Doing Physics: How Physicists Take Hold of the World

By Martin H. Krieger

Book Overview

Doing Physics makes concepts of physics easier to grasp by relating them to everyday knowledge. Addressing some of the models and metaphors that physicists use to explain the physical world, Martin H. Krieger describes the conceptual world of physics by means of analogies to economics, anthropology, theater, carpentry, mechanisms such as clockworks, and machine tool design. The interaction of elementary particles or chemical species, for example, can be related to the theory of kinship--who can marry whom is like what can interact with what. Likewise, the description of physical situations in terms of interdependent particles and fields is analogous to the design of a factory with its division of labor among specialists. For the new edition, Krieger has revised the text and added a chapter on the role of mathematics and formal models in physics. Doing Physics will be of special interest to economists, political theorists, anthropologists, and sociologists as well as philosophers of science.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253006074
• ISBN13: 9780253006073
• Release Date: November 2012
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (Ips)
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

One of the most useful popular physics ever written.

Get this in hardback-it's that good. Kreiger eliquently tells the tax paying public who pays the freight for physics how a physicist thinks. They are different than you and me. Highly readable.