There is a hidden order in the ceaselessly changing world around us.

It's called
classical physics, and it's about how the world is put together. Classical phys
ics is about how things move, why they move, and how they work. It's about makin
g sense of motion, gravity, light, heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism, and
seeing how these phenomena interweave to create the rich tapestry of everyday ex
perience. Sound complicated? It's not you already know more physics than you think
, says award-winning science educator Steven Pollock. Basic Principles You Can L
earn In this mind-expanding series of 24 lectures, Professor Steven Pollock take
s you step by step through the Great Ideas of Classical Physics, showing that la
ndmark concepts such as Newton's laws of motion are intuitively understood by an
yone who has ever ridden a bike, thrown a ball, slid across ice, or simply picke
d up an object and set it down. Created over the course of three centuries by a
series of brilliant thinkers, including Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Michael F
araday, and James Clerk Maxwell, classical physics is an elegant system of ideas
that connect a range of seemingly unrelated phenomena. Everything from the acce
leration of a car, to the orbit of a planet, to the deflection of a compass need
le, to the baking of a cake, to the flow of electricity through a light bulb as
you read this and much more is linked by a set of basic principles that you can lear
n. And you don't have to study complicated mathematical equations to see these c
onnections as Professor Pollock proves by teaching this course largely without ma
th, by relying on metaphor, life experience, ordinary logic, and common sense. D
r. Pollock will be familiar to many Teaching Company customers for his course, P
article Physics for Non-Physicists: A Tour of the Microcosmos. The Universe Is Y
our Laboratory What are the great ideas of classical physics? They are the conce
ptual tools that allow us to make sense of the world. They include discoveries,
theories, insights, methods, and philosophical points of view. You will explore
many of these breakthrough ideas, for example: Experiment: It may seem obvious t
hat if you want to understand something, you should experiment on it and not jus
t think about it. But this idea did not catch on until Galileo performed a serie
s of revolutionary investigations of motion in the early 1600s. Use standards: O
ne of the secrets of Galileo's success was that he used standard procedures, uni
ts, and techniques of analysis to compare his results. This approach led him to
conclusions, like his principle of inertia, that no else had ever imagined. Simp
lify: Another powerful insight of Galileo's was to start with simple cases and a
dd complexity later. All physicists do this. In fact, they have a joke about it:
A physicist is hired to advise a dairy farmer and says, "First, assume a spheri
cal cow"! Recognize the fundamental nature of obvious things: The common observa
tion that hot objects cool down and cold ones warm up became the basis for the s
econd law of thermodynamics, proposed by the French engineer Sadi Carnot in the
early 1800s. The second law has profound implications for heat engines and for t
he "direction" of time. Along with these and other general concepts, you learn a
bout such basic features of reality as force and energy, space and time, electri
city and magnetism; and you learn how these properties interact in a range of si
tuations. As you proceed through the course, you will find that the entire unive
rse from atoms to galaxies is your laboratory. Powerful and Surprisingly Beautiful
Ideas The course opens in ancient Greece with Aristotle's commonsense analysis o
f motion. His ideas held sway until the early 1600s, when Galileo challenged the
m with one of the simplest yet most profound experiments of all time he rolled mar
bles down an inclined plane. The technique allowed Galileo to explore the action
of gravity "in slow motion" to show that, contrary to Aristotle's claims, all o
bjects fall at the same rate regardless of mass, and that the speed of a falling
object steadily increases it accelerates. A generation after Galileo, Newton unit
ed the laws of heavenly and earthly motion in a grand synthesis that marked the
full dawn of classical physics. The exploration of Newton's three laws of motion
and his universal law of gravitation forms the core of the first half of the co
urse. In the second half of the course, Professor Pollock introduces the ideas o
f electricity and magnetism. Considered curiosities in Newton's day, these seemi
ngly minor marvels were integrated into the classical picture in the 19th centur
y through the remarkable work of Faraday, Maxwell, and others. The course conclu
des with a series of lectures on waves, optics, atoms, and thermodynamics, bring
ing classical physics to the brink of the watershed theories of relativity and q
uantum mechanics in the early 20th century, which marked the start of modern phy
sics. Your Homework: Play a Little Bit Classical physics was invented by people
at play, and Dr. Pollock encourages you to do the same. "There will be many time
s in this course when you should just go after class and play a little bit," he
counsels. That's what Galileo, Faraday, and other pioneer scientists did. Here a
re some playful activities that Dr. Pollock recommends: Falling objects: When yo
u drop a pen and a piece of paper at the same time, it seems to confirm the comm
onsense expectation that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. But now
crumple the sheet of paper and drop them again. What happens? Static electricity
: Put one piece of sticky tape on top of another, and then attach them to a tabl
e. Label the top piece of tape "T" and the bottom piece "B." Yank the pair off,
and then quickly separate them. Investigate their behavior near each other and n
ear identically prepared pieces. What's going on? Magnetism: Using two magnets,
probe their interacting force fields by passing one all around the other. Where
are the areas of attraction and repulsion? What accounts for this invisible forc
e? Waves: A Slinky demonstrates the particlelike properties of some waves. To se
e how, expand a Slinky and jerk your hand, making a pulse travel from one end to
the other. Like a particle, the pulse is localized; it also has a speed, and it
can reflect off boundaries. Yet it is a wave. The Course Guidebook that comes w
ith this course includes many more activities for creative play through online c
omputer simulations, developed by Dr. Pollock's education research colleagues. O
n the Shoulders of Giants Some people accept the mystery of the world at face va
lue and never inquire further. Physicists can't help but seek answers, and you w
ill feel the same way. If you want to understand how a baseball behaves in a bas
eball stadium, or how the electricity for your house is generated, or how your m
icrowave oven works, these are ideas that can be understood from classical physi
cs. If you are concerned about energy and the environment, then the tools provid
ed by this course are sufficient for you to understand the scientific questions.
Isaac Newton once commented that if he had seen farther than others, it was bec
ause he stood on the shoulders of giants. "Classical physics is the giant on who
se shoulder we stand today," says Professor Pollock, "as we move into new realms
of study, into modern physics, or contemporary biology, or any of a number of m
odern disciplines." Should I Buy Audio or Video? This course works well in any f
ormat. The professor is lively and uses illustrations, small animations, and gra
phics to enhance the visual version. He is very descriptive with his examples, s
o they lack nothing and are thoroughly understandable in the audio version.