BASIC PHYSICS

‘Basic Physics: Principles and Concepts’ is a book meant for students of physics from the late school to college levels, covering both general and advanced course materials. It is a great text on basic concepts in physics over a wide range of topics with a truly broad coverage, which makes it a source-book of unique value to students of physics – one that will be of use for teachers of the subject too.  Students and teachers in related subjects like chemistry, biology, and the various engineering disciplines will also benefit greatly from it.

The book is completely modern in approach, and is exhaustive and authentic. The presentation is exceptionally lucid, and captures the essential charm of physics. All the concepts are developed from elementary considerations, and are built up to quite advanced levels without loss of coherence, simplicity, or elegance. The mathematics is essentially at the high school level, and relatively advanced mathematical ideas have all been built up in a self-contained manner.

What is the principle of similitude? What are polar and axial vectors? What is a wrench? How are sliding and rolling friction explained? What is an anharmonic oscillator? What is tidal force? How are the principal components of strain and stress defined? How does the time period of angular oscillations of a floating body depend on the metacentric height? What is boundary layer separation? What is the entropy principle? How does the Döppler formula look in the case of accelerated motion of the source and the observer? What is the relevance of diffraction in image formation? What is electrostatic shielding? What is the pathway of energy flow in an electrical circuit? What is ferromagnetism? What is back-EMF in a DC motor? What are metamaterials? What are the basic features of Rayleigh scattering? What is population inversion in laser operation? How are harmonic oscillators relevant in the explanation of the black body spectrum? What is relativistic aberration? What is spin-orbit coupling? What are the features of an op-amp? What is a SR flip-flop?

For answers to all these and to a host of other relevant questions, you have to turn to the pages of this book. It has nineteen meticulously written chapters systematically divided into sections and subsections, a large number of illustrations with self-contained captions, and a number of well chosen problems with hints for their solution.

Avijit Lahiri is a renowned teacher and author, with numerous research publications in several areas of theoretical and mathematical physics. He has authored a number of books in physics at college and university levels, all uniformly appreciated by students and teachers in the respective subject areas, and has lectured extensively on a wide range of topics of both general and special interest at academic institutions.