Here are 100 books that The Physics of Rugby fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a boy, I wanted to play baseball professionally. But, alas, talent was not within me, and I became one of the few people in the world who chose physics as a career because something else was too hard. Part of my career as a scientist is learning new things; another part is teaching and, hopefully, imbuing students with a love of science. The sports science books here all taught me a great deal, and I have recommended them to several of my students. Sports can be an excellent vehicle for learning some science, and such learning about a sport one loves can make watching the sport even more fun.
The first edition of Adair’s book came out in 1990. I was an undergraduate physics and mathematics major at Vanderbilt University at the time. The title alone drew me because I once thought of playing baseball and was already in love with physics.
I devoured Adair’s book! More than any other book, it got me thinking, “Maybe I could combine sports and physics into a career.”
By the time the third edition came out in 2002, I was teaching a Physics of Sports course. I had my students read the book. Many of them loved it. Adair's book kept me reading—and wanting more—from pitching to hitting, to the flight of the ball, to many other facets of baseball.
Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising -- and always illuminating.
This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As a boy, I wanted to play baseball professionally. But, alas, talent was not within me, and I became one of the few people in the world who chose physics as a career because something else was too hard. Part of my career as a scientist is learning new things; another part is teaching and, hopefully, imbuing students with a love of science. The sports science books here all taught me a great deal, and I have recommended them to several of my students. Sports can be an excellent vehicle for learning some science, and such learning about a sport one loves can make watching the sport even more fun.
The publisher asked me to review this book before its publication. I had been a sports physicist for a few years, but I had never been that interested in ice hockey. Haché’s passion for the sport helped to change that. I thoroughly loved seeing physics applied to a sport that I had never played.
Learning about the science behind the various pieces of equipment was especially illuminating for me. I do not claim to be an avid ice hockey fan, but Haché’s love for the sport allowed me to go outside my comfort zone and have an exciting time with a book.
From the moment the first player steps onto the ice, every conceivable principle of science is in play. To understand hockey - fully understand it - Alain Hache argues that you must first learn how ice reacts to a passing blade, how the trajectory and aerodynamics of the puck affect its chances of getting into the net, how the tension on the stick transfers energy to the puck, and dozens of other details of the game. Slap Shot Science is an under-the-hood, behind-the-scenes, action-packed romp through special moments in the game as seen from the perspective of science and explained…
As a boy, I wanted to play baseball professionally. But, alas, talent was not within me, and I became one of the few people in the world who chose physics as a career because something else was too hard. Part of my career as a scientist is learning new things; another part is teaching and, hopefully, imbuing students with a love of science. The sports science books here all taught me a great deal, and I have recommended them to several of my students. Sports can be an excellent vehicle for learning some science, and such learning about a sport one loves can make watching the sport even more fun.
How could I be a sports physicist and know next to nothing about soccer, the world’s most popular sport? After a student wanted to research soccer physics with me, I knew I had to get up to speed on the beautiful game. Wesson’s book was my choice, and it was a smart choice! From the simple, like the bounce of the ball, to the complex, like the flight of the ball during a free kick, Wesson touches on all the important aspects of soccer.
Anyone can read the book, and for those of us who yearn for the mathematical details, Wesson’s last chapter does not disappoint.
Updated and revised throughout, this new edition of The Science of Soccer applies scientific analysis to football, giving us the answers to questions like "what's the chance of a team that wins the Premiership also winning the Cup? Can you predict how many goals will be scored? What's the best height for footballers? Is the team that wins the league the best team?"
Starting with a qualitative description of the basic physics that relate to the ball and its bounce, the author then moves through kicks and throws, to a simple account of the more complex physics of a ball…
As a boy, I wanted to play baseball professionally. But, alas, talent was not within me, and I became one of the few people in the world who chose physics as a career because something else was too hard. Part of my career as a scientist is learning new things; another part is teaching and, hopefully, imbuing students with a love of science. The sports science books here all taught me a great deal, and I have recommended them to several of my students. Sports can be an excellent vehicle for learning some science, and such learning about a sport one loves can make watching the sport even more fun.
As a quinquagenarian, I needed this book! Our bodies change so much as we age, and those changes obviously affect how well we perform athletically. Nutrition science has made great strides over the past several decades.
Antonucci’s book incorporates the latest that nutrition science has to offer so that those of us who are not professional athletes can strategically fuel ourselves, avoid dehydration, and eat healthier. I work out better, and I recover faster using Antonucci’s book. I was not looking for a slew of biochemistry when I picked up her book. I could get right to the scientific results and implement them into my own life.
It's an undisputed fact that the body's physiological needs change as you age. But that doesn't mean you can't continue to compete and perform at your best. In High-Performance Nutrition for Masters Athletes, you'll find practical advice for fueling your active lifestyle-now and for decades to come.
The key to effectively adapting your nutrition plans is first understanding how needs change over time and how expected results shift through the decades. Explore the science behind proper fueling for training and competition with the current guidelines for carbohydrate, protein, and fat intake plus advice on proper hydration, avoiding the dangers of…
I’ve been fascinated by science since I was a small child. I used to try to drag my parents up to London’s Natural History Museum to gawk at dinosaurs every other Sunday and remember the delight of seeing Saturn and its rings through a telescope from our back garden. I started reading popular science books as a teenager and they were a large part of what inspired me to ultimately become a physicist. I hope the books on this list will bring a bit of awe and wonder into your life!
This beautiful little book explores the loftiest goal of all of physics, the search for a complete theory of the fundamental workings of nature. Weinberg was not only a Nobel Prize winning physicist, but an incredible, lyrical writer.
Written at the start of the 1990s, the book still remains relevant today, as physicists are still struggling towards a more complete description of the universe.
