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  • Front page of website ("Question of the day"): "Imagine a rubber band that is attached to a horse at one end and attached to a wall at the other end. The rubber is infinitely stretchable. On the rubber, near the wall, there is a snail. Both the snail and the horse start moving with typical speeds. Can the snail reach the horse?" - would it be clearer to write "The rubber can stretch to any length, but is otherwise like a normal rubber band."? 'Infinitely stretchable' was ambiguous for this physics grad: infinitesimal elastic constant, or no limit on maximum extension? I feel as well that 'infinite' is such a squirrely beast it's best treated carefully. (CS: there is no difference between 'infinitesimal elastic constant' and 'no limit on maximum extension' ...) (DI: Of course, there is a difference. No limit on maximum extension means the string is never torn apart however long extended, this can be true even if the elastic constant is finite; infinitesimal elastic constant on the other side does not assume that the string is unbreakable - it can lose elasticity upon being extended, as elastic constant is usually defined at zero deformation.) (CS: well, there might be a difference, but the wording is clear enough.)
  • Ich wollte nur anmerken, dass die geradseitige Kopfzeile, die anscheinend "[Kapitelname] PUNKT [Section-Nummer] [Section-Name]" sein soll, die section number nur für geradzahlige sections ausgibt und bei ungeradenzahligen sections die Nummer weglässt. (CS: Wo genau? in Part 2 stimmt es nämlich; in Part 6 gibt es für alle Zahlen Ausnahmen)
  • Page 4 - "26th olympiad and the fourth year of the 28th olympiad" - "olympiad" should be capitalised (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 17, list of contributors: John Heumann is mentioned twice. (CS: thank you.)
  • Page 24, footnote *: ref should probably be '\ref' (CS: Thank you, it should be \appendixref - this error appears several times.)
  • Page 25, last paragraph: "...whether to understand it more precisely or more deeply, your are taking steps up Motion Mountain." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 30, bottom. "Throwing is one of the first physical experiment ..." Should be 'experiments', plural. (CS: thank you.)
  • Page 31 bottom left: the flip film should start in page 31, but they only start in page 39. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 34, footnote **, last line: "for quite while" should be "for quite a while" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 36, figure 13 "F I G U R E 13 What is the speed of the rolls? Are other roll shapes possible?" Should be 2 instances of the word 'rollers'. (CS: thank you.)
  • Page 36, challenge 23, What is the meaning of a "frictionless" ball? Isn't it the interaction of the ball and the table that is frictionless? And in this case, wouldn't the ball slide instead of roll, as suggested in the solutions? (CS: frictionless rolling is also imaginable; anyway, sliding or rolling changes the problem only slightly.)
  • Page 40, fig. 15 caption, and on at leat one other place: "pilot tube" should be "Pitot tube". Figure 15: the L-shaped tube used to measure an airplane's speed is incorrectly labeled as a "pilot tube." It is actually a pitot tube named after French scientist Henri Pitot. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 47: add "copyright Stefan Pietrzik" under the photo of the sundial. Add under the analemma picture later in the text that the precision sundial has the same shape. (CS: Thank you.)
  • The fourth line from the bottom of page 47 contains a grammatical error at the article "an." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 61, Challenge 58 s, penultimate sentence: "rubbed band" should read "rubber band" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 61, "where are the less obvious spots from which the a man can have exactly the same trip (forget the bear now) that was just described and being at home again?" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 73: Comma should be "Most animals, regardless of their size, achieve ..." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 73, Figure 42: Image is missing. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 73, Figure 43: The "secant slope: Δy/Δt" label is running over the "Δy" label making it difficult to read either. Similarly, the "derivative slope: dy/dt" label is difficult to read because the red tangent line interferes with it. I suggest repositioning the labels so they can be read more easily.
  • Page 89, Table 15: there are 2 differing values for "Planck momentum" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 92, Footnotes: labels for "Challenge 150 s" and "Page 94" cover one another so as to be illegible. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 111, 6th line of first paragraph: not "el Ninño" but "El Niño" - note both the capital E and the spelling. See, for example, http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/ (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 111, Challenge 186 s, last sentence: "how it work?" should be "how it works?" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 129, "It is possible to make a spinning top with a metal paper clip. It is even possible to make one of those tops with [that] turn onto their head when spinning." Remove 'with' (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 133, just before Eq. 29: 'inestigation' (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 155, sentence before Eq. 47: "a bungee cord" might be preferable over "a rubber". Colloquially, "a rubber" refers to a condom, which is not what is meant here. Besides, the material rubber is only one component in a proper bungee cord. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 158, Challenge 300 s: What is the [relationship?] between a stone... (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 167, Challenge 338 r: to weak -> too weak (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 168, Challenge 335: “But there are places, such as on the coast of ,”. The place name is missing. (CS: Thank you, this should be "Vietnam")
  • Page 230, 1st paragraph, last sentence: "..by predators to detect herring, and they might even by used by future fishing vessels." should be "..might even be used...". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 232: "quicktime" should be capitalised to "QuickTime" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 238, Table36, 8th row: '5hPa bellow atmospheric pressure' should be '5kPa ...'. (CS: No, this is correct: 5 mbar is 5 hPa)
  • Page 238, Table36, 9th row: 'Healthy human blood pressure: systolic, diastolic 17kPa, 11kPa' should maybe be changed to 'differential pressure' or 'above atmospheric pressure'. (CS: I'll do this.)
  • Page 243, near 'Challenge 464': 'sped' should be 'speed'. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 245, bottom: "blood circultion speeds" should be "blood circulation speeds". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 247 : the paperboat record is now 5132 g (CS: Thank you.)
I wasn't careful enough. Wikipedia Leidenfrost point is without reference that will confirm it. I checked "boiling point" of oil at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_oil and the Leidenfrost point of 220C seemed to me too high. Nevertheless all the references to Leidenfrost point of water that I found where for the clean surface. No reference to water droplets on oil films. Only reference to water on cooking oil I found at http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0031-9120/24/5/312/pev24i5p300.pdf where author mentioned that oil film will remove roughness and decrease Leidenfrost temperature. (CS: I saw one other article quoting 220 C; but I'll look for more.)
  • Page 260, 4th line from the bottom: Text from previous page is mixed into the table. (CS: thank you.)
  • Page 263, last paragraph: My understanding of the text is that decrease of entropy of Earth will make it hotter. I would say that it is opposite. (CS: thank you.)
  • Page 265, the gas law is pV = kNT and not pV = (3/2)kNT (CS: this is really a bad one...)
  • Page 275: The answer to the Challenge 539s seems to have no relation to the question. (CS: improved)
  • Page 283, "Oscillons in sand are [a] simple example[s] for a general it is still un[c]lear..."
  • Page 288, 290, Challenges 580,581,584: There are links but no solutions (links to solutions are bad). (CS: in fact, I have no solutions there)
  • Page 290, "Like for all complex movements, learning then [them] is o... You can go tho [to] the extreme..." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 293 "One is that the information of the universe cannot be summarized in a book; them [then] a perfect physics book is again impossible." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 361, Challenge 539: It seems this is not solution to the Challenge 539. (CS: yes there is, after 535, but the ordering is wrong and the answer is terse ...)
  • Page 312, Ref 206: Citation is missing. (CS: yes, I need to find a good one.)
  • Page 313, Ref 219: link seems to be broken. (CS: should be this one: [1])
  • Page 331, Challenge 17: there needs to be a space between up and 'standard deviation'. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 332, in the text for Challenge 38, I believe the word "this" should be "thus". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 359, Challenge 464: I believe 'k' should be 'A2 sqrt(...)', not 'A1 A2 sqrt(...)' (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 361: "...step is to deduce the number number of these particles..." (CS: Thank you)
  • Page 388, last footnote, "instead of calling in" s/b "instead of calling it". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 391, "equations taht describe" typo (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 412, "In addition, every action of a system – such [as] a caress, a smile or a look – takes its energy from a reduction in mass." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 443, Ref 317, S. Stephan s/b S. Schiller. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 497: "Cat's-eyes" isn't usually hypenated. (CS: I used British writing, is done throughout the text, at least 9 times.)
  • Page 540, BC : first paragraph, read "The Earth’s solid core is too hot to be a permanent magnet" "too" and not "to"... (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 583, BC : second paragraph, "Lunokhod missions" instead of "Lunakhod missions" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 597, BC : footnote : "Ludimar Hermann" instead of "Ludimar Herrmann" (r in excess) (CS: Thank you.)
