Living books for physics?

[stephanie]

We are considering doing physics for next fall, and we plan on doing a lot of experiments. However, I would like to have reading related to the topic as well, but I can't find any. I was thinking of maybe reading up on particular scientists to supplement it. Any ideas?

[Stacy in NJ]

How old is your dc? I have a great book called Secrets of the Universe, Discovering the Universal Laws of Science. The author is Paul Fleisher. I think Ambleside recommends it, although it's out of print. I got it used from amazon. I plan on using it in two years when we return to physics. I wouldn't recommend it for grammar stage, though.

The chapters cover:
What is natural law?
Archimedes' Principle
Planetary Motion
Pendulums and Falling Objects - Galileo's Law of Motion
Newton's Tree Laws of Motion
The Law of Universal Gravitation
Conservation of Momentum
Optics - the Laws of Light
The Law of Conservation of Matter
Pascal's Law - How Liquids Behave
Boyle's and Carles's Laws - How Gases Behave
Bernoulli's Principle
How the Elements Combine - the Law of Definate Proportions and Gay-Lussac's Law
Mendeleev's Periodic Law
The first Law of Thermodynamics - Conservation of Engergy
The Second Law of Thermodynamcis - Entropy
Laws of Electromagnetism
Electric Current - Ohm's Law and Joule's Law
Relativity
Quantum Mechanics
Conservation of Mass/Energy
The Uncertainty Principle

Each chapter conceptually explains the concept, includes a demonstration experiment and provides the history of the discovery. It's written at about the 6th - 8th grade reading level.

[stephanie]

How old is your dc? I have a great book called Secrets of the Universe, Discovering the Universal Laws of Science. The author is Paul Fleisher. I think Ambleside recommends it, although it's out of print. I got it used from amazon. I plan on using it in two years when we return to physics. I wouldn't recommend it for grammar stage, though.

The chapters cover:
What is natural law?
Archimedes' Principle
Planetary Motion
Pendulums and Falling Objects - Galileo's Law of Motion
Newton's Tree Laws of Motion
The Law of Universal Gravitation
Conservation of Momentum
Optics - the Laws of Light
The Law of Conservation of Matter
Pascal's Law - How Liquids Behave
Boyle's and Carles's Laws - How Gases Behave
Bernoulli's Principle
How the Elements Combine - the Law of Definate Proportions and Gay-Lussac's Law
Mendeleev's Periodic Law
The first Law of Thermodynamics - Conservation of Engergy
The Second Law of Thermodynamcis - Entropy
Laws of Electromagnetism
Electric Current - Ohm's Law and Joule's Law
Relativity
Quantum Mechanics
Conservation of Mass/Energy
The Uncertainty Principle

Each chapter conceptually explains the concept, includes a demonstration experiment and provides the history of the discovery. It's written at about the 6th - 8th grade reading level.

The dc that will be doing it are 9, 7, and 6. I should probably just stick to experiments at that level. I do have the book that TWTM suggests for 4th grade physics,and I actually like it a lot. I was just hoping to add a little into it. Thanks!

[mcconnellboys]

Pick up all of Stephen Hawkings books you can. Many are written for the public's consumption.

[Mrs. Readsalot]

We like Galileo and the Magic Numbers.
We also like the John Tiner books on Newton and others.
John Tiner also a book titled Exploring the World of Physics which is wonderful
Have have used all of the John Tiner World of books and think very highly of them.
The Michael Faraday book we like has a pen and ink drawing on a white background(I will try to find the name of the author) I know Rainbow sells the book. I used all of these for middle school level. We also enjoyed a Thomas Edison book of experiments as well as a Benjamin Franklin one. The Edison one is titles Thomas Edision Book of Easy and Incredible Experiments and is published by the Edison Foundation.

[Kathleen in VA]

I came across this title one day and thought it looked like fun.

The Secret of Everyday Things by Jean Henri Fabre

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=fabre&book=everyday&story=_contents


HTH,

Kathleen in VA
www.homeschoolblogger.com/lavendersblue (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lavendersblue)

[mcconnellboys]

And I just watched Privileged Planet tonight - it was wonderful! There's a book of the same title, by Richards and Gonzalez.

[Carmen_and_Company]

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/sciencebooks.htm