Physics

Why is it that there are so few women, and especially women faculty members in the physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics? Eileen Pollack argues that, even in the enlightened year of 2013, there remains conscious and unconscious bias against women in these fields, even by women faculty members.

Buzz Aldrin is one of a handful of men who have visited the moon, and of even a smaller number who have set foot on our satellite.  He relishes the memory of those glorious days, and proposes in this book that the US divert huge amounts of money from fruitful scientific investigation of space by robots toward human exploration projects.

Scientists in Sweden confirm new element 115 after atoms collide. Check out this CNN clip for information about the most recently discovered element #115.

Peter Hoffman is a physicist and materials scientist, and he brings those perspectives and sensibilities to the description of how life converts chemical energy into order and motion.  The "Ratchet" in the title is Feynman's Ratchet, a gedanken experiment described in Feynman's "Lectures on Physics" and reminiscent of Maxwell's Demon.

Four years ago, I gave a very positive review to Richard Muller's "Physics for Future Presidents", despite his very lukewarm treatment of climate change which, in my opinion, had more than enough scientific gravitas by that time to be treated as a legitimate national and international issue.

Owen Gingerich is author of The Book Nobody Read, and an article about Kepler in Physics Today that I have recommended in the past.

Pioneer 10 and 11 are spacecrafts launched in 1972 and 1973. You may remember that they include a plaque that shows nude human figures for the titillation of any aliens who may discover them. Physicists have been worried about the fact that they are not moving quite as fast as one would expect (by about 300 miles per year).

I enjoyed so much Dava Sobel's previous books, "Longitude" and "Galileo's Daughter" (both of which were Hal's Picks), that I was eager to read her latest, which was judged "best science book" for Fall, 2011 by Publisher's Weekly.

Paul Hewitt may be the best-known physics teacher in the US. Not only has he written outstanding books for the teaching of physics and physical science, he is also the author of the very popular monthly "Figuring Physics" column of The Physics Teacher.

Owen Gingerich is the author of one of my favorite books, "The Book Nobody Read", which was my Pick for October 2004 (could it have been that long ago?), which combines astronomy, history research, and bibliophilia.