How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary - Softcover

Bloomfield, Louis A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470170662 ISBN 13: 9780470170663

Publisher: Wiley, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Why do golf balls have dimples?
How does an iPod turn binary digits into Bon Jovi?
How do microwave ovens cook?
How does a pitcher make a curveball curve and a knuckleball jitter?
Why don’t you fall off an upside-down roller coaster?

If one didn’t know better, one might think the world was filled with magic––from the household appliances that make our lives easier to the devices that fill our world with sounds and images. Even a simple light bulb can seem mysterious when you’re clueless about the science behind it.

Now in How Everything Works, Louis Bloomfield takes you inside the amazing gizmos and gadgets that are part of the fabric of our everyday life, explaining the physics that makes them work. Examining everything from roller coasters to radio, knuckleballs to nuclear weapons, How Everything Works reveals the answers to such questions as why the sky is blue, why metal is a problem in microwave ovens, how MRIs see inside you, and why some clothes require dry cleaning.

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. Remarkably clear and always fascinating, How Everything Works is nothing short of a user’s manual for our everyday world.

From the Inside Flap:

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0470170662
• ISBN 13: 9780470170663
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 736