Force and Motion: An Illustrated Guide to Newton's Laws

by Jason Zimba

Overview

Isaac Newton developed three laws of motion that govern the everyday world. These laws are usually presented in purely mathematical forms, but Jason Zimba breaks with tradition and treats them visually. This unique approach allows students to appreciate the conceptual underpinnings of each law before moving on to qualitative descriptions of motion and, finally, to the equations and their solutions.

Zimba has organized the book into seventeen brief and well-sequenced lessons, which focus on simple, manageable topics and delve into areas that often cause students to stumble. Each lesson is followed by a set of original problems that have been student-tested and refined over twenty years.

Zimba illustrates the laws with more than 350 diagrams, an innovative presentation that offers a fresh way to teach the fundamentals in introductory physics, mechanics, and kinematics courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801891601
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jason Zimba is a faculty member in physics and mathematics at Bennington College and has taught at Grinnell College and the University of California, Berkeley. He was the recipient in 2006 of the Majorana Prize.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Index of Key Material
Part I: Describing Motion
1. Graphing Relationships
2. Rates of Change
3. Introducing Position and Velocity
4. Vectors
5. Position and Velocity, Revisited
6. Introducing Acceleration
7. Acceleration as a Rate of Change
8. Focus on a-Perp
9. Case Study: Straight-Line Motion
Part II: Explaining and Predicting Motion
10. The Concept of Force
11. Combining Forces That Act on the Same Target
12. "Newton's Little Law"
13. Newton's Second Law
14. Dynamics
15. Newton's Third Law
16. Kinds of Force
17. Strategies for Applying Newton's Laws
Appendix: Derivation of Huygen's Formula
Answers to Focused Problems
References
Index of Problem Situations
Subject Index

Editorial Reviews

Force and Motion is an excellent choice for a general physics class supplement, especially if an in-depth analysis of mechanics is important. If not incorporated into a course, the book is still very useful for teachers by providing real-world applications, in-class exercises, conceptual questions, test problems, diagrams and figures, lab exercises, and new ways to explain Newtonian mechanics.
—John L. Hubisz , The Physics Teacher

Zimba presents a careful and comprehensive development of the concepts, algebra, and trigonometry underlying Newton's three laws of motion at the high-school and introductory-college level. The text is well written and the diagrams are simple sketches, well suited to a classroom presentation or student's notebook.
—Choice

As an exposition on how to teach this crucial topic, it is definitely worth consideration by teachers and, if the approach finds favour, could benefit students too.
—Rick Marshall, School Science Review

Problem sets help high school and college students of all backgrounds understand mechanics.
—Science News

From the Publisher

As an exposition on how to teach this crucial topic, it is definitely worth consideration by teachers and, if the approach finds favour, could benefit students too.

School Science Review - Rick Marshall

Zimba presents a careful and comprehensive development of the concepts, algebra, and trigonometry underlying Newton's three laws of motion at the high-school and introductory-college level. The text is well written and the diagrams are simple sketches, well suited to a classroom presentation or student's notebook.

Choice

Force and Motion is an excellent choice for a general physics class supplement, especially if an in-depth analysis of mechanics is important. If not incorporated into a course, the book is still very useful for teachers by providing real-world applications, in-class exercises, conceptual questions, test problems, diagrams and figures, lab exercises, and new ways to explain Newtonian mechanics.

The Physics Teacher - John L. Hubisz

Problem sets help high school and college students of all backgrounds understand mechanics.

Science News

As an exposition on how to teach this crucial topic, it is definitely worth consideration by teachers and, if the approach finds favour, could benefit students too.

— Rick Marshall

School Science Review

Force and Motion is an excellent choice for a general physics class supplement, especially if an in-depth analysis of mechanics is important. If not incorporated into a course, the book is still very useful for teachers by providing real-world applications, in-class exercises, conceptual questions, test problems, diagrams and figures, lab exercises, and new ways to explain Newtonian mechanics.

— John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher