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Title: Poetry Of The Universe : A Mathematical Exploration of the Cosmos

Author: Osserman, Robert.
Publisher: New York : Anchor Books, 1995.
Subjects: Mathematics--Popular works.
Description:
xiv, 210 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 0385473400

Quotes: In reference to the Hubble's Law "It is very likely true that not since Newton formulated his law of universal gravity has any comparably simple physical law led to such an astonishing series of consequences"


Title: The Character of Physical Law.
Author: Feynman, Richard Phillips.
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : M.I.T. Press, 1965.
Subjects: Physics.
Description: Messenger Lectures given by Feynmen at Cornell University in
1964 173 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
Series Title: Messenger lectures on the evolution of civilization ; 1964.
ISBN: 0262060167 (hdc.)

Quotes: "Even the artists appreciate sunsets, and the ocean waves and he march of the stars across the heavens. There is then some reason to talk of other things sometimes. As we look into these things we get an aesthetic pleasure from them directly on observation. There is also a rhythm and a pattern between the phenomena of nature which is not apparent to the eye, but only to the eye of analysis; and it is these rhythms and patterns which we call Physical Laws." (p. 13)
While tethered to the terrestrial jugglers are prone to test finer points of the laws of gravitation on a daily basis. While speaking about the laws of ravitation Feynman reminds us that "it has been called 'the greatest generalization achieved by the human mind.'"

Title: Gravity

Author: George Gamow
Publisher: Dover (1st Edition was a Doubleday).
Binding: Soft cover
Edition: 1st Edition
Format: Paperback (Illustrated), 157 pages
Publication Date: January 2002 (1st 1962)
Publisher: Dover
ISBN: 0486425630 (1st Edition was ISBN: 0385015771)
After reading this book I just have to say that Gravity is a very simple law that quickly becomes very complicated. The first sentence of the preface kicks off with "Gravity rules the universe." To help us grapple with understanding of gravity Gamow starts by telling us the story of Galileo watching a candelabrum swinging to and fro and noticing each swing distance get shorter they still took the same amount of time. This lead to his famous discovery that objects with identical densities but different weights fall at the same velocity. Using plain English, graphs, drawings (in his own hand), and simple math Gamow lays out gravitational phenomena.

Using the moon and an apple describes how Newton points out that size does matter. After tracking the moon's orbit and doing some math Newton concluded that terrestrial force of gravity decreases the farther you travel away from the earth. Newton compared these forces with the attraction between two apples and did lots of math and conjecturing. Eventually he stated his Universal Law of Gravitation: "Every two material objects attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them." Newton died before Henry Cavendish demonstrated this with equipment that can be found in many physics lecture rooms today. Finally, at the end of chapter 2 we learn that the British physicist C. V. Boys calculated the weight of the world to be 6.10**24 kilograms.


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