Book Description
First You Build a Cloud does for physics what
the bestselling The Universe and the Teacup did for math. For
many of us, physics, like math, has always been a thing of
mystery and complexity. In First You Build a Cloud, K. C.
Cole provides cogent explanations through animated prose,
metaphors, and anecdotes, allowing us to comprehend the
nuances of physics-gravity and light, color and shape, quarks
and quasars, particles and stars, force and strength. We also
come to see how the physical world is so deeply intertwined
with the ways in which we think about culture, poetry, and
philosophy. Cole, one of our preeminent science writers,
serves as a guide into the world of such legendary scientific
minds as Richard Feynman, Victor Weisskopf, brothers Frank
Oppenheimer and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Philip Morrison, Vera
Kistiakowsky, and Stephen Jay Gould.