How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life

How Things Work is different. Conventional physics textbooks introduce basic principles and laws, and, using mathematics appropriate to the intended readership, show how these principles and laws can be used to predict or explain how things behave. Occasionally, end-of-chapter examples may hint at everyday things that involve the physics discussed. Louis A Bloomfield, in this text for liberal arts students in the USA, has taken the opposite approach. He starts with an everyday object or situation and, by asking a series of `why' questions which invite the reader's participation in simple experiments, gradually reveals the underlying physical principles involved. The book is very strong on repetition in the form of checks, summaries and reviews. The text is full of `check-your-understanding' questions to which answers are given at the end of the section. Also given at the end of every section are the new laws (and equations) `discovered', how they apply, a glossary, review questions on the new concepts of the section, exercises which apply these concepts to new situations, and problems which require qualitative answers. Additionally, every chapter ends with a brief summary of the physics covered, a simple explanation of the experiments suggested at the start of the chapter, and even more questions called `Cases', which involve not only the material covered in the chapter but also that covered in earlier chapters. The first chapter, on the laws of motion, is the only chapter the author suggests is compulsory. The rest, providing the more advanced sections and examples are omitted, can be read out of sequence. (There is a companion Instructors Manual with other suggested sequences and much additional material, which can be purchased if required.) Student readers will not be put off by the mathematics because there is very little. Relationships are given first in word equations, then in a conventional mathematical form and finally explained, often with the use of yet another example. An explanation of vectors is given in an appendix. I could find no explicit use of calculus. It is a big book both in format, which is almost A4, and in its 700+ pages. The text is well spaced with copious clear diagrams and pictures. With this quantity of information a good index is essential but my main criticism of the book is the layout of the index, which I found confusing. Given the approach this book uses, I felt sure I would find an answer to a problem that has bothered me ever since my physics teacher told me that work done is force times distance moved. Namely, why do I seem to do work just supporting but not moving a heavy weight? The index had no entry for muscle but work led me to `If you're not pushing, or it's not moving, then you're not working'. This sentence follows a reference to my exact problem but the author dodges this everyday problem. I do not know what the intended readership is in the UK. If you are a teacher searching for `real' physics problems you need look no further than this book. (If you are a student searching for solutions, an appendix gives one sentence answers to only half the problems.) A-Level physics students will find something of interest whatever their syllabus. The real-life approach might encourage non-physics students to look further. It will encourage all readers to see that physics is relevant outside the physics classroom. So much popular science is presented with attention-grabbing (but not holding) sound and vision bites that lack the depth to reveal the beauty and excitement that underlies our high-tech world. This book does not make that mistake. It is a commendable attempt to demonstrate that physics is about real life.