Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780674216457)

Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets: how they guided (or misguided) Columbus; mesmerized eighteenth-century Paris but failed to fool Benjamin Franklin; lifted AC power over its rival, DC, despite all the animals, one human among them, executed along the way; led Einstein to the theory of relativity; helped defeat Hitler's U-boats; inspired writers from Plato to Dave Barry. In a way that will delight and instruct even the nonmathematical among us, James Livingston shows us how scientists today are creating magnets and superconductors that can levitate high-speed trains, produce images of our internal organs, steer high-energy particles in giant accelerators, and--last but not least--heat our morning coffee.

From the "new" science of materials to everyday technology, Driving Force makes the workings of magnets a matter of practical wonder. The book will inform and entertain technical and nontechnical readers alike and will give them a clearer sense of the force behind so much of the working world.

Author: James D. Livingston
ISBN-10: 0674216458
ISBN-13: 9780674216457
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/25/1997
Pages: 334
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.76h x 6.13w x 0.91d