For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge of Time - A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, 2011 - 302 pages
This book is a largely autobiographical account of the author's life as one who fell in love first with physics and then with teaching physics to students. "You have changed my life" is a common refrain in the emails the author receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his video lectures about the wonders of physics. "I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics colored eyes," wrote one such fan. When the lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, "Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube's greatest hits." For more than thirty years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, the author takes readers on a journey in this book, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. "I introduce people to their own world," he writes, "the world they live in and are familiar with but don't approach like a physicist yet." Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, he never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions. Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy, arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy, he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes. "For me," he writes, "physics is a way of seeing the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute, as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole." His ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.
 

Contents

From the Nucleus to Deep Space
1
Measurements Uncertainties and the Stars
21
Bodies in Motion
37
The Magic of Drinking with a Straw
59
Over and UnderOutside and Insidethe Rainbow
78
The Harmonies of Strings and Winds
103
The Wonders of Electricity
125
The Mysteries of Magnetism
149
Cosmic Catastrophes Neutron Stars and Black Holes
217
Celestial Ballet
235
Xray Bursters
248
Ways ofSeeing
263
Acknowledgments
273
Appendix 2
279
Index
285
15
297

Energy ConservationPlus ça change Xrays from Outer Space
200

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About the author (2011)

Walter Lewin taught the three core classes in physics at MIT for more than thirty years and made major discoveries in the area of X-ray astronomy. His physics lectures have been the subject of great acclaim, including a 60 Minutes feature, stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Newsweek and US News and World Report. They have also been top draws on YouTube and iTunes University. He was awarded three prizes for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He has published more than 450 scientific articles, and his honors and awards include the NASA Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the Alexander von Humboldt Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He became a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1993. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Warren Goldstein is a professor of history and chair of the History Department at the University of Hartford. A prizewinning historian, essayist, and journalist, he has had a lifelong fascination with physics. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and many other national periodicals. His prior books include Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball and William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience.

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