Understanding Physics: Volume 1: Motion, Sound, and Heat

Understanding Physics, Asimov #1

by Isaac Asimov

From the ancient Greeks through the Age of Newton, the problems of motion, sound, and heat preoccupied the scientific imagination. These centuries gave birth to the basic concepts from which modern physics has evolved. In this first volume of his celebrated UNDERSTANDING PHYSICS, Isaac Asimov deals with this fascinating, momentous stage of scientific development with an authority and clarity that add further lustre to an eminent reputation. Demanding the minimum of specialized knowledge from his audience, he has produced a work that is the perfect supplement to the student’s formal textbook, as well as offering invaluable illumination to the general reader.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Steve Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up at the $1 spinner at Half Price Books. I had never read Asimov's non-fiction before. He's got a real gift for popularizing. This book covers the same material we covered in first semester college physics but he presents it in a way that helps you make connections between the concepts that you may have missed in class. He also does an excellent job of putting the progress of understanding of physics into historical context. Really looking forward to the whole series and I ordered a bunch of other Asimov non-fiction after reading it.

[Gabrielam13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trebuie să recunosc că această introducere în fizică nu mi s-a părut la fel de ușoară precum cea în lumea numerelor. În comparație cu ecuațiile matematice, care sunt tautologice, și a căror înțelegere este, din acest motiv, destul de simplă, ecuațiile fizice se sprijină pe multe asumpții care nu sunt neaparat evidente și implică anumite consecințe care sunt în aceeași măsură neclare sau neintuitive.

Cu toate acestea, cartea mi s-a părut foarte interesantă, căci a explicat atât de multe fenomene fizice de care nu eram conștientă, în asemenea măsură încât m-am simțit adesea ca și cum aș citi un roman palpitant în care un mister se revelă și aprinde luminițele din creier ca într-un foc de artificii. Am aflat despre principiul care face ca frigiderul să se mențină mereu rece, despre cel care acționează termostatele, despre undele care apar într-un lac atunci când arunci o piatră, despre modul cum se transmit sunetele, despre legile termodinamicii și multe altele.

Toate variile domenii în care Asimov imersează cititorul nu au făcut decât să continuă să mă uimească de vasta cunoaștere pe care acest om extraordinar a avut-o. Și, desigur, mi-au stârnit interesul de a studia mai mult fizica și de începe să ofer un nou văl realității înconjurătoare. În ciuda aparenței sale placide, citind această carte am simțit cu adevărat magia realității despre care Dawkins vorbea în cartea sa. Perseverența de a o citi, chiar și atunci când ecuațiile au fost puțin intimidante, a dat negreșit roade.

[David Allen Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

With due respect to my junior high school and high school teachers, I never really grasped science or math until I read the books of Isaac Asimov. Mr. Asimov had a unique way of teaching through high quality, interesting, succinct. clear writing interspaced with interesting and memorable tidbits of history that led to real learning. More than 30 years after I first read his 3 books on classical physics, I decided to refresh my memory and see if I still believed in Asimov and his writing. I was not disappointed. Despite the passage of three decades, I found myself still immediately remembering lessons from this informative, interesting book, and realized I still had in my mind a solid understanding of classical physics because of Mr. Asimov's books and I am so glad I re-read this. The world is physics is the world we live in and experience every day, and if you do not understand how physics works your life will always be a little less learned and you at a greater disadvantage. This first volume covers such basic concepts as the laws of motion, sound and heat and how they work. Not a day of your life will go by without experiencing these facts of science. Asimov unlike many modern committee written textbooks is a lively and readable writing. He never dumbs down anything or makes you feel talked down to, yet his science is also not so in depth that a normal everyday person can't understand. There are no big words here and any technical phrase is clearly explained. Basic algebra is used in the explanations but always in a way that anyone knowing even basic math will easily comprehend. Asimov includes brief snippets of history and biography that put the story into interesting and memorable context. Despite this book being half a century old, virtually nothing in it is out of date. If you want to remember physics from high school or college, learn some science you never dared to try in school, or have a child or student taking a class in physics, please take the time to read this enjoyable, interesting and very informative book!

[Sergey Sabol-Pulling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book primarily because it was able to talk about physics in a simple, easy to understand way. the content was informative and enjoyable to read, along with the book having a great author. I didn't give this book 5 stars because some parts of the book were worded weirdly and took a bit of time to understand

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I took a full year of physics in college, I learned most of my physics from the three books in the Understanding Physics series by Isaac Asimov. As proof, I offer the fact that I scored a respectable 8 on the physics section of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that I took before starting the college physics class. My study of physics in preparations for the test began when I purchased and read the three books in the series. When I was in the physics class, I understood all of the ideas; the only part that presented any difficulty was applying calculus to the problems.
Asimov has a knack for writing about science in a way that allows for the rapid and complete learning of the concepts. This book covers the basics of classical physics, as relativity is only mentioned in footnotes. Unlike many other authors, Asimov does not hesitate to use equations in his explanations. I commend him for this, as you cannot learn physics without equations and the temptation to avoid them was no doubt strong. If you want to learn the fundamentals of physics, the three-volume Understanding Physics series by Asimov is the best place to start.

