No Wonder You Wonder!: Great Inventions and Scientific Mysteries
Language: English
Pages: 331
ISBN: 3319216791
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book explores and explains scientific mysteries and principles, leavened with tongue-in-cheek humor and an abundance of illustrations. Chapters are short, but give an understanding of technology and science not available elsewhere. Questions include:
• What holds a satellite up while it goes around the Earth?
• Why is the sky (made out of clear air!) blue instead of green, or just black as night like the sky that high altitude jumper Felix Baumgartner saw?
• How is laser light different from “normal” light?
• Did Columbus really discover that the Earth is round?
• Which one invention will assuredly survive our civilization?
• Why can’t you travel back in time?
If you often feel embarrassed because you don’t have a clue about lasers, the difference between volts, amps and watts, or how jet planes really work – but you would like to understand the physical principles of our modern world, whether you’re a teen or a parent – this book is for you!
To understand the basics of quantum mechanics, or of protons, neutrons and electrons, you don’t need algebra, calculus,
or a lot of equations or technical buzzwords. Too many people have been soured on science by science teachers who have made simple concepts seem complex. This book is the antidote: all it requires is your curiosity.
Advance praise for No Wonder You Wonder!:
“From beginning to end, and with laugh after laugh, I enjoyed every single word of this remarkable book. Phipps is a hell of a good writer, and the kind of physics teacher that I would have loved as a young student. No Wonder You Wonder can be engrossing for anyone with a bit of curiosity, not just the scientific minded.” – Christophe Bonnal, Chief Engineer, CNES (French Space Agency)
“No Wonder You Wonder is a fa
ntastic book. Covering topics such as space, matter, and the energy within the universe, this book does an excellent job of clarifying these topics. It's a great read for young scientists and aspiring physicists.” – August R., high school freshman
things exist, and to count them by furlongs or feet would be disastrous. How can numbers so big or small have any practical meaning for ordinary people? Our universe is about 0.4 Exaseconds old, for example, but you’re not likely to live long enough to see a tiny fraction of that. Normally, the big and small numbers don’t have much meaning for most people in their daily lives. But there’s a very © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 C. Phipps, No Wonder You Wonder!, DOI
times. It sounds easy, but use this to win some easy money from your friends! In normal, natural growth, trees, people and animals quit growing when they reach the size they’re supposed to be. When you reach that size, you’re not supposed to grow any more. This is controlled by genes that regulate growth. When these genes mess up and lose control, we call it cancer. We are often told that businesses and whole countries have to keep growing or die. The stated reason is usually that the number of
Pinta, and Santa Maria. Can you imagine that career trajectory in the US Navy today?! His largest treasure ships were perhaps 180 m in length (Fig. 5), and brought zebras, camels, ostriches and giraffes back to China. They had waterproof compartments, multiple decks, even swimming pools, and some could carry as many as 1000 passengers, according to Marco Polo. His largest fleet had 317 ships and 28,000 men. This included water tankers, supply ships, and horse carriers for amphibious landings, as
and end! Another better-known example: black holes! When stars burn out and die, they sometimes leave behind a cinder with gravity so intense that light can’t escape it. We talked about that a bit in Weird Reality. How does this affect you? Not much, unless one suddenly appears in your bedroom! That isn’t going to happen, we think, but several years ago someone with a good imagination imagined black holes coming from laser fusion …. Conclusion Kepler and Newton changed the whole way we think
Your vacuum cleaner probably says “120 V” in the USA, and 220 elsewhere in the world. Also, “8 amps” or so in the USA, where amps are sometimes advertised like a measure of capability in vacuum cleaners these days. What are these things? Can you be electrocuted touching the 12 V battery in your car? (No) Can you burn yourself badly if you short it out with a wire? (Yes!) And what are watts? Or, for that matter, ohms? Do you care? Just in order to vote intelligently on nuclear power plants and