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30-Second Physics: The 50 Most Fundamental Concepts In Physics, Each Explained In Half A Minute
The bestselling 30-Second series takes a revolutionary approach to learning about those subjects you feel you should really understand. Each title selects a popular topic and dissects it into the 50 most significant ideas at its heart. 30-Second Physics tackles the big ideas behind life as we know it, from electromagnetic waves that enable us to connect in an instant from opposite ends of the earth to the gravity that keeps our feet firmly on the ground. In a world where physics is an everyday essential and new quantum developments make headline news, you need to know your atoms from your anti-matter and learn just enough to speak with fluidity about Fluid Dynamics and be certain about the Uncertainty Principle. Here is the fastest way to get up to speed with rocket science and the rest.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
49 people are currently reading
489 people want to read
About the author
Brian Clegg
163 books3,190 followersBrian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World.
Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.
Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.
Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.
Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 30, 2020
Really bad, didnt explain anything easily
August 28, 2022
Physics is a field of inquiry that deals with both the very large and the extremely small. If you hit a mass just so, where does it go? Given this planet's trajectory, where will it be in 50 years? The power of physics is in answering questions like these with equations and physical laws. It explains how we can't get something from nothing, why we can't predict the future accurately, and much more.
Editor Brian Clegg collected the essays written in this book and put them into an order that makes sense. We also get profiles with more in-depth biographies. It covers Galileo, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Richard Feynmann, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, and Isaac Newton.
The book is fantastic, but as with other books in this series, it is merely an introduction. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
Editor Brian Clegg collected the essays written in this book and put them into an order that makes sense. We also get profiles with more in-depth biographies. It covers Galileo, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Richard Feynmann, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, and Isaac Newton.
The book is fantastic, but as with other books in this series, it is merely an introduction. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
May 17, 2020
30-Second Physics by Brian Clegg introduces the big ideas behind 50 different physics topics in the form of short one-page entries. The book is divided into six different areas: Matter, Light, Quantum Theory, Forces, Motion, Energy and Thermodynamics. The book also has introductions of some famous scientists.
Although it might take more than 30 seconds to read the entries with thought, they are brief and concise and give basic understanding on each topic. The book includes eye-catching illustrations alongside the entries, and they make the book visually interesting.
I would recommend the book to GCSE students taking Physics as an introduction to central concepts they will be learning about. It is also a good read for anyone wanting to learn more about physics in a non-technical form.
Although it might take more than 30 seconds to read the entries with thought, they are brief and concise and give basic understanding on each topic. The book includes eye-catching illustrations alongside the entries, and they make the book visually interesting.
I would recommend the book to GCSE students taking Physics as an introduction to central concepts they will be learning about. It is also a good read for anyone wanting to learn more about physics in a non-technical form.
February 24, 2017
À l'image de cette collection, brillant et bien fait. Toujours pour le même public cible. J'ai adoré et beaucoup appris!
March 15, 2017
OMG THE ILLUSTRATION!
This book is great for all students.
It explains physics easily and fun.
I really recommend it to everyone.
This book is great for all students.
It explains physics easily and fun.
I really recommend it to everyone.
May 12, 2018
This is a simple straightforward overview of the concepts of physics and would be good as an introduction to someone that has not had much exposure.
December 22, 2020
An amazing intro to physics, I failed gade 11 biology, so needless to say I am exactly who this book is for. Learned so much, in a SIMPLE, CONCISE and FUN way. Thank you Mr.Clegg!!!!
March 16, 2025
i mean yeah it is what it says
June 2, 2022
(I read the Swedish translation of this book. The quoted paragraphs are my translation back to English.)
I seriously don’t know who this book is for.
At first, I thought it was a book for people who are curious about physics but aren’t particularly knowledgeable about it. I’m in that category and was hoping to have some of the basic concepts of physics explained in a clear fashion. That’s not what this book was.
This book was like the worst type of school textbook – one where the authors seem to think that if you just mention enough obscure concepts and esoteric terms without explaining them fully, you’ll arouse interest in the reader.
