Thinking Physics: Understandable Practical Reality (English Edition) [Paperback]

Lewis Carroll Epstein (Author)

Book Description

Lewis Carroll Epstein explains deep ideas in physics in an easy-to-understand way. Thinking Physics is a perfect beginner’s guide to an amazingly wide range of physics-related questions. The book targets topics that science teachers and students spend time wondering about, like wing lift. Epstein elucidates the familiar but misunderstood — such as how tides work — along with more obscure but fascinating phenomena like the “Bernoulli sub” and the “artificial aurora” created by hydrogen bombs. Broken into many short sections and peppered with Epstein’s own playful hand-drawn illustrations, the book does not simply give the right answer: It also goes into the answers that seem right but are wrong and shows why they are wrong — a rarity in science books. Thinking Physics is a rigorously correct, lighthearted, and cleverly designed Q and A book for physicists of all ages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 582 pages
• Publisher: Insight Press, San Francisco, CA; 3rd edition (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0935218084
• ISBN-13: 978-0935218084
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works > Physics

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn physics without math, August 15, 2000

By 

John McConnell (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thinking Physics: Practical Lessons in Critical Thinking (Paperback)

This is a jewel of a book. The latest second edition includes additional material on waves, which addresses a lack in the earlier edition. There are sections on optics, momentum, kinetic and potential energy, etc. My favorite problem, and this is typical of the sort of material presented, is to decide whether or not a car traveling at 50 mph suffers more damage in:

A. hitting an immovable brick wall

B. having a head-on collision with an identical car (both) traveling at 50 mph

The usual response is to say B. However, Newton's 3rd law of motion ("forces always act in pairs - if a exerts a force on b, then b exerts an equal and oppositely-directed force on a) maintains that the damage is the same, ie, the wall strikes the car with the force of a head-on collision. This problem by the way is particularly juicy - I remember the head of a university physics department discussing this one at considerable length with two other physicists. (They more or less agreed, with provisos, after several minutes, that B. is indeed the correct answer.) The author encourages thinking without mathematics to come to terms with the physical reality of whatever we're analyzing. This approach closely mirrors that of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, who felt that mathematics was useful only as an adjunct to science and no substitute for clear thinking. A marvellous book.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars conceptual physics at its best, January 22, 2000

By 

Yoon Ha Lee - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking Physics: Practical Lessons in Critical Thinking (Paperback)

I took this book with me on a retreat--and read it straight through, unable to put it down. Physics actually made *sense.* Yes, for topics like mechanics you need texts like Kleppner & Kolenkow (or the text of your choice, I suppose) if you intend to study physics more seriously. But the *why* of physics never made so much sense in K&K as it did in Thinking Physics.

While a lot of physics (from what I can tell) *is* calculation, the heart of it (also from what I can tell) is in the understanding, the *why.* You won't get much math out of Thinking Physics, but that's what the *other* textbooks are for. And math without understanding isn't much help.

Thank you, Mr. Epstein, for writing this book.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun book that should be in your library..., May 10, 2001

By 

Kersi Von Zerububbel "Kersi" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Thinking Physics: Practical Lessons in Critical Thinking (Paperback)

This book gets one excited about physics. Common physical phenoman like rate, speed, mass and force are explained in very ingenious ways. What is more the writing is good and to the point. Even though there is not much math to speak of the author explains things in a concise manner. What got me hooked to this book is that it does require thinking on part of the reader. One quickly finds out that what may seem intuitive and common sense is in fact precisely the wrong answer. Another major advantage of the book is that you do not have to read it from page one onwards. Turn to any segment and you are sure to be sucked in. Page after page is filled with nice little nuggets of fun. Get this book you will not regret it.