Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets Revised Edition Contributor(s): Livingston, James D. (Author) |
|
ISBN: 0674216458 ISBN-13: 9780674216457 Publisher: Harvard University Press OUR PRICE: $30.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 1997 Annotation: Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets and makes their workings a matter of practical wonder. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Science | Physics - Magnetism - Technology & Engineering | Materials Science - General |
Dewey: 538.4 |
Physical Information: 0.91" H x 6.13" W x 8.76" (1.00 lbs) 334 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets: how they guided (or misguided) Columbus; mesmerized eighteenth-century Paris but failed to fool Benjamin Franklin; lifted AC power over its rival, DC, despite all the animals, one human among them, executed along the way; led Einstein to the theory of relativity; helped defeat Hitler's U-boats; inspired writers from Plato to Dave Barry. In a way that will delight and instruct even the nonmathematical among us, James Livingston shows us how scientists today are creating magnets and superconductors that can levitate high-speed trains, produce images of our internal organs, steer high-energy particles in giant accelerators, and--last but not least--heat our morning coffee. From the "new" science of materials to everyday technology, Driving Force makes the workings of magnets a matter of practical wonder. The book will inform and entertain technical and nontechnical readers alike and will give them a clearer sense of the force behind so much of the working world. |
Contributor Bio(s): Livingston, James D.: - James D. Livingston is a former physicist at General Electric and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |