Many students find the transition from first-year general chemistry to second-year organic chemistry a daunting task. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is their lack of a solid understanding and appreciation of the importance of some basic concepts and principles from general chemistry that play an extremely critical role in…

This article comes from a question asked by a student of mine: if the Sun radiates energy in the form of electromagnetic waves, could they shift the Earth from its current orbit on a suitable timescale? The answer to such a question is apparently obvious and trivial. Nevertheless, it requires an instructive reasoning and interesting estimates of…

When asked to explain the Galilean non-invariance of classical electromagnetism on the basis of pre-relativistic considerations alone, students--and sometimes their teachers too--may face an impasse. Indeed, they often argue that a pre-relativistic physicist could most obviously have provided the explanation "at a glance", on the basis of the…

The collision model is frequently introduced to describe electronic conductivity in solids. Depending on the chosen approach, the introduction of the collision time can lead to erroneous results for the average velocity of the electrons, which enters the expression for the electrical conductivity. In other textbooks, correct results are obtained…

Based on relativistic velocity addition and the conservation of momentum and energy, I present simple derivations of the expressions for the relativistic momentum and kinetic energy of a particle, and for the formula E = mc[superscript 2]. (Contains 5 footnotes and 2 figures.)

Nonlinear optics is generally first presented as an extension of conventional optics. Typically the subject is introduced with reference to a classical oscillatory electric polarization, accommodating correction terms that become significant at high intensities. The material parameters that quantify the extent of the nonlinear response are cast as…

It is well known that the pitch of the sound produced by an excited glass shell can be tuned by adding some liquid in it. In this paper, it will be proved that the distribution of the liquid inside the shell plays a crucial role in this frequency shift. Thus it provides another way to tune the pitch of the sound by modifying the liquid…

This textbook presents elementary principles of mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, acoustics, pyronomics [sic], optics, electricity, galvanism, magnetism, electromagnetism, magneto-electricity, and astronomy. Among topics covered are descriptions and illustrations of McCormick's reaper, Sharps' Rifle, printing presses, House's…

While the new movement in the teaching of physics--the study of the physics of daily life--is the keynote of the recent text-books, yet the laboratory manuals still adhere to the old method, leaving the presentation of material from everyday life to the text-book alone. It is the authors' belief that the manual as well as the text-book should be…

In preparing this volume, every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, the most recent authorities have been consulted, and it is believed that a faithful view is presented of the various sciences embraced, as far as they are at present developed. It is the intention of the author to keep his book up to the times by constant revision, and to…