Science News - July 31, 2010

Explore the Amazing Array of Physics in Your World

Why does ice float? What’s the perfect way to cook an egg? How do CDs and DVDs work? What keeps a moving bicycle from falling over? These and other questions involve physical principles that relate to interesting aspects of your life, as well as hurricanes, neutron stars, and other fundamental features of reality.

Gain a deeper understanding of the physical world as it ap-plies to the common technologies and phenomena around you in Physics in Your Life. Popular author and Professor of Physics Richard Wolfson of Dartmouth College guides you through the everyday applications of physics and the concepts needed to understand them. These 24 fascinating lectures—featuring intriguing experiments with lasers, lenses, gyroscopes, musical instruments, and more—are both informative and entertaining. More important: They give you a deeper understanding of daily life and the universe itself.

This course is one of The Great Courses®, a noncredit recorded college lecture series from The Teaching Company®. Award-winning professors of a wide array of subjects in the sciences and the liberal arts have made more than 300 college-level courses that are available now on our website.

1. Realms of Physics

2. The Amazing Disc

3. The Wonderful Wave

4. Seeing the Light

5. Is Seeing Believing?

6. Music to Your Ears

7. May the Forces Be With You

8. Aristotle’s Revenge

9. Going in Circles

10. Taking Flight

11. Into Space

12. A Conservative Streak

13. The Electrical Heart of Matter

14. Harnessing the Electrical Genie

15. A Magnetic Personality

16. Making Electricity

17. Credit Card to Power Plant

18. Making Waves

19. The Miracle Element

Physics in Your Life

Taught by Professor Richard Wolfson, Middlebury College

Lecture Titles

20. The Twentieth Century’s Greatest Invention?

21. Building the Electronics Revolution 22. Circuits—So Logical! 23. How’s Your Memory? 24. Atom to Computer 25. Keeping Warm

26. Life in the Greenhouse 27. The Tip of the Iceberg 28. Physics in the Kitchen 29. Like a Work of Shakespeare 30. Energy in Your Life 31. Your Place on Earth 32. Dance and Spin