The Nobel Prize-winning physicist and bestselling author of The First Three Minutes describes the grand quest for a unifying theory of nature--one that can explain forces as different as the cohesion inside the atom and the gravitational tug between the sun and Earth. Wirting with dazzling elegance and clarity, he retraces the steps that have led modern scientists from relativity and quantum mechanics to the notion of super-strings and the idea that our universe may coexist with others.
But Weinberg asks as many questions as he answers, among them: Why does each explanation of the way nature works point to…
I am totally fascinated by the quest of how Nature does it. In particular, I love the fact that humans managed to enters the strange world of atoms and photons by just using their brute intellectual force and imagination. This world obeys precise rules, but very different ones from those we get used to since childhood. For example, the laws that govern the microscopic world allow for indeterminacy and randomness. Moreover, some random events may manifest themselves at several locations at once, leading to the phenomenon of quantum non-locality. I am very fortunate that I could spend all my professional time on such fascinating conceptual questions, combined with highly timely new technologies.
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. Science is sometimes quite abstract. But it is made by very concrete persons whose characters shape the various scientific communities.
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. The huge success of quantum mechanics as a predictive theory has been accompanied, from the very beginning, by doubts and controversy about its foundations and interpretation. This book looks in detail at how research on foundations evolved after WWII, when it was revived, until the mid 1990s, when most of this research merged into the technological promise of quantum information. It is the story of the quantum dissidents, the scientists who brought…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
Don Lincoln is both a research scientist and a masterful science communicator. On the science side, he participated in the discovery of both the top quark and the Higgs boson. On the communicator side, he has written books, made hundreds of YouTube videos, and written for such visible venues as Scientific American and CNN. He has both the scientific chops and writer expertise to tell an exciting story about why the universe is the way it is.
This book is an extraordinary romp through the discoveries in particle physics during its formative years, from the electron and x-rays, through the muon, antimatter, and the dizzying particle zoo of the 1950s and 1960s. The book tells a lot of history that books focused on science simply gloss over. It’s a fun and interesting read and you will have a much better appreciation of how scientists learned what they have about the subatomic world.
The Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of ""unification"" (a description of how matter behaves that can apply equally to everything) with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out to find the ""theory of everything."" The Second…
I am a professor of quantum physics—the most notoriously complicated science humans have ever invented. While the likes of Albert Einstein commented on how difficult quantum physics is to understand, I disagree! Ever since my mum asked me—back while I was a university student—to explain to her what I was studying, I’ve been on a mission to make quantum physics as widely accessible as possible. Science belongs to us all and we should all have an opportunity to appreciate it!
In How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog Chad Orzel has an imaginary conversation about quantum physics with his dog, Emmy. Orzel explains each of the features of quantum physics, like superposition and entanglement, by starting first with an analogy in Emmy’s understandably dog-like behavior.
Quantum physics has never been more popular. Once thought of as an obscure science, it reached the masses via the notion of teleportation in Star Trek and, more recently, as an integral part of the popular TV series Lost and Fringe. Now, inspired by his hugely popular website and science blog, Chad Orzel uses his cherished mutt Emmy to explain the basic principles of quantum physics. And who better to explain the magical universe of quantum physics than a talking dog?
I am a professor of quantum physics—the most notoriously complicated science humans have ever invented. While the likes of Albert Einstein commented on how difficult quantum physics is to understand, I disagree! Ever since my mum asked me—back while I was a university student—to explain to her what I was studying, I’ve been on a mission to make quantum physics as widely accessible as possible. Science belongs to us all and we should all have an opportunity to appreciate it!
Baby Loves Quantum Physics is a cute book about Schrodinger’s Cat, which was featured in a “thought-experiment” nearly 100 years ago about what quantum physics ought to look to big things like humans or cats. The illustrations are engaging for young readers and the language is pitched at a suitable level. This a great step on baby’s quantum quest!
Accurate enough to satisfy an expert, yet simple enough for baby, this clever board book engages readers in a game of hide-and-seek with Schrodinger's famous feline. Can cat be awake and asleep at the same time? Beautiful, visually stimulating illustrations complement age-appropriate language to encourage baby's sense of wonder. Parents and caregivers may learn a thing or two, as well!
With tongue firmly in cheek, the Baby Loves Science series introduces highly intellectual science concepts to the littlest learners.
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I’ve been teaching physics applied to biology for decades. When working at the National Institutes of Health, I realized that most biologists don’t know physics. While I appreciate the complexity that evolution generates, I find the simplicity and generality of physics in explaining life to be amazing and captivating. When I taught biological physics to undergraduates at Oakland University, I strived to find elementary “toy” models that the students could analyze and that provided valuable insight. The books on this list all adopt a similar point of view: physics provides unity to the diversity of life.
Philip Nelson is a giant in the field of biological physics. I’ve never seen anyone combine words, pictures, mathematical formulas, and computer code so seamlessly into physical models of living systems.
His book might not be as relaxing a read as some others—you really have to do the problems and assignments to get the most out of it—but I can think of no other text that will better teach you how to do science at the interface between physics and biology.
Award-winning prof brings you from first-year classes to the frontiers of systems and synthetic biology, epidemic modeling, and imaging. Physical Models of Living Systems is a university textbook that integrates those cutting-edge topics with classic results in statistical inference, control theory, biophysical chemistry and mechanobiology, immunology, and neuroscience, as well as guiding you to create your own stochastic simulations. Instead of offering a huge pile of facts, the discovery-style exposition frequently asks you to reflect on "How could anything like that happen at all?" and then shows how scientists have incrementally peeled back the layers of mystery surrounding these beautiful…
