A student’s guide to Maxwell’s equations
Author: Daniel Fleisch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Call number: QC670.F596, Lee Wee Nam Library, (Level 4), Science Collection

Maxwell’s Equations are four of the most influential equations in science: Gauss’s law for electric fields, Gauss’s law for magnetic fields, Faraday’s law, and the Ampere-Maxwell law. In this guide for students, each equation is the subject of an entire chapter, with detailed, plain-language explanations of the physical meaning of each symbol in the equation, for both the integral and differential forms. The final chapter shows how Maxwell’s Equations may be combined to produce the wave equation, the basis for the electromagnetic theory of light.

Cover image & summary from Syndetics Solutions, Inc.

The strangest man : the hidden life of Paul Dirac, quantum genius
Author: Graham Farmelo
Publisher: Faber, 2009
Call number: QC16.D57F233, Lee Wee Nam Library, (Level 4), Science Collection

“Fascinating reading… Graham Farmelo has done a splendid job of portraying Dirac and his world. The biography is a major achievement.” -Peter Higgs, Times (UK)

“A page-turner… [Farmelo] has a briliant style, explaining advanced theoretical concepts in phyiscs extremely clearly… sparkling and racy. He is entertaining and has a wry sense of humor, so the book will appeal to a very wide readership.” – Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, Times Higher Education (UK)

“A must-read for anyone interested in the extraordinary power of pure thought. With this revelatory, moving and definitive biography, Graham Farmelo provides the first real glimpse inside the bizarre mind of Paul Dirac.” -Roger Highfield, Editor, New Scientist

“[A] meticulously researched and wonderfully humane biography… Farmelo succeeds triumphantly in elucidating for non-scientists the immediate impact and lasting significance of Dirac’s discoveries.” -Sunday Telegraph

“In the group portrait of genius in 20th century physics, Paul Dirac is the stick figure. Who was he, and what did he do? For all non-physicists who have followed the greatest intellectual adventure of modern times, this is the missing book.” -Tom Stoppard

“Fascinating… [A] suberb book.” -John Gribbin, Literary Review

 Cover image from Amazon, reviews from back cover

Three physicists shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Half of the prize goes to

Charles K. Kao
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong

“for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”

and the other half jointly to

Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith
Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA

“for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor”.

You can read more at 2009 Physics Nobel Prize Resources (by American Institute of Physics).

The University of Nottingham has created a collection of videos on sixty symbols (or concepts) commonly used in physics and astronomy. The project is known as Sixty Symbols.  The videos are not lectures, they are chats with the experts from the university . It also promises to have another sixty symbols coming soon.

Morning Glory, Mammatus, Kelvin-Helmholz are some names given to clouds. What do they look like, how are they formed? Wired Science provides the answers.

Learn more about them :

The Book of Clouds John A. Day Silver Lining Books, 2006 Call number : QC921.3.D274 Lee Wee Nam Library, Popular Science

cloudspotter’s Guide : the science, history, and culture of clouds Gavin Pretor-Pinney Berkley, 2007 Call number : QC921.P942 Lee Wee Nam Library, Popular Science

Clouds Eric M. Wilcox Duncan Baird Publishers, 2003 Call number : QC921.W667 Lee Wee Nam Library, Science collection

The Invention of Clouds : how an amateur meteorologist forged the language of the skies Richard Hamblyn Picador, 2002 Call number : QC921.H199 Lee Wee Nam Library, Popular Science

General relativity from A to B
Author: Robert Geroch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1978
Call number: QC173.6.G377, Lee Wee Nam Library, (Level 4), Science Collection

“This beautiful little book is certainly suitable for anyone who has had an introductory course in physics and even for some who have not.”
– Joshua N. Goldberg, Physics Today

“An imaginative and convincing new presentation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. . . . The treatment is masterful, continual emphasis being placed on careful discussion and motivation, with the aim of showing how physicists think and develop their ideas.”
– Choice

Cover image from Syndetics Solutions, Inc.

MIT OpenCourseWare offers MIT course materials for free! Almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT are available.

At the MIT OpenCourseWare site, click the “Courses” tab,  follow the physics link and you can go to the individual Course Title to get more information about the course before you begin. Some other subjects that you may be interested include

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
• Experimental Study Group (some relavant courses!)
• Materials Science and Engineering
• Mathematics
• Nuclear Science and Engineering
• Science, Technology, and Society

Have a go! You may find some courses relevant, to help you in your learning.