For instance, the book assumes that you know what quantum mechanics is – it mentions it many, many times but never tells you what it is. You just have to know it beforehand.
The blurb claims that this book is the fastest way to become certain about the Uncertainty Principle. I get that it’s sort of a joke, but a statement like that should also be based in fact. However, when you read about the Uncertainty Principle, you run into this: “One consequence is that a particle’s total energy can fluctuate with an amount E for a short time t as long as the product E times t does not exceed Planck’s constant divided by 4π.” This doesn’t make me certain about the Uncertainty principle, not in the least.
In the chapter on “Weak interaction”, a subject I knew a bit about, you get gems like this: “Weak interaction is transferred by W or Z bosons, which are about 90 times as heavy as a hydrogen atom but apart from that are similar to photons in QED. It’s the large amount of energy required to materialize a W or Z boson that limits the weak interaction at low energy levels.”
The glossaries that precede every chapter don’t seem to be intended to make the reader understand the terms. Take “spin” for instance: “The spin of a quantum particle is one of its characteristics. Even though the model is built upon angular motion, it’s not really about rotation. The spin has values which are multiples of ½ and a direction which is quantified. For instance, if you measure the spin of a particle, it will always be either ‘up’ or ‘down’ in the direction the measurement was made.” Is this supposed to make something clearer?
Not all of the texts were this complicated, but many of them seemed like the authors felt compelled to show off their in-depth knowledge. The fact that the illustrations, while pretty, don’t explain anything at all, makes matters even worse.
I would not recommend this book to anyone, and I feel sorry for anyone who picked up this book in the hopes of finally understanding something about the often convoluted subject of physics.
I seriously don’t know who this book is for.
At first, I thought it was a book for people who are curious about physics but aren’t particularly knowledgeable about it. I’m in that category and was hoping to have some of the basic concepts of physics explained in a clear fashion. That’s not what this book was.
This book was like the worst type of school textbook – one where the authors seem to think that if you just mention enough obscure concepts and esoteric terms without explaining them fully, you’ll arouse interest in the reader.
For instance, the book assumes that you know what quantum mechanics is – it mentions it many, many times but never tells you what it is. You just have to know it beforehand.
The blurb claims that this book is the fastest way to become certain about the Uncertainty Principle. I get that it’s sort of a joke, but a statement like that should also be based in fact. However, when you read about the Uncertainty Principle, you run into this: “One consequence is that a particle’s total energy can fluctuate with an amount E for a short time t as long as the product E times t does not exceed Planck’s constant divided by 4π.” This doesn’t make me certain about the Uncertainty principle, not in the least.
In the chapter on “Weak interaction”, a subject I knew a bit about, you get gems like this: “Weak interaction is transferred by W or Z bosons, which are about 90 times as heavy as a hydrogen atom but apart from that are similar to photons in QED. It’s the large amount of energy required to materialize a W or Z boson that limits the weak interaction at low energy levels.”
The glossaries that precede every chapter don’t seem to be intended to make the reader understand the terms. Take “spin” for instance: “The spin of a quantum particle is one of its characteristics. Even though the model is built upon angular motion, it’s not really about rotation. The spin has values which are multiples of ½ and a direction which is quantified. For instance, if you measure the spin of a particle, it will always be either ‘up’ or ‘down’ in the direction the measurement was made.” Is this supposed to make something clearer?
Not all of the texts were this complicated, but many of them seemed like the authors felt compelled to show off their in-depth knowledge. The fact that the illustrations, while pretty, don’t explain anything at all, makes matters even worse.
I would not recommend this book to anyone, and I feel sorry for anyone who picked up this book in the hopes of finally understanding something about the often convoluted subject of physics.
June 26, 2019
Very educational
December 13, 2021
Gives very concise and interesting synopses of fundamental physics concepts, as well as brief histories of famous people of physics. It combines comfortable scientific detail with entertainment and is overall very interesting and efficient, providing the main information with no divulgences. It lost one star for me as some of the content discussed regarding the more well known topics such as states of matter and motion were perhaps a little too simplified and could have included a little more detail and unknown facts. Other than this very minor detail, it is a highly valuable book to read in terms of scientific knowledge.