  • p. 598, 21st ed. As far as I know, the motto of Oxford University is not "sapientia felicitas" but "Dominus illuminatio mea". I haven't been able to trace "sapientia felicitas"; http://www.pwruff.de/sprachen/latein/dctr.htm quotes it from p. 47 of Mletzko, M.: Variatio delectat (Bamberg: C.C.Buchner 1998) but no primary source is given. (CS: it seems to be an inscription in Oxford, not its motto - thank you)
I have done a little more research, and found the following in an 1830 book entitled The British herald, or Cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility & gentry of Great Britain & Ireland (link to Google Books version: "OXFORD, University, az. on a book, open, ppr. garnished or, on the dexter side, seven seals of the last; betw. three open crowns of the second, the words, Sapientia, felicitas. Note.— For several years past, these words have been omitted, and the following substituted in their stead, Dominus illuminatio mea". So it seems that "sapientia felicitas" was indeed the motto until relatively recently. I have no idea why it was changed.
CS: Here is even more, by the University itself: [2]
Fascinating. So we have at least three variants on the phrase, but I don't think any of them can actually be translated as "wisdom is happiness". The version from the 1830 book would be just "wisdom, happiness", and those from Oxford's website "of wisdom and happiness" and "by/with/from wisdom and happiness". But Oxford's website mentions that it may come from Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles, so perhaps the formulation there is different. I can't find a complete etext of Summa contra gentiles to check this.
CS: I found a etext of SCG, and the phrase appears there, but in an obscure corner. Better is the following question asked by Buridan in his Questions on Aristotle's rhetoric (II,49) [3]: "Utrum maxime sint invidiosi qui honorantur in sapientia et felicitate" or "Whether the most enviable people are those who are distinguished in wisdom and happiness." These ideas seem to go back to the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10, Chapter 7 and 8
  • Page 600, BC : end of last paragraph, ")" missing : (The picture does not show... (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 640, Table 60: I think (looking at other tables) that this table should be zebra-striped. (CS: I'll think about it.)
  • Page 658, Table 65, entry for "Electric fence" is repeated. (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 666, 4th line: "These structures allow one to count single electrons" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 784, BC : error in latex : "...partly in the following and partly in refsetnum." (CS: Thank you, should be \appendixref{setnum},i.e. "Appendix B" )
  • Page 787, BC : read "...actually even to the simpler ZF definition." intead of "...actually even to the simper ZF definition." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 787, BC : read "That is where the real fun starts." instead of "That is were the real fun starts." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 791, BC : error in latex : "...semi-ring, as explained in refsetnum." It seems that this error appear in the whole book (again in page 793, 795). (CS: Thank you, should be \appendixref{setnum}, i.e. "Appendix B" )
  • Page 803: footnote - Should be "Gabriel Tarde" instead of the current "Gabiel Tarde" (missing the r) (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 805, BC : read "Similarly, the specific statement..." instead of "Similarly, the the specific statement..." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 810, BC : read "Since about a thousand years,..." instead of "Since about a thosand years,..." and "that they have 'miraculously' suffered" instead of "that they have 'miracolously' suffered" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 816, BC : read "...avoiding three common mistakes..." instead of "...avoiding hree common mistakes..." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 819, "every scientists [scientist] is a friend of both of these" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 831, BC : read "...but unnecessary for apes or for pigs." instead of "...but unnecessary apes or for pigs." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 931, 1st para. Missing word ("terms"?) after "Both these useless...". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1065, 5th line. "...of atoms and rge necessity..." should probably be "...of atoms and the necessity..." Ciao CriCro! (CS: grazie, Lele!)
