Lisa Laughy – Archives Assistant

. . . just about everything!

A new book display in the Baker Reading Room brings together over a dozen books from the Ohrstrom Library collection that share a common thread: They all have “The Physics of” as part of their titles.  Beyond that connection it is a very diverse selection, covering topics that range from sports, music and sailing, to NASCAR, Star Trek, Superheros, and even James Bond movies.

Did you know that:

• A baseball compresses from a round shape to an elliptical one when the bat-ball impact approaches 140 MPH?
• When a hockey puck is tilted at a positive angle relative to the ice there is a lift force directed upward?
• The idea behind the deflector shield on the Enterprise originated with the concept of a coherent gravitational field that creates a curvature of space?
• Spiderman swinging on his web from building to building is a good illustration for the principle of conservation of energy?
• Having the ideal tire slip angle on a NASCAR race car can mean the difference between spinning off the race track or speeding across the finish line?
• The first watch camera was made in 1886, but James Bond’s ring camera worn in the film A View to a Kill is too small to actually function?

Come check out one of these interesting titles and find out some of the different ways that physics functions in your day-to-day world.

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