Awards

• Winner of Melba Newell Phillips Award 2007 (United States)

Overview

Physicists use ""back-of-the-envelope"" estimates to check whether or not an idea could possibly be right. In many cases, the approximate solution is all that is needed. This compilation of 101 examples of back-of-the-envelope calculations celebrates a quantitative approach to solving physics problems. Drawing on a lifetime of physics research and nearly three decades as the editor of The Physics Teacher, Clifford Swartz provides simple, approximate solutions to physics problems that span a broad range of topics. What note do you get when you blow across the top of a Coke bottle? Could you lose weight on a diet of ice cubes? How can a fakir lie on a bed of nails without getting hurt? Does draining water in the northern hemisphere really swirl in a different direction than its counterpart below the equator? In each case, only a few lines of arithmetic and a few natural constants solve a problem to within a few percent. Covering such subjects as astronomy, magnetism, optics, sound, heat, mechanics, waves, and electricity, the book provides a rich source of material for teachers and anyone interested in the physics of everyday life. ""If the physical world is to make sense to students (or even to professional scientists), then it must be understandable on the basis of broadly applicable principles and simple communicable reasoning. Long, dry calculations alone will not do, for they are as devoid of insight as they are impenetrable. Here, however, is a book of wide-ranging and aptly chosen topics--each brief glimpse conveying its (sometimes surprising!) lesson in one page with a short, physically insightful, quantitative argument. This is a book that will help make the study of physics fun and relevant.""--Mark P. Silverman, author of A Universe of Atoms ...An Atom in the Universe and Waves and Grains: Reflections on Light and Learning ""This book is a treasure trove of fascinating calculations covering a wide range of physical principles, distance scales, and numerical orders of magnitude. Everyone with some curiosity about the natural world, from novice students to seasoned veterans, will find a variety of interesting cases in this wonderful collection.""--Gregory N. Derry, author of What Science Is and How It Works ""The book is fun to read. I look forward to mining it for examples with which to spice up my lectures.""--Don S. Lemons, author of Introduction to Stochastic Processes in Physics

Full Product Details

Author:   Clifford Swartz (Professor Emeritus of Physics, State University of New York)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.227kg
ISBN:  

9780801872631

ISBN 10:   0801872634
Pages:   176
Publication Date:   25 July 2003
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Contents:Preface Note to the Reader: Units and ApproximationsCHAPTER 1 Force and Pressure Bed of Nails Simple Thumbtack Horsepower Buoyancy in Air How Dense Is the Ocean? Washbowls and Coriolis Force Points of Contact Atmospheric Force Weighing Your Car Well and Water Tower Pressure of Sunlight Squashed Tennis Ball Recoil Fatal Impulse Relative Gravitational Weakness Strong Fields Airplane LiftCHAPTER 2 Mechanics and Rotation Terminal Velocity The Unlikely Game of Baseball Human Levers Angular Momenta The Twirling Skater Rotating Water Pail Grandfather Clock Arm and Leg Pendulums Precession of a Bicycle Wheel Car Springs Carousels and Rotors Banked Road Conical PendulumCHAPTER 3 Sound and Waves Speed of Sound Tsunamis and Ripples Cold Flat Music Thunder and Lightning Wavelengths of Familiar Sounds Scales and Chords The Sound of Coke The Sensitive Ear of Visible Sight v=c; hv= E Trains and Doppler ShiftCHAPTER 4 Heat Human Heaters Negative Calorie Diet The Moral of the Tail Ice Skating Thermal Expansion Power Plant EfficiencyCHAPTER 5 Optics Microscope Constraints Binocular Size and Power Seeing under Water Candle PowerCHAPTER 6 Electricity Electrostatic Charge on a Balloon Capacitors Capacitance of Spheres Electric Field in a Wire Electron Drift Speed Unfamiliar Currents High Cost of Battery Electricity Magnet Strength Matching Earth's B Field Hanging Wire Energy Storage in L and C Jump-Rope Generator Q of a Crystal Radio E and B from a Lightbulb Toaster Power Magnetic Resonance ImagingCHAPTER 7 Earth Radius of Earth Geography and Weight Height of Atmosphere Depth of Earth's Gravity Field Mountain Height Earth Orbits Escape Energy from Earth Precession of the Equinoxes Hole through the Earth Slowing of the Earth's Rotation Mass of Earth's Gravitational FieldCHAPTER 8 Astronomy Diameter of Sun and Moon Minimum Distance to Nearest Star Pressure of Sunlight How Many Photons to See a Faint Star? Fueling the Sun Age of the Elements The 21 cm Line The Prodigal SunCHAPTER 9 Atoms and Molecules All atoms Are (About) the Same Size Density if Air Molecular Spacing in a Gas Molar Energy Latent Heat of Fusion and Vaporization Surface Tension Binding Force between Atoms Atomic Spring ConstantCHAPTER 10 Particles and Quanta Uncertainties of Photons and Mesons Valence Electrons Can Electrons Reside in the Nucleus? Lucky Millikan Nuclear Repulsion Cyclotron Synchrotron-Loss and Gain Quantized Molecular Levels Molecular Rotation Energy

Reviews

<p>An entertaining new book Back-of-the-Envelope Physics by Clifford Swartz nicely provides material to assist students (and teachers!) gain experience in handling real-world physics. --Colin Keay The Physicist (01/01/0001)

<p> This delightfully broad spectrum of 104 familiar situations, each one or two pages long, includes the terminal velocity of falling objects, fatal impacts during car wrecks, timing to find the distance of lightning strikes, investigating the size and power of binoculars, and the height of Earth's atmosphere... For the well-grounded physics enthusiast. -- Choice

<p>An entertaining new book Back-of-the-Envelope Physics by Clifford Swartz nicely provides material to assist students (and teachers!) gain experience in handling real-world physics. --Colin Keay The Physicist (01/01/0001)

Author Information

Clifford Swartz is a professor emeritus of physics at State University of New York, Stony Brook. He was the editor of The Physics Teacher for twenty-nine years and has written numerous physics texts for students from kindergarten to graduate level. He was the recipient in 2007 of the Melba Newell Phillips Award and in 1987 of the Oersted Medal, the most prestigious award of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

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