Book description
“YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter
Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his
world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a
new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,”
wrote one such fan. When Lewin's lectures were made available online, he
became an instant YouTube celebrity, and
The New York Times
declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia
Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of
YouTube's greatest hits.”
For more than thirty years as a beloved
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed
his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly
fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball,
supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of
electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are
white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for
cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the
Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing
beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of
the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,”
writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don't
approach like a physicist-yet.”
Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why
can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why
are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be
possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why
the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose
(and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang
would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never
ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of
physics to answer even the most elusive questions.
Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of
X-ray astronomy-arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing
revolution in astronomy-he also brings to life the power of physics to
reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted
territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large
Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes.
“For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing-the spectacular
and the mundane, the immense and the minute-as a beautiful,
thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid
ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a
new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of
the forces that govern our lives.
“As the hundreds of thousands of students who have
witnessed [Lewin's] lectures in person or online can attest, this
classroom wizard transforms textbook formulas into magic… Lewin's rare
creativity shines through… a passport to adventure.”
Walter Lewin taught the three core classes in physics at
MIT for more than thirty years and made major discoveries in the area
of X-ray astronomy. His physics lectures have been the subject of
great acclaim, including a 60 Minutes feature, stories in the New York
Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Newsweek and US News and World
Report. They have also been top draws on YouTube and iTunes
University. He was awarded three prizes for excellence in
undergraduate teaching. He has published more than 450 scientific
articles, and his honors and awards include the NASA Award for
Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the Alexander von Humboldt Award,
and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He became a corresponding member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Fellow of the
American Physical Society in 1993. He lives in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Warren Goldstein is a professor of history and chair of
the History Department at the University of Hartford. A prizewinning
historian, essayist, and journalist, he has had a lifelong fascination
with physics. His writing has appeared in the New York Times,
Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and many other national
periodicals. His prior books include Playing for Keeps: A History
of Early Baseball and William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy
Impatience.
