Hidden Wonders: The Subtle Dialogue Between Physics and Elegance

Description

The hidden elegance in everyday objects and physical mechanisms, from crumpled paper to sandcastles. Hidden Wonders focuses on the objects that populate our everyday life--crumpled paper, woven fabric, a sand pile--but looks at them with a physicist's eye, revealing a hidden elegance in mundane physical mechanisms. In six chapters--Builders, Creating Shapes, Building with Threads, From Sand to Glass, Matter in Motion, and Fractures--the authors present brief stories, set in locales ranging from the Eiffel Tower to a sandcastle, that illustrate the little wonders hidden in the ordinary. A simple experiment that readers can perform at home concludes each story. More than 200 illustrations bring the stories to life. Contents Preface I. BUILDERS THE ELEGANCE OF SMALL AND SLENDER THINGS AZAY-LE-RIDEAU OR ROOFS OF BEAUTY THE EIFFEL TOWER INNER BALANCE SURFACE TENSION II. CREATING SHAPES AND WE THINK OF BUBBLES AS FRAGILE! THE TRAGEDY OF FOAM NECKLACES AND CATENARIES ELEGANTST ONE ARCHES SHELLS AND MILLE-FEUILLES III. BUILDING WITH THREAD AN EIGHTLEGGED BUILDER WET HAIR BIRDS AS ARCHITECTS AN IMPRESSIVE BRIDGE OF GRASSES FOLDERS AND TAILORS: MASTERS OF VOLUME WEAVING AND BRAIDING FOLDING AND CRUMPLING PAPER BALLS IV. FROM SAND TO GLASS SEEING A WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND THE SECRET OF SANDCASTLES EARTHEN ARCHITECTURE LIQUID STONE: CONCRETE THE SAGA OF FUSING GRANULAR MATTER STATES OF GLASS V. MATTER IN MOTION BEAMS BEND BUT DO NOT BREAK VAULTING INTO THE AIR THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF PINE CONES FLYING SEEDS QUAKING BOWS RESTLESS GRAINS OF SAND VI. FRACTURES PREHISTORIC GEMS POINTED TEARS THE GEOMETRY OF LETTUCE ELOQUENT CRAQUELURES WALKING ON EGGS GLASSTEAR DROPS GLOSSARY READING LIST ACKNOWLEDGMENTS