Customer Reviews

Understanding the Properties of Matter

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Michael Podesta makes us familiar with what the properties of matter actually are. These are tabulated for hundreds or thousands of substances. He believes that unless we are familiar with the properties of simple matter it is impossible ever to say that you understand them. But understanding them, thats not only the title, but its the goal of the book. In the context of this book the author considers the following `components' of the world, electrons, neutrons, and protons; and the electromagnetic field. The `tools' used are classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The book often follows the principle of presenting a valuable amount of data for a certain topic, and subsequently the reader enters a section `understanding the data' just presented. This way, the reader is motivated to think about explanations of the various effects by her/himself. M. Podesta hopes that the reader will discover (if she/he has not done so already) both the lovely certainties and stimulating mysteries that together make physicists enjoy their work, and continue to enjoy it as long as they can carry on with physics. It seems, that this goal has been achieved, and the book will be very useful for material scientists too. The textbook is entertaining and innovative and fulfills the needs of undergraduate physicists and provides many resources needed by teachers of physics. The book takes a unique phenomenological approach, it discusses gases, solids, liquids and phase changes. The book offers theory and practice under one roof. It is a good book to read in paralell with General Physics or a refresher book for someone who already had these knowledge but became rusted. Each state of the matter is explained with a physical theory and than the experiments are introduced, explained and compared with the theory and formulas. However, complex fluids and non-newtonian rheology of complex fluids are beyond the scope of this book. After an overview of basic ideas and a reminder of the importance of measurement, the book considers in turn gases, solids, liquids and phase changes. It offers a preliminary examination of data on the properties of matter, and then raises and addresses a series of questions concerning the data. It is only in answering these questions that the theoretical approach to the properties of matter is adopted. The book contains extensive examples and end-of-chapter exercises; this new edition has a new chapter composed entirely of extended exercises. This text takes an unusual approach to the teaching of undergraduate level matter, materials and solid-state physics. The book adopts a "here is some theory; this is what happens in the real world; lets develop a theory and see how it agrees with the experimental data" approach. This second edition takes the approach even further with additional web-based material including datasets to download, computer programs to simulate experiments and self assessment questions for each chapter, all of which make the book both student and teacher friendly.

This is a perfect book for curious mind. Book explains in serious way with formulas and Physical concepts the behaviour of matter under different conditions. Gas state, Liquid state, Solid state and why matter behaves the way it does. It explains the physical phenomen and associated formulas and calculations. each state of the matter is explained with a physical theory and than the experiments are introduced explained and compared with the theory and formulas. theory and practice under one roof. it is a good book to read in paralell with General Physics or a refresher book for someone who already had these knowledge but became rusted.