April 4, 2022
Dá a ideia que cada capítulo foi feito por uma pessoa diferente e que não houve muita atenção a evitar overlaps, o que causa bastantes repetições e por vezes até incoerências.
É muito simples para uma pessoa mestre em engenharia, no entanto, tem falta de diagramas, imagens descritivas ou equações para um leigo conseguir acompanhar.
É no entanto um bom compêndio de assuntos para futuras pesquisas, ou para verificar conhecimentos.
É muito simples para uma pessoa mestre em engenharia, no entanto, tem falta de diagramas, imagens descritivas ou equações para um leigo conseguir acompanhar.
É no entanto um bom compêndio de assuntos para futuras pesquisas, ou para verificar conhecimentos.
December 30, 2021
It is an amazing Physics book for the enthusiastics of the subject, it can explain a very large of concepts in just one page!! And I think that is awesome, because in jus one page they explain the concept to you, they make you think and when you realize you are searching for more hahahha
It´s such an amazing book and I recommend to every physics fans out there!
It´s such an amazing book and I recommend to every physics fans out there!
March 26, 2023
This is a good start to understanding physics in a simplified way. However, the small descriptions on the left side of the page trying to give examples of the main subject weren't always the easiest to understand.
I wish that the authors included the mathematical equations a bit more and added a little more detail regarding the chemical reactions between elements for quicker reference.
I wish that the authors included the mathematical equations a bit more and added a little more detail regarding the chemical reactions between elements for quicker reference.
August 7, 2017
Good introduction to the broad world of physics for people new to the field. Simple explanation leaves you wanting for more but it's more than enough to gain a slight appreciation for the science and talk about it to others.
January 19, 2022
I don't feel this is a great introduction to physics... Mostly because of some of the definitions and the way things were explained were not given in a layman's term way. But a nice little reference book for those already studying the field.
August 1, 2023
Kortfattad introduktion till olika teorier, begrepp och förgrundsgestalter inom fysiken. Den är lättsamt skriven, men inte fördummande. En bra uppslagsbok (eller startpunkt om man så vill).
September 3, 2023
As advertised, it provides an excellent overview of complicated physics concepts. No complaints, no improvements to add.
August 2, 2024
Gives you a good conceptual understanding of the main theories. As non-physicist it’s to compressed to give you a full understanding.
September 17, 2018
I mean, I don't think it was as good as 30-Second Philosophies: The 50 most thought-provoking philosophies, each explained in half a minute, but I'll live.
It was very clear, very easy to understand, and broken down into manageable bits.
The two page spread on Richard Feynman deserved 6/5 stars, and if the whole book were just on him, I would have definitely given it 5 stars. One might be inclined to think that I'm biased because I adore Feynman, but I swear that two page spread was the best-written section of the book.
Anyway, the rest of the book was engaging, though not as engaging as the philosophy book in this series.
I will note, there were little phrases that seemed to exude arrogance...I'm sure it was unintentional or even all in my head, but I couldn't help but get the feelings that a few of the writers looked down on any plebes who weren't physics experts.
Anyhow, this book reminded me of my interest in majoring in physics, so I guess it got the job done.
It was very clear, very easy to understand, and broken down into manageable bits.
The two page spread on Richard Feynman deserved 6/5 stars, and if the whole book were just on him, I would have definitely given it 5 stars. One might be inclined to think that I'm biased because I adore Feynman, but I swear that two page spread was the best-written section of the book.
Anyway, the rest of the book was engaging, though not as engaging as the philosophy book in this series.
I will note, there were little phrases that seemed to exude arrogance...I'm sure it was unintentional or even all in my head, but I couldn't help but get the feelings that a few of the writers looked down on any plebes who weren't physics experts.
Anyhow, this book reminded me of my interest in majoring in physics, so I guess it got the job done.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews