Physics in Your Life

How can a laser correct your vision? What forces keep an airplane aloft? How does a CD encode a symphony and play it back? What exactly is ñzero Gî? What's the perfect way to cook egg custard? These questions involve physical principles that relate not only to interesting aspects of our daily lives, but also explain such phenomena as the cause of hurricanes, the formation of neutron stars, the ability of water to dissolve different substances, and other fundamental features of reality. Professor Wolfson is known as the ñMr. Wizardî of physics education. His superb teaching skills, amazing on-screen experiments, and passion for physics will have you on the edge of your seat for every lesson. You will start with a nuts-and-bolts description of how a refrigerator works and end up with a profound insight into the ultimate fate of the cosmos. Each module of this course is devoted to a specific realm of physics: sight and sound (CDs, DVDs, rainbows, optical fiber, musical instruments); motion (automobiles, airplanes, interplanetary probes, space flight); electricity and magnetism (motors, generators, videotapes, credit cards, wireless technology); computers (transistors, circuits, microprocessors, motherboards, and peripherals); heat (thermodynamics); and a potpourri module of miscellaneous topics (GPS, nuclear physics, medical imaging, and more). "This is not a standard introductory physics course," says Professor Wolfson. "It's not a course that's going to lay out a lot of physical principles, and then give you a few minor examples of them. Rather, it's going to focus more directly on the application of those principles in your everyday life."