"The Physics of Everyday Things" gives a rundown of the complex, and mind-blowing physics that goes behind the objects and technology, which we use everyday. It is intriguing to read about how modern inventions, which we take for granted, operate on both modern and classical physics which have been formulated over decades, or even centuries.
This book is narrated in the form of an account of a mundane day, starting from waking up and making toast, to giving a business presentation and retiring to one's hotel room. As the book chronologically proceeds, it unravels the remarkable physics which permeates almost everything we use and interact with.
This simple, yet engaging narration makes the book fairly comprehensible and interesting. This book explains pragmatic physics, which is applied in everyday life, taking into special consideration its relevance to the layman. Thus this book expounds practical knowledge, which one can relate to. I enjoyed most of the content in this book. However I was particularly dazzled by the explanation of refrigerators parallel parking, X-Ray scans, metal detectors, explosive trace detectors, noise cancelling headphones and motion sensors. I was astonished that quantum mechanics, generally deemed as counterintuitive, had crucial implications for modern technology.
I had always thought that the internal functioning of devices like the television, credit card and radio were too involuted for comprehension, but thanks to this book I am able to grasp the elegant albeit sometimes elaborate physics which made their invention possible.
Despite its merits, there is a major, ironic caveat to this book. Despite entailing 'everyday' physics, the author presupposes that the reader has accrued a high-school level knowledge of various fundamental physics concepts, such as electromagnetism, and radiation, among others. Many processes are described in technical, convoluted terms, which are too excessively perplexing and abstract for the common person to comprehend. There are numerous instances when confounding technical jargon could be replaced with unambiguous lexicon. I was only able to understand roughly 70% of the content in this book, some explanations were simply too abstruse. However, people with a formal physics education may truly appreciate this book.
Nonetheless, I was fairly fascinated by this book, and learned quite a bit of applied physics, which has inculcated in me sentiments of appreciation for the ingenious physics behind the technology which I previously routinely glossed over. I would recommend this book to you if you're curious about how everyday objects operate, it might pique your interest. However be warned that if you do not have a 'minimum' basic knowledge of physics, some of the verbiage may go over your head.
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