Suggestion Page

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Create an account, login and click on "edit" (here or above) and add your suggestion for the text. I'll comment as soon as I can. Thank you for your help!

There are 4 types of suggestions: 1) more images, 2) better explanations, 3) more topics and 4) better design. Please add errata and misprints on the dedicated page.


1) Suggestions for new images and films

  • Work with Bookdepository [1] or similar publisher to create a low-cost hardcopy version of the book. Reading the online version is useful for latest material, but a physical copy would be much easier. I could print it out, bind it etc. but easier just to purchase a good quality version. It can be "non profit", or maybe a low profit to support your foundation or physics promotion etc. It would also be available to more people who may not have internet access in less developed countries. (CS: I did not find a way to use book depository to create a hard copy version. I am trying with lulu.com, but I am appalled by the high costs that lulu.com charges for a colour book. I am afraid that a colour book will never be low-cost.)
  • Add more pictures of machines (maybe in a separate section; e.g. textile machine, turkey machine by Stork, tiny machines, calculating machines, etc.)
  • Add more pictures of experimental set-ups.
  • Add film of group and phase velocity.
  • Add film of bouncing water droplet, maybe in a material science section on surfaces.
  • What is shown in Fig. 169? It isn't clear from the figure caption. What are the white fishtails? (CS: the small spot between the "fishtails" is the floating atom; I will add an arrow. The fishtails are stray light from the apparatus)
  • This wonderful book about motion cannot be complete without at least one video clip of Michael Moschen, juggler, artist, dancer, physicist. I'm believe he would be delighted to contribute to this effort. (CS: I did not know him. Being an amateur juggler, I watched the videos on his homepage; but somehow I have difficulties relating any of his performances to the book. If you have a suggestion, let me know.)


2) Suggestions for better explanations

  • Section "Simple motion of extended bodies - oscillations and waves" - should define more properly group velocity and phase velocity (and maybe include signal velocity and anomalies with group velocity and transport of energy and information). Avoid terms like velocity of individual waves (e.g. page 230, 8th line from the bottom). Maybe show why is group velocity dw/dk and for phase velocity w/k. (CS: I want to include a film in the text, but have not yet found a beautiful one that I am allowed to use)
  • Page 328, Section "People Names". "In Russia, the family name is never used, but the first name of the father." -- This is not exactly true, or at least needs qualification. The family name is very rarely used when addressing a person in conversation. One of the exceptions was the formal addressing between the members of the Communist Party. Stalin was practically always addressed as "Comrade Stalin". However, the family name is commonly used when mentioning a third person, both orally and in writing. "For example, Lev Landau was called Lev Davidovich (‘son of David’) in Russia." -- The form 'first name + patronymic' is used in formal addressing and formal referencing. For his friends, Landau was simply 'Lev'. "For example, one finds the spelling Tarski, Tarskii and Tarsky for the same person." -- The context of the sentence somehow implies that Tarski was Russian; in fact, he was a Polish Jew. 'Tarski' even wasn't his real last name: he was born Alfred Tajtelbaum. (CS: Aargh, that of Tarski is a bad mistake. Of course he was Polish! But I do not get your point about the Russian patronymic: what should be changed in the text? The statement about Russian names is not really wrong. And Stalin was not a family name anyway.) Answer: "In Russia, the family name is never used, but the first name of the father" is an inaccurate statement ("never" is an overstatement; and the first name of the father is used in some situations, but not always -- see above). A more accurate statement would be something like: 'In Russia, when addressing a person in conversation, the family name is rarely used, but in the formal setting, the first name of the father is added to the person's first name.' I am sure you can make it sound better :-) . (By the way, in Russian, if you address a person in conversation by the last name preceded by 'Mr.' ('Gospodin' in Russian), it is considered very formal -- much more formal than 'first name + patronymic'. Should you omit the 'Mr.' prefix, the addressing would sound very rude. Pretty funny, but I am sure that Russian is by far not the most peculiar language in this respect.) (CS: Ok, I'll correct it.)


3) Suggestions for new topics and tables

  • Add more on the sea and on sunsets!
  • Add falling chainring story.
  • Explain caesium clock working.
  • Add ship and duck wake story.
  • Add challenges for exam preparation.
  • Add all figure and table captions in index.
  • Add quote(s) by Roger Bacon.
  • Add Paccini corpuscules.
  • Check text with formula collection.
  • Add photon counter images, channelplate, PMT.
  • Explain in more detail the working of a gravity wave detector (by CH).
  • Structure the sections into a minimal and an extended program (by SV).
  • via Ed Cryer: Add from Aritotle's Nicomachean Ethis, Book10, Chapter 7, the very end:τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον ἑκάστῳ τῇ φύσει κράτιστον καὶ ἥδιστόν ἐστιν ἑκάστῳ: καὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ δὴ ὁ κατὰ τὸν νοῦν βίος, εἴπερ τοῦτο μάλιστα ἄνθρωπος. οὗτος ἄρα καὶ εὐδαιμονέστατος. (1178a whatever is proper to each is naturally best and pleasantest to him: such then is to Man the life in accordance with pure Intellect (since this Principle is most truly Man), and if so, then it is also the happiest.) ὁ κατὰ τὸν νοῦν βίος the life in accordance with pure Intellect - I love that phrase, especially in Greek.
  • Include what a survey found about what the young boys (B) and girls (G) want to know from the sciences:
  1. how to ensure fitness (B+G)
  2. about reason and meaning of dreams (G)
  3. about cancer, HIV, narcotics, ST diseases, alcohol and tobacco effects, prevention, etc (G)
  4. about first aid and medical equipment (G)
  5. about diet, eating disorders (G) (CS: no)
  6. about nuclear bomb, explosives, biol. weapons, chem. weapons (B)
  7. about life outside Earth (B)
  8. CD, DVD and tapes: how they work (B)
  9. lasers for technical applications (B) (CS: done, but need photo)
  10. how does weightlessness in space feel (B)
  11. how computers work (B)
  • Maybe add something to the section on Black Holes about Eddington-Finkelstein and Kruskal coordinates and the topology of the extended spacetime manifold?
  • Add more on semiconductors.
  • Add more on nuclear physics.
  • Add more on optics; add progress on optics.
  • Add more topics on mechanisms and robots.
  • Add more topics on power generation by chemical means.
  • Add more on business aspects of physics.
  • Add mechanism of finger noises.
  • Teach calculations, including fractions, including mental calculations.
  • Add polarizability of matter from 10^8 to 10^18 Hz.
  • What shines/glows at night in a forest? (In a desert? On a mountain?) Why?
  • Introduce UV / VIS / IR spectroscopy.
  • Explain fluorescence spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy.
  • Explain confocal laser scan microscopy.
  • Explain circular dichroism.
  • Explain single molecule FRET.
  • Explain NMR and ESR, explain pulse sequences in laser spectroscopy.
  • Add mass spectroscopy, MALD-TOF, ESI.
  • Add crystallography, X-ray, neutrons.
  • Analytical ultracentrifugation.
  • Add more on calorimetry.
  • Inelastic electron scattering (for biomolecules).
  • Add more on blood circulation.
  • Add a brightness table (sunlight, candle, etc.) in the main text.
  • Add universe parameters.
  • Add the free will theorem.
  • Write to France for the falling cat images (Musee Marey).
  • Check neighborhood definition in appendix; I took that non-standard definition from a math text and cannot remember which one it was!
  • Add aphorisms by Zarko Petan.
  • Add: lauschen ist rauschen.
  • Phone Füssmann at the MPI for plasma cloud movie.
  • Add escape velocity table.
  • Added refs on Poynting vector for transformers?
  • Mathematics is the language and backbone of sciences, and especially so for the fundamental science known as physics. It would be cool to also include some sections to introduce the concepts of mathematics, especially on space and vectors, and the different coordinate systems, DIFFERENTIAL and integral equations that is so vital to describe anything is physics in a precise manner. (CS: spaces and vectors are explained in the text already in detail; different coordinate systems will probably not be included; but I agree that more on differential equations needs to be added.)
  • Explain metal conductivity; by HD.
  • Explain superconductivity.
  • Add more on the enteric nervous system.
  • Add explanation on artificial eggs, artificial tomato, artificial shrimp.
  • Add story about the Lake Nyos CO2 disaster in Cameroon.
  • Add one of the fake terahertz images and the challenge to show why; add backscatter X ray imaging.


4) Suggestions for better tools and design

  • Psfrag all pictures in C2A, C2C, C3G, C4E, C5A, C6Z, C11 (rest is already done).
    • AdobeSerif and Times-Italic: p1259 (very ugly figure right now)
    • SSymbol p. 1276/1278
    • Symbol p. 68/84/107/118/157/162/228/229/413/420/441/442/445/461/465/534/536/582/584/707/724/742/755/831/960/986/1004/1014/1032/1067/1175/1201/1259/1268/1297/1311/1430
    • Re-Do Fig. 408 with pstricks
  • Correggere le vignette per C12, C13 e C14.
  • Latex acronyms: how do they work in titles, in index, in captions, in bookmarks?
  • Get all figure tops aligned to the text-top.
  • Add ‘‘Table xx continued’’ on longtables.
  • Add language to citations in the latex code.
  • Use a professional designer for illustrations, change them to the quality required for offset printing.
  • Redesign the cover and back cover.
  • Why is SFBX font used for displayed quotations? First occurrence: top of p.10
  • reduce pdf size by removing photoshop/illustrator metadata. Either pre-process ps before distilling with awk/perl or use commercial application 'pdf enhancer'. Saves 14.1MB
  • convert all videos to one common codec. Use h.264 in case that by the time of the next book release Windows Media Player ships out of the box with this codec. Should save an additional 7MB & ensure future compatibility and playability across platforms -- once all major platforms come with this codec.
  • Bracket sizes in Eq. 317-321, 354, 356, 386
  • empty equation 411, probably due to superfluous final double backslash in align environment
  • All vectors are not printed as Minion vector fonts, but as cmr bitmap fonts. For an example, see equation 14 on page 80.


5) Suggestion for Document Properties.

  • Allow fuller use of the initial view tab in document properties. This will allow a user to open the file at the last page they were viewing. (CS: if you explain me how to do this in Acrobat Pro 8, I will implement it.)
  • Presently, the user experience on several e-reading platforms (e.g. Sony Reader, Smartphones etc.)is quite poor due to reduced page size and lack of reflowing capabilities. Suggestion is to publish the document in ePub format, hence enabling portable device users to reflow the pdf source, dramatically improving usability on these media.If that should not work for the complete version, it should be at least feasible for the read aloud version (e.g. no pictures = smoother reflow). Alternatively: upload the book on www.feedbooks.com, they provide this service for all the books uploaded on their site. (CS: converting by myself is not possible in my lifetie, due to time limitations; using www.feedbooks.com is not possible because of their unfair copyright agreement)
  • How about recompiling it with a different size, so it is easier readable on 6" e-ink devices? At least for sony reader, the following settings "lmargin=3mm, tmargin=2mm, rmargin=6mm, bmargin=3mm, paperwidth=88mm, paperheight=115mm" together with 11pt or 12pt font work for me.
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