces in Physics helps the science student by explaining how these ideas originally were developed and provides context to the stunning conclusions that scientists over the centuries have arrived at. It covers the history of all of the four traditional fundamental forces - gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force - and shows how these forces have, over the years, allowed physicists to better understand the nature of the physical world.

Forces in Physics: A Historical Perspective traces the evolution of the concept from the earliest days of the Ancient Greeks to the contemporary attempt to form a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): Aristotle and others in Ancient Greece who developed ideas about physical laws and the introduction of forces into nature; Newton and others in the Scientific Revolution who discovered that forces like gravity applied throughout the universe; the 19th century examinations of thermodynamics and the forces of the very small; and 20th century developments—relativity, quantum mechanics, and more advanced physics—that revolutionized the way we understand force. The volume includes a glossary of terms, a timeline of important events, and a bibliography of resources useful for further research.

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Customer Reviews (9)

Plastic Fantastic
I saw an adaptation of this book on cable and going by the maxim never judge a book by its movie I ordered the book.

It is an interesting account of how a young scientist, Jan Hendrik Schon, was hired by Bell Labs and rose to dominate the field of organic transistors. At one point he was publishing a scientific peer reviewed paper every seven or eight days. He was making everyone else look like a dunce.

As it turns out he was faking data and cheating and he destroyed his own career and all these other people aren't dunces. It is fascinating, I had trouble with the science, but even if you don't know what a transistor is I think you will enjoy this book. It is more about how Schon got over on Bell Labs and how science is supposed to work.

In my opinion, Jan Hendrik Schon chose the wrong field. If he had been a researcher in global warming he probably could have won the Nobel Prize.

Kindle price is HIGHER than paperback!
I have a complaint about the Kindle price. $14.82 for a book already in paperback for $11.56? Sheesh.

An important and engaging book on scientific fraud
I found that the book moves at a good pace, because as events unfolded I kept asking: "how does Schon continue to pull this off?" and "how will he get caught?"As the excellent first review of June 13 described, his managers at Bell Labs we unable to discover or contain the fraud, took no responsibility for their lack of oversight, and, for the most part, suffered no repercussions.

How could Schon fool (nearly) everyone for 4 years?He was a mediocre student, with a poor grasp of the physics underlying his publications.Wouldn't other scientists pop into his lab to see the amazing devices that nobody else could replicate?Did nobody ever insist that he keep notebooks of his experiments, as well as the raw data collected.(Schon apparently kept everything in the Origin graphics package.)

How did he satisfy the colleagues?He used their knowledge against them.He showed them his fictitious data and solicited their suggestions for the next thing to do.He would then fulfill their expectations by manufacturing the data that he had been told to expect.If he were challenged, he would try to be accommodating, changing the graphics or description of the device, or falling back on the excuse that he didn't understand what was happening, but was just presenting data,

Certainly Schon was the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time (Bell Labs during breakup and rapid downsizing).His greatest ability is to tell people exactly what they want to hear, to get useful information from them for his next fraud, and -- always -- to hide his deceptions.Schon is a risk-taker; he lives for the thrill of his game -- manipulating others to get undeserved rewards (praise, fame, money).All his energy goes into planning and generating the next fabrication and deflecting criticism of previous fakes.Such a personality disorder is totally foreign to most scientists, who get their thrills from the real game, and for this reason very few scientists came to the logical conclusion that the whole thing was a con job.

Reich's publisher, Macmillan, did a poor job with the book.There are enough typos to make the book appear not to have been proofread.They used cheap paper, barely above the quality of newspaper.And there are no illustrations or photographs, as others have noted: illustrations to help explain the physics of the devices and show the graphics that eventually got Schon caught, and photos of the people involved.

