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The technological products of the discovery of fission, notably the atomic bomb and nuclear power, have greatly elevated its importance in our cultur...
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...
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 v...
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 ...
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 ra...
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 w...
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 h...
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 ph...
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 physic...
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 exp...
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 u...
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 tha...
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...
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 tha...
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 vent...