Instant Egghead Guide: Physics - Brian Clegg
I got a copy of Instant Egghead Guide: Physics from St. Martin's Press to review for GeekDad. It's a quick overview of physics, from matter to energy to quantum theory to relativity, and it's all written in an easy-to-understand format. Each topic is a two-page spread which fits into the "60-Second Science" claim they make on the cover. For each topic, Clegg gives you The Basics, On the Frontier, and Cocktail Party Tidbits. Of course, the last bit is the sort of thing you'll remember: fun facts about various discoveries, anecdotes about famous (and not-so-famous) scientists, that sort of thing.
While I remembered a lot of the basics from high school physics, I haven't actually taken any physics since then and this served as a good refresher and an update, since some of the things I learned back then have been superseded or supplemented with new theories.
My biggest complaint is the way they avoid writing out formulas. Instead, they write them out in English which (in my opinion) just makes them harder to read. Other than that, though, it's a good book for getting up to speed on the current state of the world of physics in a short amount of time. You won't be able to solve any physics problems, but you'll have a sense of how things work.
Fed to jonathan's brain | January 18, 2010
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