First You Build a Cloud
eBook - ePub

First You Build a Cloud

And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life

  1. 240 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

First You Build a Cloud

And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life

About this book

This clearly written and compelling look at physics and physicists offers "thousands of new ways to see our daily world more richly" (Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gƶdel, Escher, Bach).
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For many of us, physics has always been a thing of mystery and complexity. K. C. Cole, an award-winning science writer, specializes in making its wonders accessible to the everyday reader.
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This book uses lively prose, metaphors, and anecdotes to allow us to comprehend the nuances of physics: gravity and light, color and shape, quarks and quasars, particles and stars, force and strength. It also shows us how the physical world is so deeply intertwined with the ways we think about culture, poetry, and philosophy, and explores the workings of such legendary scientific minds as Richard Feynman, Victor Weisskopf, brothers Frank Oppenheimer and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Philip Morrison, Vera Kistiakowsky, and Stephen Jay Gould.
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"An exemplary science writerĀ .Ā .Ā .Ā For readers without scientific background, Cole gracefully introduces relativity, quantum theory, optics, astrophysics, and other significant disciplines, never getting bogged down in unnecessary explanation. Thus, you may not learn all about thermodynamics from reading her chapter on it, but you will learn enough to think seriously about the entropy in your own life. Cole sprinkles her text with comments from famous scientists—'Space is blue, and birds fly in it,' said Heisenberg, and Faraday said, 'Nothing is too wonderful to be true'—that are not only delightful in themselves but perfectly suited to her own text. No review of Cole's book could be too wonderful to be true." — BooklistĀ 

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Yes, you can access First You Build a Cloud by K. C. Cole in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Science History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Mariner Books
Year
2018
Print ISBN
9780156006460
eBook ISBN
9780544080140

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Copyright
  4. Epigraph
  5. Dedication
  6. Author’s Note
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction
  9. PART I: The Art of Knowing
  10. Chapter One
  11. Chapter Two
  12. Chapter Three
  13. Chapter Four
  14. Chapter Five
  15. PART II: Movers and Shakers
  16. Chapter Six
  17. Chapter Seven
  18. Chapter Eight
  19. PART III: Threads and Knots
  20. Chapter Nine
  21. Chapter Ten
  22. Chapter Eleven
  23. Chapter Twelve
  24. Chapter Thirteen
  25. Chapter Fourteen
  26. Forces and Influences
  27. Selected Bibliography and Recommended Reading
  28. Index
  29. Connect with HMH
  30. Footnotes