Reich's treatment at the end of the book suffers because it has no discussion of the specific findings of the external committee that found the work to be fraudulent.This would have been a more satisfying conclusion than simply stating that Schon was fired as a result.But she does an excellent job laying out the problem of scientific misconduct, and the difficulty of its detection when the perpetrator is accommodating and actively deflects criticism.Ultimately, Schon was brought down because he couldn't restrain himself from publishing wild new fabrications on a nearly bi-weekly basis.So I had to wonder how long he might have remained undetected if his rate of publications had not been so frantic and in so many different specialized areas.

Finally, to really understand Schon's motivations, as well as the reasons for his success at Bell Labs, I would suggest the book "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work," by Babiak and Hare.Hare is the world expert in this personality type.

Should be required reading for scientists
Reich does a great job explaining how Hendrik Schon was able to perpetrate the biggest [...]in physics history, duping the folks at Science, Nature and seemingly every prize committee on the planet.But more interestingly, Reich shows how the culture of science, especially the pressure-cooker, cost-cutting atmosphere within Bell Labs, allowed the [...] to happen, possibly promoted it, but ultimately uncovered it.This is an important, valuable book, and should be required reading for young scientists.

how about a photo of Schon ?
I read this book with interest because I used to be in condensed matter physics. Tangentially, we dealt with Bell Labs, which was indeed one of the best places for research in this field. It is unusual to see a book like this, presumably directed at a general audience. The level of physics detail is not what is typically offered.

The sociology of research, and specifically in this field of physics, can be fascinating. Grad students and researchers in many sciences should be able to relate to the happenings here.

As far as a rogue researcher in a large group being able to fabricate results, this is not unknown. Especially when the group leader doesn't have the time to parse everyone's work in detail. A similar event happened in molecular biology in Lee Hood's group at Caltech in the 90s. Though no book was written about it.

The problem with the current book is the paucity of diagrams and photos. Not a single photo of Schon! Why is that? Surely some must exist. Perhaps from Bell Labs publicity shots before the scandal broke. Or even from their archived web pages. For example, I just searched on the web, and found a photo of him from Wired. Reich or her publisher should have provided some image. Ironically, the book is heavily footnoted, not unlike a research journal article. So there has been no lack of research done on it.

By the way, you should ignore the subtitle about "shaking the scientific world". Even within physics, I doubt if the high energy or nuclear folks were much shook up. Instead, they probably looked at it in curiosity, just like other scientists.

The book describes how data is collected these days in labs. By computerised instruments, and thence written to files. I wonder. I got into physics at a time [1980s] when labs were transitioning from manual writing down of data points in lab books to this automated collection into computer files. It is certainly possible to fabricate handwritten data; there have been notorious cases. But to some extent, once the data has been written, it has some permanence. Short of tearing out the pages, which doesn't work too well if the pages are numbered, or surreptiously inserting or adjusting some numbers, the data is fixed.

However, computer files are malleable. Even when ostensibly timestamped by the operating system. If you have root access, you can temporarily change back the time, edit the file, and then reset the time to the current time. The book doesn't speak of this. But I do wonder if the ease of doing this played some part in Schon's frauds.
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Great book as a reference
for advanced undergraduate\graduate students, this book is remarkable.
I bought it together with "Great experiments in physics" by Shamos and together they complete each other, this book emphasizing the 20th century and the second dealing more with earlyer era from galileo through newton to herz and the beginning of the 20th century.

having these 2 books at hand, are extremely valuable to a physics student who wishes to really understand the methods used in order to deduct the theories outlined in other textbooks.

usually today's textbooks do a poor job at detailing the art of
experiment making, experiment analysis and the physics being deduced from it, they simply present the theory without letting
the student apreciate the ways scince is being made.

this book (and the other) fill this gap very well.

I recomend however to have a fairly good grasp of the experiment
theory before reading the relevant chapter in the book since there is an assumption that the reader is somewhat familiar with
the physics behind it.

