Didactics Self-study Plan Paper version History Dedication
Aim of the project
Across all languages, physics is the science with the worst textbooks. This project wants to change this, by producing a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously entertained, motivated and challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and present ideas about unification are included. The subtitle of the text, The Adventure of Physics, sums up these three aspects.
The approach starts with an uncommon, but clear definition of physics: physics is the science of motion. The project then takes the search for a precise description of motion as a guiding principle for an exploration of modern physics. This leads to a storyline which is somewhat different from the usual one. Nature's limits to speed, entropy, force, action and charge are central to the presentation.
The text aims to explain the unification of physics - the full theory of motion - in simple language. The project will be completed as soon as the current search for a full theory of motion will have been successful and its results included in the text. Therefore the project still has some time to go.
Didactics
The text is written for self-study. It tells a story; it is not a commented formula collection. In its teaching approach, the project tries to satisfy several needs. First of all, the explanations are written in a way that should appeal both to people who prefer thinking in images and to those that prefer thinking in words. Furthermore, the content has been selected to attract both male and female readers. Next, the text is written to appeal to composer and to competitor characters. The text also tries to cater both for the experimentally and the theoretically inclined. Finally, the story should appeal to those who like the natural sciences and to those who like the humanities.
Self-study
Plan
As of End 2007, the first three parts (on classical physics) are essentially ready. Bringing the fourth and fifth part (on quantum theory) to the same level is the main remaining part of the project. The sixth and last part (on the unification of quantum theory with general relativity) will be finished when new results appear. The 'to do' list of the project, in November 2007, has about 950 open items.
Paper version
No paper version of the text exists yet. There are three reasons. First, the text is not finished. Secondly, all people who provided films and pictures did so because the text is free for all. Thus all rights would have to be renegotiated. Third, the cost of a paper version, printed in colour, would be rather high. (For example, following the book calculator of lulu.com, the production cost for a softcover version would be over 200 US$.)
In the meantime, a well-known publisher has approached me for a paper version. The idea is to divide the book into several volumes of reasonable price. However, the publication will still take some time.
Until then, the only affordable paper option is to print a copy for yourself in black and white.
History
The 21st edition, of December 2007, adds over one hundred new figures and tables, numerous explanations, and many examples from animals, plants and machines. The text now explains why the speed of light is too slow to speculate with success on the stock exchange, adds the second-level bear fur colour puzzle and the young mother puzzle, presents the nearest place with a pressure permanently lower than that of the atmosphere, adds the puzzle about the horse and the snail on a rubber, tells more about metamaterials, adds some simple chemical puzzles, presents what incredible things on atomic layers one can discover using a pencil and sticky tape, tells more on biological rhythms and clocks, explains how to observe the rotation of the Earth in any classroom after two seconds of observation, shows an electric effect observed on many playgrounds, shows the beauty of bursting soap bubbles and bouncing tennis balls, explains how it is possible to observe the motion of single, isolated electrons, and tells how to build the simplest possible radio control system.
The 20th edition, of January 2007, adds a dozen animations and films: generation and motion of electromagnetic waves, leap-frogging vortex rings, jumping snakes, the propagation of solitons and dromions, growing ice crystals, rotating atomic orbitals, the actin-myosin system in muscles in action, and Dirac's belt trick. The edition also introduces robots that walk on water, explains how to observe the polarization of light with the unaided human eye in the same way as honey bees do, shows how to produce floating plasma clouds similar to ball lightning, tells more about the Galilean satellites, mentions the world records for running backwards and the attempts to break the speed sailing record, tells in more detail how to learn from books with as little effort as possible, presents the polarized car headlight problem and many other puzzles.
The 19th edition, of May 2006, gives details on radiometric dating techniques, shows how to use the same idea to measure the speed of bullets and that of light, presents a classical system that obeys the Schrödinger equation, introduces Tesla coils, shows that space-time has different properties in certain patent offices, tells how to see effects from atoms using only a lamp and a piece of metal, gives more details on clouds and jets of astronomic size, shows how to perform a precision Michelson-Morley experiment, adds a tiny summary of string theory, gives the latest results on the Pioneer anomaly, introduces fusion reactors, demonstrates the chromatic lens errors of the eye, presents the simplest unsolved problem about the trefoil knot, and provides, thanks to the help of Martin Elsässer, the first embedded animation. Writing and layout have been improved.
The 18th edition, of September 2005, adds more about the echolocation capabilities of bats and humans, describes the puzzle of Einstein's last birthday present, gives more details on rainbows, introduces the pearl necklace length contraction paradox and presents the Einstein-de Haas and the Barnett effect. The text now provides the classification of rocks, shows how to use the high voltage from a computer monitor to make things levitate, introduces magnetoreception and the sensing of electrical fields, explains the Richter scale for earthquakes, gives an introduction to the behaviour of solids, liquids and gases at lowest temperatures and presents potentially the toughest challenge of physics. Numerous figures, photographs and puzzles have been added, and the design and the text style has been improved.
The 17th edition, of January 2005, adds pictures of our environment in the universe at large scales, explains how to enjoy Heron's fountain, gives an improved explanation of solitons, shows how the existence of a maximum force in nature explains the darkness at night and predicts the size of the universe, shows how the world looks to the colour-blind, explains the physics of tsunamis and reveals how to use Galilean mechanics to earn over 1 million pound sterling per evening. A five-line summary of modern physics is given, a prize for the first solution to a car parking problem is offered, and it is told how to build an invisible laser-based loudspeaker.
The 16th edition, of June 2004, adds an explanation of how to measure the speed of light with a piece of chocolate, the speed of the fastest object thrown by hand, the story of negative index of refraction, what Lavoisier managed to do after (yes, after) his head was cut off, the way herring communicate under water by farting, more on Lie groups and Lie algebras, and a new eight-page section on how to deduce lower and upper limits for all physical quantities in nature. The method extends the entropy bound of Bekenstein to all other observables. Among others, the lowest power, the lowest force, the highest acceleration and the highest angular momentum are presented.
The 15th edition, of March 2004, adds an improved presentation of the maximum force principle (which explains general relativity in the most simple terms possible), an overview of all known limits to motion, a description of how to swim in curved space-time, the way accelerations add up in special relativity, an introduction to dislocations, an introduction to topology, and numerous new photographs, figures, challenges and solutions.
The 14th edition, of September 2003, adds a presentation of nuclear physics and radioactivity, an MRI scan of humans making love, the dream of grand unification, the paradox of the relativistic submarine, a photograph and the story of those caterpillars that shoot away their fecal matter, a photograph of a basilisk running over water, a picture of the analemma, Stowe's periodic table of the elements, and numerous additional figures, challenges and their solutions. The graphic layout and the support for screen readers is improved.
The 13th edition, of April 2003, adds an Intermezzo on extended and wobbly entities (knots, clouds, bacteria), a discussion of whether a physics book can contain all the information contained in the universe, many new colour figures, and the way to measure the speed of light using the UNIX 'ping' command.
The site was set up in November 1997, to pass on the best stories known about physics. Updates appear twice a year. The project itself started in 1990, in Yokohama.
Dedication
Since its start, this website is dedicated to my brothers Stephan and Philipp Schiller.