| Later.... I already have a downloaded version and I like very much what I see. Soon I'll have a hardcopy. Still not sure how I missed this given its prominent position amongst texts on the subject. Anyway, glancing through the book pretty much at random I've seen many phrases that tickle my fancy and pique my interest. For instance, take the 2nd para on p151 wherein he's discussing Newton's Laws of Motion and force, it's pretty hard to stop reading a paragraph that begins "It is a curiously ironical development of history that,....". Further down the same page when discussing gravity he makes a very straightforward statement but with a twist: "Thus, the laws of gravitation can be expressed as follows: Two bodies suffer a mutual acceleration, in the direction of the line adjoining them, which is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them." Here, 'suffer' conjures up the notion of imposition - of gravity imposing an acceleration on bodies which otherwise wouldn't be the 'natural' order of things. Had he used words like 'experience' or 'influence' it wouldn't have been nearly as effective writing. From the little I've read so far I note the way he writes forces me to think laterally, in effect he's forcing me to perceive things from a different perspective. In fact, I'm already half way through Chapter 8, An Attempt to Build a Physical Picture of the Quantum Nature of Matter, as it's a breeze to read it's so well written - it's not only informative but also entertaining which is a rare quality for a physics textbook. Mind you, that's an easy chapter as there's not an integral sign to be seen anywhere. ...But I note they're not forgotten, they reappear in great abundance in Chapter 9! :-) It's excellent stuff, thanks again for the info. |