I gurantee, that after reading how an experiment was set, and
understanding the analysis of the outcome, your grasp of the underlying physics will be a lot more solid and deep.

since every textbook is an abridged version of the experiments
reports, an understanding of these reports must by that logic
give you a better understanding.
... Read more

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From prehistoric times, mankind has looked up at the night sky, and puzzled at the changing positions of the stars. How far away they are is a question that has confounded scientists for centuries. Over the last few hundred years, many scientific careers – and considerable resources – have been devoted to measuring their positions and motions with ever increasing accuracy. And in the last two decades of the 20th century, the European Space Agency developed and launched the Hipparcos satellite, around which this account revolves, to carry out these exacting measurements from space.

What has prompted these remarkable developments? Why have governments been persuaded to fund them? What are scientists learning from astronomy's equivalent of the Human Genome Project? This book traces the subject's history, explains why such enormous efforts are considered worthwhile, and interweaves these with a first-hand insight into the Hipparcos project, and how big science is conducted at an international level. The involvement of amateur astronomers, and the Hipparcos contributions to climate research, ‘death stars' passing close to the Sun, and the search for extra-solar planets and even intelligent life itself, are some of the surprising facets of this unusual space mission.

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This introduction to the history of science in the seventeenth century examines the so-called 'scientific revolution' in terms of the interplay between two major themes. The Platonic-Pythagorean tradition looked on nature in geometric terms with the conviction that the cosmos was constructed according to the principles of mathematical order, while the mechanical philosophy conceived of nature as a huge machine and sought to explain the hidden mechanisms behind phenomena. Pursuing different goals, these two movements of thought tended to conflict with each other, and more than the obviously mathematical sciences were affected - the influence spread as far as chemistry and the life sciences. As this book demonstrates, the full fruition of the scientific revolution required a resolution of the tension between the two dominant trends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Another review
First, I want to abandon any pretentions of expertise in the history of ideas or science. With that caveat in mind, or out of mind, I agree with one of the other posters who said "the historiography is dated." Although the author defends himself against the use of "social and political" currents, --- I find that the latter criticism is extrensic to the authors stated purpose. However, As a history of ideas this work fails for me.

First, the author assumes some psuedo- hegalian, "spirit" without naming it as such, as a way of interpreting the development of ideas in the disclipines (chemistry, physics, biology) across time. So, why does author X, (insert Pascal if you like and his tube experiments), fail to realize Y, since he lacked Z (which by the way was not discovered until the 19th century).Wellthe "facts" of science only require the puzzling arrangment of certain variables which are always already discovered in advance.I wonder how the author would respond to this criticism, well he wouldn't read it, but still I wonder with deep awe and all of the psychical imagination of my neoplatonic spirit of the Renaissance.

The freedom of thought!
Classical antiquity and the Greek and Roman worlds are the source of and foundation of modern science. Without Aristotle, Pythagoras, Democritus, Ptolemy, Vitruvius, Archimedes, Ptolemy and many others we would not have Newton, Malpighi, Leibniz, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Copernico or Einstein.

In this sense this book is a very interesting journey through the development of the Modern Science, and its countless obstacles to surmount with the Status Quo of different ages and historical moments

Albert Einstein stated once "The science without religion is cripple but the religion without science is blind."

Totally recommended.

A staple of university history of Science courses
Good introduction to the history of early modern science. Historiographically a little dated and therefore lacking in the thorough treatment of the broader social and political origins of science in this time period. Still, it is a classic.

Crystal clear style, illuminating depth on the scientific process
There are several aspects of this book that render it superior but the one aspect which stands out is manner in which the author presents the reasoning behind the development of a revolutionary scientific idea from the perspective of the originator of the idea, and the process by which the originator used developing philosophical trends, and scientific methods to fully realize a new idea despite the mental entanglements of centuries-old "factual" dogma or presuppositions about natural law.Beautifully presented and fully relevant diagrams as well.The first chapter is the clearest description I've ever read of the rationale behind the development of Kepler's Laws.

Great introduction to the 17th century scientific revolution
This book really is a great introduction to the scientific revolution of the 17th century. It's part of a series of books called "History of Science Series" and is dedicated to bringing the history of science to a wider audience. It presents the general reader with an accurate, short narrative and analysis of the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Unlike other books on this subject it does not require the reader to be familiar with a lot of technical background knowledge.

Two major themes dominated the period covered in the book; the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, which looked on nature in geometric terms, and the mechanical philosophy, which conceived of nature as a huge machine and sought to explain the hidden mechanisms behind phenomena. These themes run through the various chapters of the book. Starting out in the first chapter with the copernican revolution in astronomy (the heliocentric theory) it shows how two men, Kepler and Galileo, reformed the theory and opened up new questions for the comming century. The following chapters cover the various sciences such as mechanics, chemistry and biology. After an interluding chapter covering the organization of the scientific enterprise (showing that universities were not always the principal centers of scientific research) it ends with two chapters in which the two themes mentioned above are drawn together and ultimately lead to the discovery of Newton's laws, solving major problems opened up at the beginning of the century.

I had to read this book as part of a course at the university where I study. I enjoyed the book (and the course) a lot (which I don't say verry often) even though it doesn't have anything to do the primary subject of my study, business information technology. If you're at all 'science minded' this book is a must. You wont regret purchasing it. ... Read more

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The Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, was the birthplace of particle accelerators, radioisotopes, and modern big science. This first volume of its history is a saga of physics and finance in the Great Depression, when a new kind of science was born.Here we learn how Ernest Lawrence used local and national technological, economic, and manpower resources to build the cyclotron, which enabled scientists to produce high-voltage particles without high voltages. The cyclotron brought Lawrence forcibly and permanently to the attention of leaders of international physics in Brussels at the Solvay Congress of 1933. Ever since, the Rad Lab has played a prominent part on the world stage.The book tells of the birth of nuclear chemistry and nuclear medicine in the Laboratory, the discoveries of new isotopes and the transuranic elements, the construction of the ultimate cyclotron, Lawrence's Nobel Prize, and the energy, enthusiasm, and enterprise of Laboratory staff. Two more volumes are planned to carry the story through the Second World War, the establishment of the system of national laboratories, and the loss of Berkeley's dominance of high-energy physics. ... Read more

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Free Thinking's Huge Impact
Growing up in the Oakland, California area afforded me many acquaintances among people connected with the "Rad Lab", now known as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.This book is a detailed but readable history of that institution as it grew and matured under the leadership of Ernest O. Lawrence.Nuclear science and experimentation is perhaps the 20th Century's most significant accomplishment.Nuclear weapons could destroy the world...Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging is a medical miracle...The story of the unique culture bred by a diverse group of explorers is well told in this book. ... Read more

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-Would the bus in Speed really have made that jump?
-Could a Star Wars ship actually explode in space?
-What really would have happened if you said "Honey, I shrunk the kids"?

The companion book to the hit website (www.intuitor.com/moviephysics), which boasts more than 1 million visitors per year, Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics is a hilarious guide to the biggest mistakes, most outrageous assumptions, and the outright lunacy at work in Hollywood films that play with the rules of science.

In this fascinating and funny guide, author Tom Rogers examines 20 different topics and shows how, when it comes to filmmaking, the rules of physics are flexible.

Einsteins and film buffs alike will be educated and entertained by this wise and witty guide to science in Hollywood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Never look at a movie the same way again
This is a great book that speaks to the reader on many levels. All the math is there for those that want to understand it, but for those that just want a good read it has been separated from the main text into info-boxes that do not need to be read to understand what the author is saying. The author seemed not only to know what he is talking about but has so much fun telling it that the whole book reads like a bunch of collage friends sitting around talking about movies over burgers and beers.
This is a fun book to read for movie and physics geeks alike even if you are neither. Be forewarned though, you will never watch a movie again without this book tickling in the back of your brain.

Excellent reading!
This book uncovers filmmakers' twisted understanding of physics and science. After reading this book your way of watching movies will radically change.Recommended for everyone, especially a must read for all Star Trek and Star Wars fans.

Entertaining, but a little preachy
As someone with an interest in both the cinema and physical sciences, and a fan of the site I thought this book would be a slam dunk. Chalk it up to schadenfreude, but I like picking out goofs in movie, scientific or otherwise. Perhaps that explains the appeal of MST3K to me, but I digress.

For the most part, I found the book both amusing and informative. However, the tone is a bit too preachy and angry. The author seems to take offense that (for example) the director of "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" didn't consider the consequences of the extreme density of a shrunken child. Granted, he gave the movie a pass along with many others for indulgences that were central to the story or particularly interesting. On the other hand, the criteria for which movies escaped his vitriol seemed to be primarily based on his enjoyment of the movie itself more than anything else. Moreover, he took special exception to movies that had silly science and had dialogue devoted to an equally silly explanation trying to support it.

The comparative analysis between Star Wars and Stark trek (complete with chart) was just plain silly and meaningless. This was mostly because of the extremely subjective and arbitrary scoring system he devised and used to compare them.

Also, there were a lot of asides that were more akin to movie reviews than pointing out problems with the science. He exhibits particular ire for Jar-Jar Binks and Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars movies. Fine, I can relate, but it wasn't the point of the book and seemed superfluous.

All in all, there was just too much ink devoted to preaching about how important it is for Hollywood to be accurate in every scientific detail of movies lest it turn us all into science-illiterates. Honestly, I don't see the harm. For example, given the penultimate affront to science, "The Core", the science was so over the top that no reasonable person who has a real-world need to apply science would be side-tracked by it.

"Mom, I'm going to dig a hole to China!"
"Dear, you know that you will be crushed by the extreme temperatures before you get there!"
"Aww mom, they did it in 'The Core' so it probably isn't that bad."


All in all, I would have preferred a more lighthearted approach. This felt too much like a Rush Limbaugh book with the word "Liberals" replaced with "Hollywood Directors."

Book of the website: not up to "book of the film" quality
I really like Tom Rogers' website, so this book was a big disappointment since the level of attention to detail that he puts into his movie reviews and physics explanations clearly didn't go into its editing. A lot of the content of the book is harvested from the website, which was to be expected; the bad part is the slapdash, repetitive way in which it was put together. It just feels like the author copy-pasted large chunks of his work together without regard for the fact that a book flows differently from a website.

The author's ingenuity is in explaining how our intuition can fail when it comes to the way things move under unusual circumstances (e.g. bullets, zero gravity) by using counterxamples from a visual medium that everybody's familiar with - action movies. As mentioned, I've read a lot of his movie reviews. Some material that was new for me in the book was his analysis of the JFK assassination film.

I requested my university's library to buy a copy since I thought it would be amusing and helpful for people taking intro physics. If you haven't read the ISMP website much, or if you're buying the book as a gift, it's worth while. If you've read most of the content on the ISMP site already, skip it.

Great for kids of all ages
The author does a superb job of breaking the movie stunts into easily consumable chunks of information. Enough information is included to give a basic physics lesson to the reader without going over the head of anyone old enough to have seen most of the movies or going into snoozeland. The sections can be read out of order without getting confused, which makes it perfect for impromptu browsing. Well worth the money. ... Read more

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This fantastic book of experiments and projects will not only explain many of the astonishing technological developments of our time, but will also give children hours of learning fun. Each concept is clearly demonstrated with a hands-on step-by-step project that is easy to follow. ... Read more

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A basic overview of current physics knowledge
The information is mostly accurate.The illustrations are helpful. Overall a simple explanation of some complex subjects- geared toward the novice.

Highly recommended
I certainly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning Physics and want to use it as a reference. I find it really interesting with a lot of good graphics although the subject itself may require some earlier knowledge in Physics. ... Read more

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This book presents Maxwell's equations and the laws ofclassical electromagnetism starting from the equations for theelectric and magnetic fields due to an accelerating classical pointcharge. A microscopic perspective is used to interpret the electricfield due to a current element, the origin of induced electromagneticfields and detached electric field lines, motional electromagneticfields, the mode of action of inductors and capacitors in AC circuits,conduction current flow, the Biot-Savart law, etc. A review ofenergy methods is presented in a way consistent with this microscopicapproach, leading up to discussions of the conservation laws for asystem of spatially separated moving charges and the Poynting vectorhypothesis. After extending Maxwell's equations to field points insidedielectrics and magnetic materials, a brief review of specialrelativity is given stressing those topics that illustrate theessential unity of classical electromagnetism and special relativity.
Audience: This textbook is designed to be used between a coursein classical electromagnetism in which vector analysis has beenintroduced, and an advanced graduate course in electromagnetism. Itwill also be of interest to research physicists and to graduatestudents as a complement to more traditional courses. ... Read more

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Aided by personal documents and institutional archives that were closed for decades, this book recounts the development of physicsor, more aptly, science under stressin Soviet Russia up to World War II. Focusing on Leningrad, center of Soviet physics until the late 1930s, Josephson discusses the impact of scientific, cultural, and political revolution on physicists' research and professional aspirations.Political and social revolution in Russia threatened to confound the scientific revolution. Physicists eager to investigate new concepts of space, energy, light, and motion were forced to accommodate dialectical materialism and subordinate their interests to those of the state. They ultimately faced Stalinist purges and the shift of physics leadership to Moscow. This account of scientists cut off from their Western colleagues reveals a little-known part of the history of modern physics. ... Read more

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During the past 200 years, astronomers and geologists have developed and tested several different theories about the origin of the solar system and the nature of the Earth. Together, the three volumes that comprise A History of Modern Planetary Physics present a survey of these theories. Nebulous Earth follows the development of Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis, its connection with ideas about the interior of the Earth, and its role in the establishment of the "evolutionary" worldview that dominated science in the latter part of the nineteenth century.Brush also explores Saturn's rings, Poincaré's contributions to ideas about cosmic evolution, the use of seismology to probe the earth's core, and explanations of the Earth's magnetic field. This series will interest historians and philosophers of science as well as earth scientists and geologists. ... Read more

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In 1937, Harvard University built its first cyclotron, which was subsequently requisitioned by the U.S. Army and taken to Los Alamos in 1943. The second cyclotron, one of the world's longest-running accelerators, was finished in 1949 and operated until 2002. In its first 20 years, the cyclotron's primary use was for nuclear physics, particularly for understanding the interaction between two nucleons. During the next 30 years, the emphasis switched to treating patients with proton radiotherapy. A total of 9,115 patients were treated by this method and the treatment has been copied all over the world. This book describes the work of the Harvard cyclotron during its 50 years of operation and includes references to about 500 publications and 40 student theses from the work.

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Book order
Thank you for your speedy shipping of my order. The gift recipient was very pleased...A Brief History of the Harvard University Cyclotrons (Department of Physics) ... Read more

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This book covers the first 35 years of nuclear physics, especially in the areas of radioactivity and radioactive emissions which were the main discoveries in nuclear physics during its first three decades. It follows the nuclear phenomena step by step, paying special attention to outstanding discoveries, such as Curie's discovery of radium, Rutherford-Soddy law, discovery of isotopes and Rutherford's artificial transmutations. The author aims to present in a critical approach the growth of nuclear physics as seen by a nuclear physicist and historian. ... Read more

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This collection of the finest recent articles from Physics Today is a fascinating chronicle of the people and events shaping modern science and society. Includes profiles, personal memoirs, and histories of important institutions and organizations. Among the more than 60 contributors are such distinguished figures as Murray Gell-Mann, Robert Hofstadter, Irving Langmuir, Abraham Pais, Norman Ramsey, Emilio Segre, and Victor Weisskopf. ... Read more