  • Page 1077, "L’horologe fait de la r éclame pour le temps." (CS: grazie)
  • Page 1078, "Die ZukunŸ war fr üher auch besser." mi sembra strano, ma non so il tedesco quindi può essere OK. ciao (CS: grazie)
  • Page 1090, "Over 50 000 poisons are known, starting with water (usually kills is [when] drunk in amounts larger than about...However, no[t] at [all] poisons are chemical." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1097, "US-American physicistEdwin Hall" a blank is missing after "physicist" (CS: Thank you)
  • Page 1107, "In future, there is a high chance...", should probably read "In the future..." or "In future years...". (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1158, footnote: "Hess gold foils" -> "Hess used gold foils"? (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1166, 5 lines from bottom: "first man who thought" -> "first man thought" OR "first man who was thought"? (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1192, line 6 from bottom: "Despite this hiccup, ..." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1278, "Energy costs about 10 cents/kWh" Cents of Euro?, of US Dollar? (CS: the difference is smaller than the error bars)
  • Page 1280, "wait to [for] the universe to contract." (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1381, "Any attempt to divide space must stops [stop] when (or before) we reach Planck scales" (CS: Thank you.)
  • Page 1318, "In light of the above discussion, it may seem silly to [talk] about the age of the" (CS: Thank you.)


The misprints above will be corrected in the forthcoming "third printing" of the 21st edition. The misprints below have already been corrected into the present edition 21, of December 2007, now downloadable at the website:


  • All Figure and Table references are wrong by one unit. (CS: this will be corrected in the final edition of edition 21)
  • Page 37, Figure 14: Figure 13 is missed. There is problem in numbering of Figures throughout the book (misses by one). (Lithis: Not just Figure 13 is missed; any time two figures are horizontally adjacent, a figure number is skipped. Table numbers are off by one in the text, also.) (CS: thank you - this is corrected in the latest version)
  • Page 77, Line 14-15: "...; they have special clothes THAN press on the pilot’s bodies to ..." should be "clothes THAT press". (CS: thank you - I will include this correction in the final version 21)
  • Page 156, Challenge 287 s "What is cheapest was to switch gravity off..." should be "What is the cheapest way to switch gravity off..." (CS: thank you - I will include this correction in the final version 21)
  • Page 168, Challenge 336: Link to answer does not work (the answer is not in the book). (CS: please download the latest version: the challenge is now at page 167, and the link works)
  • Page 203, 5th paragraph: Explanation of water waves at page 203. Velocity of individual waves should be replaced with phase velocity. (CS: thank you - I will include this correction in the final version 21)
  • Page 344, Challenge 134 - 135: Text incomplete (last sentences of both Challenges) (CS: thank you - I will include this correction in the final version 21)
  • Page 359, Challenge 428: Reference to page 686 should be to 687 instead. (CS: thank you - I will include this correction in the final version 21)


The misprints below were all worked in into version 21, of December 2007, available at the web site.


  • Page 23, Challenge 2, 4th item: "near" appears twice. (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 32, very bottom: "also" twice in sentence. Added by VR (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 45: Speed of radio messages in space should be "299792458 m/s" not "299972458 m/s"? Moridin 11:59, 2 April 2007 (CEST) (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 98, Foucault's pendulum: sign error (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 127, citation: "How long is a day on the Moon? The answer is roughly 14 Earth-days. That is the time that it takes for the Moon to see the Sun again in the same position." 29 days is lunar day (one rotation), 14 days is sunny part of the day. (CS: thank you, this bad mistake will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 283, the first letter of chap. II does not obey the drop caps pattern of other chapters; however, section 5 does (the letter "L"), which it shouldn't, since it does not start a chapter. (Sorry if I'm being too picky, but I love the drop cap starting each line in the begining of a chapter.)
