What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?: More Experiments in Atmospheric Physics

by Craig F. Bohren

Book Overview

"Informative and engagingly idiosyncratic . . . brings the subject down to earth with offbeat, everyday examples and easy-to-follow experiments. . . . Both professionals and laymen can learn from this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 047152915X
• ISBN13: 9780471529156
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Everyday science at its best

A variety of everyday phenomena are explained in this little book (185 pages). Most of it is optics and thermal physics, like frost and dew on the window, interference colors, mirages, heating and cooling (of LA smog, the greenhouse effect) origin of seasons, ...Quite complex concepts like optical thickness are illustrated with nice experiments (pouring milk in water) and by foot steps in the snow. Don't be afraid of refractive index gradients or polarization upon reflection, Bohren will explain them marvelously.I hope more physics textbooks would be like this: this is intriguing science whereas geometrical optics, the school book stuff, is mostly boring. Besides, these experiments and observations can be carried out by anybody with commonly available stuff: you only need a light bulb, a ruler and some volunteers to measure solar irrandiance, with 10-20% accuracy.