How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary - Tapa dura

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About the author

Louis A. Bloomfield is Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia. He also works extensively with professional societies and the media to explain physics to the general public. He maintains a website where he answers a wide range of questions on physics. Bloomfield received his Ph.D. from Stanford and was a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Bloomfield has been widely recognized for his teaching of physics and science to thousands of non-science students at the University of Virginia and is the recipient of a 1998 State of Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award and the 2001 Pegram Medal of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society. He is the author of almost 100 publications in the fields of atomic clusters, autoionizing states, high-resolution laser spectroscopy, nonlinear optics, computer science, and general science literacy, and of the successful introductory textbook How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life, 3rd Edition (Wiley 2006).

De la contraportada

Key in two minutes on your microwave, and your popcorn mysteriously cooks. Press a button on your iPod, and you suddenly hear music. Turn a dial on your air conditioner and your sweltering bedroom becomes habitable.

When you stop to think, the ordinary technologies and natural phenomena all around us can seem quite extraordinary. Today's cars, computers, copy machines and other technologies may appear to operate according to some dark, unseen magic. But the truth is, fundamental physics principles can explain how every technology works''no matter how jaw dropping or complex.

Now with Louis Bloomfield's How Everything Works, you can get inside the seemingly inexplicable gizmos and gadgets that are part of the fabric of your everyday life, and understand the physics that makes them work. An acknowledged expert on physics as it applies to everyday life, Bloomfield uses fascinating and fun examples, along with a unique ability to explain challenging concepts, to bring the subject of physics to life.

As How Everything Works examines everything from roller coasters to radio, and knuckleballs to nuclear weapons, it 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.

Filled with intriguing insights, How Everything Works is nothing short of a user's manual for our everyday world. Even if you're not the kind of person who typically likes to take things apart to see what makes them work, you soon will be.

De la solapa interior

Key in two minutes on your microwave, and your popcorn mysteriously cooks. Press a button on your iPod, and you suddenly hear music. Turn a dial on your air conditioner and your sweltering bedroom becomes habitable.

When you stop to think, the ordinary technologies and natural phenomena all around us can seem quite extraordinary. Today's cars, computers, copy machines and other technologies may appear to operate according to some dark, unseen magic. But the truth is, fundamental physics principles can explain how every technology works--no matter how jaw dropping or complex.

Now with Louis Bloomfield's How Everything Works, you can get inside the seemingly inexplicable gizmos and gadgets that are part of the fabric of your everyday life, and understand the physics that makes them work. An acknowledged expert on physics as it applies to everyday life, Bloomfield uses fascinating and fun examples, along with a unique ability to explain challenging concepts, to bring the subject of physics to life.

As How Everything Works examines everything from roller coasters to radio, and knuckleballs to nuclear weapons, it 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.

Filled with intriguing insights, How Everything Works is nothing short of a user's manual for our everyday world. Even if you're not the kind of person who typically likes to take things apart to see what makes them work, you soon will be.