  • Page 289, "However, electromagnetism forbids the such a phenomenon" - Prob. shouldn't have "the". (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 290, footnote **: The book by Einstein is dated 1917 instead of 1997. (By JM) (CS: thank you, will be clarified in version 21; in fact both 1917 AND 1997 are correct)
  • Page 297: "We follow that the speed..." -> "We conclude that ..." or something like that? (CS: thank you, will be improved in version 21)
  • Page 310, ligne 8 : il manque un point : "as shown in Figure 165. Imagine that both" (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 322, avant dernier paragraphe : lire "...before and after neutron capture on one hand,.." au lieu de "...before and after neutron capture one one hand,..." (merci, sera corrigé dans la version 21)
  • Page 333, deuxième paragraphe, il manque un espace après la virgule et un point à la fin de la phrase : "...on a rotating circle, as shown in Figure 182." (merci, sera corrigé dans la version 21)
  • Page 345, very bottom: "vertcial" -> "vertical". (Thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 347 vers la fin lire "Atomic nuclei have a size of a few femtometres." instead of "Atomic nuclei have a size of a few femotometres." (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 412, BC : dernier paragraphe : lire "gravitodynamics" instead of "gravtitodynamics" (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 435, BC : avant-dernier paragraphe : read "near to the inverse square of the present radius of the universe" instead of "near to the square of the present radius of the universe" (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 445, BC : lire "...since they passed the orbit of Saturn." au lieu de "...since thy passed the orbit of Saturn." (manque e) (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 446, BC : read "...the word galaxy is just the original Greek term..." instead of "...th word galaxy is just the original Greek term..." (e missing again) (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 483, BC : third paragraph, capital letter : "The value is large..." instead of "the value is large..." (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 486, BC : "During the formation of planets, matter clumps together...", isn't it "lump" ? (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 507, BC : end of page (last line), read "...involving stars..." instead of "...invloving stars..." (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • Page 526, The footnote is cut off. It reads "The Kirlian effect, which allows one to make such intriguingly beautiful photographs, is due to a time-". This should be corrected. (CS: will try to correct in version 21; footnote continues on next page)
  • Page 534, BC : last footnote, read "...but his apparatuses were not sensitive enough." instead of "but his apparatuses where not sensitive enough." (merci, sera corrige dans la version 21)
  • page 594, Text following equation 454, should read: "where Delta x is the indeterminacy in position and Delta p the indeterminacy in momentum." (CS: both page and equation number are wrong...)
  • page 611, line 3 from above: loose ==> lose (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 757, equation 497: should have wavenumber instead of wavelength; by Daniel Huber (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 765, double "when when" in the first half of page (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 774, "if if" (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 781, "teh first time" (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 782, "can contains" (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 800, footnote: should be "received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1963", not "in 1993" (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 851, very top: change "their frequency" to "the accuracy of their frequency"; by Daniel Huber (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 852: change first "final" in matrix element of eq 582 to "initial"; by Daniel Huber (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 896: table at the top of the page looks horrible because second and third columns almost merge with each other. Also, "many other effect" (should be "effects"); by AM (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 897, top of the page: orphan line "black holes, are also being investigated"; by AM (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 902, "small but difference" (significant difference?); by AM (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 937, bottom: "phosphorous" should be "phosphorus" and mass number for phosphorus should be "31 15 P" instead of "4 15 P"; by AM (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 938, table 68: in highly radioactive beta and gamma emitters, "> 9" should be, I think, "> 10^9" (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Bottom of page 948: "such carbon, nitrogen or oxygen" should be "such as" by AM (CS: will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 959: "the Z boson was found found" (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 1074, Bibliography-Item 1105: There is still the old adress "www.dse.nl/motionmountain/..." mentioned and has to be updated to "www.motionmountain.net/...". (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Appendix A, third line: The word "naturally" doesn't share the big 'N' letter. (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • PDF bookmarks / Appendix A: The hiearchy "1. Latin, 1.1 Greek, 1.1.1 Hebrew" etc. seems unnatural, why not "1. Latin, 2. Greek, 3. Hebrew"? (CS: this is a dvips or ps2pdf bug; the levels are the same already)
  • Page 1163, middle of the first full paragraph: "the need fir systems" should be "the need for systems", I believe. (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 1212 / Challenge 1586: if z = a+ib is represented as M=(a,b;-b,a), then det M = |z|^2, not |z|. (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 1219, second line: The sentence starting with "Its generators obey since $i=...$" sounds awkward/unclear to me, maybe revise? (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 1255: Challenge 28 hint is between Challenge 82 and 83 hint, which seems somewhat odd. Moridin 11:27, 2 April 2007 (CEST) (CS: thank you, will be corrected in version 21)
  • Page 1281, Challenge 925: "Classical field can come out of a black hole because for an outside observer everything making it up is continuously falling, and nothing has actually crossed the horizon." Severel things are awkward. How about: "Classical fields can come out of a black hole, because for an outside observer everything that constitutes the black hole is continuously falling and has not crossed the horizon yet." (or something like that) (CS: thank you - will be improved in version 21)
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