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Book Chapter
The technological products of the discovery of fission, notably the atomic bomb and nuclear power, have greatly elevated its importance in our culture. The chore in this chapter is somewhat modest in comparison to both the science history and the po...
Book Chapter
One person described how the bedroom wall moved across the room. Another watched as a huge wave of concrete traveled along the highway. We all saw the massive destruction when one bridge roadway collapsed on top of another. The earthquake in the San...
Book Chapter
What happens when you are given a problem that is either too complex to solve or one where there are crucial ingredients missing? Many problems are very complex and cannot be solved if all the complexity is included. If, however, the problem is simp...
Book Chapter
Newton was certainly not the first person to see an apple fall from a tree. He may, however, have been the first to imagine the apple and the Moon to be one and the same. To Newton, the Moon was merely a much larger apple very much further from the ...
Book Chapter
This chapter focuses on finding the magnetic field. In the Biot-Savart law, the magnetic field is perpendicular to both the current element and the radiusvector. The magnetic field points out of the plane determined by the current element and the po...
Book Chapter
The analysis of the rolling wheel has become much simpler. The kinetic energy of the rolling wheel is equal to the rotational kinetic energy of the wheel about its center of mass plus the kinetic energy of the entire mass moving with the velocity of...
Book Chapter
Given a flashlight battery, a flashlight bulb, and a single piece of wire, hold them together to make the bulb light. Adults have taken more than an hour to light the bulb! And yet, this is the first activity in a lesson on circuit electricity for f...
Book Chapter
Visually, if not straight lines, then does nature favor curves? All curves are not equivalent. This chapter embarks on a brief tour of some simple physics with an eye toward the curves to discover along the way. ...
Book Chapter
Relativistic conservation laws
Conservation laws are everywhere! Conservation of energy is one of the most useful laws in all branches of science. Other conservation laws in physics include charge, momentum, angular momentum, and those associated with the more esoteric baryon and...
Book Chapter
How does a good theory get judged? It must first be able to explain what the prevailing theory has successfully explained. It must also be able to explain some known phenomenon that the prevailing theory is unable to explain. When that theory is abl...
Book Chapter
The search for the fundamental building blocks in nature has gone on for more than two thousand years. Aristotle felt that all the materials around us were composed of varying quantities of four basic elements—earth, fire, air, and water. In hinds...
Book Chapter
Sources, sinks, and gaussian spheres
Conservation of mass requires that the flow of mass into the volume be equal to the flow of mass out of the volume. Another way of stating this is that the net flow of mass—or flux—through the surface must be zero. This is true unless there are ...
Book Chapter
Archimedes’s law was a great achievement. Everybody knew that an object dropped in water made the water level rise (that is, it displaced some water). But Archimedes was the first to recognize that the amount of water displaced is related to the o...
Book Chapter
Up to now, all of the roller coasters of the world use a continuous track. But that does not restrict our imagination. In this chapter, we imagine that the top portion of the track is removed in a vertical loop, creating the so-called "topless rolle...
Book Chapter
Imagine paddling in a rowboat from one shore to the opposite shore with no current. The trip takes you 15 minutes. If you return to the river and venture across again, paddling to the opposite shore with the same strokes, but with a stiff current dra...