This review also appears on Amazon

[Timothy A Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asimov is a master at explaining complex subjects to lay readers. Understanding Physics: Volume 1 is no exception. I would highly recommend this book to any high school or college student that is taking introductory physics. Asimov provides context that most physics textbooks do not provide. That is, he provides some of the history behind the discovery of physics: who were the key scientists, what were they thinking, how did they overturn existing theories, etc. Asimov also provides the linguistic derivation behind physics terminology, thereby demystifying often confusing terms and making the concepts easier to understand and remember. The math presented is only that which is absolutely necessary to explain the science: mostly basic algebra and a little bit of trigonometry. Asimov provides non-calculus derivations of various equations and sometimes provides simple numerical examples of some concepts. However, the math element of this book is nothing that should scare off readers.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure I like his fiction that much, but this book is extraordinary.

For those who already study physics, chemistry, engineering, or any other field where these concepts are a “given,” this book may feel redundant and mostly outdated.

Still, even if one “knew” what Asimov wrote, the method, style, examples, and flow are virtually unmatched by any other textbook or popular book of science I’ve ever come across.

I rarely use these words but this book is almost a “perfect” balance between textbook and popular literature. Asimov maintains rigor (avoiding calculus in math, but not in language), gives concrete examples of technology, and historicizes every problem and where it came from. It’s a masterful balance between the human history of science and the language of science we have developed. It’s a pleasure to read and it finally helped me put ideas together after many on and off cycles over the years.

[Speranta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am completely baffled by Asimov's genius. First he turned my world upside down with the science fiction with his novels and here he put it all in the right places with regular science. This is by far one of the friendliest books on physics I've looked at, due to its lack of furbishes. Everything is crystal clear in his explanations.

[Harry Harman]

Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible. William of Ockham, emphasised this point of view, the effort made to whittle away at unnecessary assumptions is referred to as making use of "Ockham's razor."

[Mark Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Physics :)

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and concise description of our understanding of physics at the time. While there are a (very) few dated lines, this is still a solid introduction to the science.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Endlich auch das durchgearbeitet. Schade, dass der Kopf nicht mehr so aufnahmefähig ist. Eigentlich müsste man das ALLES draufhaben.

[Austin Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read. Fills in some gaps in intuition that traditional mechanics classes don't tend to cover. There's some nice history of science stuff along the way. Besides the quality of examples I think a lot of the beauty of this book is Asimov's ability to draw a thread from each chapter through the next, even when they handle physics concepts that might seem disparate at first. Excited to read Vol II for the first time when it arrives in the mail.

[Adrian Josele Quional · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not a typical reading for everybody, Understanding Physics Vol. 1 gives someone a detailed and logical explanation of topics - historical background, biographies of physicists, derivation of formulas - regarding Motion, Sound, and Heat: considered as the fundamental concepts in Physics. However, the book is not really a "novel-type" on which someone would readily skip one chapter once he or she finishes it. In order to really understand, one has to return to previous topics and relate it to another (Personally and honestly, I didn't fully understood the book but I'm very fortunate to, at least, know some of the Physics concepts which are not discussed in a classroom.) The book is a reference and supplementary book to physics teachers, students, and enthusiasts.

[Nick Smith]

Very good as an introductory book to physics, this book shows plenty of background on historical developments from Aristotle onward. At times, biographical details of significant figures in physics' gradual growth are shared. One thing I like about Asimov's writing on science is that he explains the Greek or Latin origins of specific terms, what they used to mean in those languages, and why they were chosen to describe properties of physics. He also relates to your ordinary world and gives examples that are easily understood, examples which abound in the world around us. Now I think I will begin to think of physics differently. And that is a good thing. And just for the record, Newton saw the apple fall from a tree, it did NOT fall onto his head!

[Vineet · Rating 4 out of 5]

All 3 volumes of understanding physics including this one by Asimov is a good read for students finding physics non-intuitive. It does not bog down students with too much of equations and formulas and explains the fundamentals with the least mathematical rigor.

[Curtiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good Doctor presents a comprehensive treatment of every aspect of physics in this three-volume edition, which covers the field of Subatomic Particles in Volume 3 Electron, Proton & Neutron.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this series of books long ago and lost them when I moved out of my parents' house. They were, by far, the best science texts I have ever read.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I didn't read this volume cover to cover, it helped me in high school Physics class.

[David Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent simplification for the layperson.