Book Description

Excerpt from A First Course in Physics The course presented in this book, and in the List of Laboratory Experiments, which is published in a separate volume, has grown out of the actual needs of the elementary work in physics in the University of Chicago, particularly in the University High School of the School of Education and the affiliated secondary schools. Its most characteristic features have been on trial for three or four years in more than a score of different secondary schools in various parts of the country. The books represent primarily an attempt to give concrete expression to a rapidly spreading movement to make high-school physics, to a less extent than it has been in the past, either a condensed reproduction of college physics, or a mathematical and mechanical introduction to technical science, and to a greater extent than it has heretofore been, a simple and immediate presentation, in language which the student already understands, of the hows and whys of the physical world in which he lives. A second aim has been to develop a course in which the laboratory and class-room phases of elementary instruction in physics are carefully differentiated and, at the same time, closely correlated. It is hoped that something may thus be done toward remedying the inadequacy which still exists in the laboratory instruction of many of the smaller schools. A very carefully selected and tested list of distinctively class-room demonstrations will be found to run through the book in fine print, while footnotes indicate the location and nature of the laboratory exercises which should be inserted. For the sake of definiteness and simplicity the references are made simply to the authors manual, though the exercises may be taken from any good laboratory text. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.