Friends
Recently I came across a book called “Physics for Entertainment- 2“by Y Perelman. Intrigued whether our dreary old physics could ever entertain in any sense, I leafed through the starting pages in apprehension. But what came back to me almost knocked me out, yes, ‘Physics’ was interesting (atleast in its pratical context).
The introductory topic of Mechanics was introduced in the form of such lucid ideas that to not start appreciating it would have been a wonder.
Imagine, a tour from Europe to the United States, not by conventional air but through a new mode, of travelling straight up and staying up there till the rotation of Earth brings your destination to you (all assuming your source and destination are at the same lattitude). That had been the basic premise of the ‘History of the Lunar States (1652)’ by French satirist Cyrano de Bergerac. Interestin huh…
Although the author has skillfully repudiated this claim by invoking the laws of inertial motion, yet it makes an interesting read.
Also the author has negated the ancient claim of Archimedes – ” Give me a point of support and I will lift the earth”. Although the claim is physically valid (for levers work on same principles), yet its practical sustenance is not possible, since a lever of about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km length would be required to lift the Earth by just 1 cm. The improbabilities increase with the distance through which earth would be raised.
There were other vivacious examples that author has used to introduce varoius topics, which of course wold be quite boring otherwise.
Hoping that you will surely start loving physics (if you dont do it now), once you read through the book. I recommend this fantastic book as a light reading for amateur and advanced students of Physics.
For those who are interested can contact us for a copy of the same.
- Siddharth Ghosh
Siddharth Ghosh
anujtewari
saurabh1921
