October 1915–April 1918

Word Count: 41743

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This book is a journey through the world of physics and cosmology, and an exploration of our role in this universe. We will address questions such as: What if the force of gravity were a little stronger? What if there were more of fewer atoms in our universe? What if Newton and not Einstein had been right? Would we still be here? Can the universe exist without us to observe it? Can chance explain the world around us, as well as us?

The purpose of this book is to phrase these questions and pursue the consequences of potential answers through rigorous scientific reasoning; in the process we will learn how the very small and the very large are interconnected, and even how we can affect events that happened six billion years ago.

Licensed CC-BY-4.0 with attribution instructions on page 2 of the document.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7
The fundamental forces 10
The force of gravity 18
What if … the force of gravity were different? 23
The electric and magnetic forces 26
The electric force 27
What if … the electric force were different? 39
The magnetic force 48
What if … the magnetic force were different? 58
The strong and weak forces 59
What if … ? 65
How do forces work? 74
The history of the universe 85
What if … ? 94
The history of our species 106
Odds 124
The building blocks of the universe 128
What if … ? 140
Dark energy 150
What if … dark matter were more interesting? 159
When you do not look…. 162
Manifestations of the wave nature of matter 169
The delayed choice experiment: Affecting the past 186
What if … ? 191
The story so far 195
Unification and our role 199
Fine-tuning? 214
The Multiverse and aliens 226
The laws of physics 234
The Anthropic Principle and Puddle Theory 237
Post mortem 249
Further reading and chapter notes 251

This is an introductory text intended for a one-year introductory course of the type typically taken by biology majors, or for AP Physics 1 and 2. Algebra and trig are used, and there are optional calculus-based sections. My text for physical science and engineering majors is Simple Nature.

The job of a synthetic chemist is akin to that of an architect. While the architect could actually see the building he is constructing, a molecular architect called chemist is handicapped by the fact that the molecule he is synthesizing is too small to be seen. With such a limitation, how does he ‘see’ the developing structure? For this purpose, a chemist makes use of spectroscopic tools. How does he cut, tailor and glue the components on a molecule that he cannot see? For this purpose chemists have developed molecular level tools called Reagents and Reactions. How does he clean the debris and produce pure molecules? This feat is achieved by crystallization, distillation and extensive use of Chromatography techniques. A mastery over several such techniques enables the molecular architect (popularly known as organic chemist) to achieve the challenging task of synthesizing the myriade of molecular structures encountered in Natural Products Chemistry, Drug Chemistry and modern Molecular Materials. In this task, organic chemists are further guided by several ‘thumb rules’ that chemists have evolved over the past two centuries.

Overview: This textbook covers modern topics that environmental geologists encounter, including environmental laws, disasters, and climate change.

Short Description:
The book examines the work of Terence Grieder, an early pre-Columbian art historian of wide-ranging interests and often provocative stances. His students and other intellectual descendants discuss his major ideas through examples drawn from their own work. The work of those he mentored is in the end the most important testament to his continuing influence in the field.

Word Count: 77114

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Short Description:
Most chemistry textbooks introduce students to the mathematics of chemistry, such as scientific notation, significant digits, and unit conversions. However, many students need to review and practice other mathematical topics, such as powers of ten, metric prefixes and conversions, determining when conversions are exact or measured, solving equations for a variable, and canceling units. This book contains tutorials on these topics, as well as links to more practice problems. It is suitable for any beginning introductory or general chemistry student.

Word Count: 5839

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Mathematics for Biomedical Physics is an open textbook, published by the Wayne State University Library System, geared to introduce several mathematical topics at the rudimentary level so that students can appreciate the applications of mathematics to the interdisciplinary field of biomedical physics. Most of the topics are presented in their simplest but rigorous form so that students can easily understand the advanced form of these topics when the need arises. Several end-of-chapter problems and chapter examples relate the applications of mathematics to biomedical physics. After mastering the topics of this book, students would be ready to embark on quantitative thinking in various topics of biology and medicine.

This is a calculus-based book meant for the first semester of the type of freshman survey course taken by engineering and physical science majors. A treatment of relativity is interspersed with the Newtonian mechanics, in optional sections. The book is designed so that it can be used as a drop-in replacement for the corresponding part of Simple Nature, for instructors who prefer a traditional order of topics. Simple Nature does energy before force, while Mechanics does force before energy. Simple Nature has its treatment of relativity all in a single chapter, rather than in parallel with the development of Newtonian mechanics.

Open textbook in statics and dynamics for engineering undergraduates. Covers particles and rigid bodies (extended bodies), structures (trusses), simple machines, kinematics, and kinetics, as well as introductory vibrations. Includes text, videos, images, and worked examples (written and video).

In Mechanics and Relativity, the reader is taken on a tour through time and space. Starting from the basic axioms formulated by Newton and Einstein, the theory of motion at both the everyday and the highly relativistic level is developed without the need of prior knowledge. The relevant mathematics is provided in an appendix. The text contains various worked examples and a large number of original problems to help the reader develop an intuition for the physics. Applications covered in the book span a wide range of physical phenomena, including rocket motion, spinning tennis rackets and high-energy particle collisions.

Microorganisms are the most abundant form of life on Earth and in recent decades it has become increasingly clear that their collective activities are one of the dominant forces shaping the planet.

This book provides earth scientists with an introduction to microbiology and a look at the ways microorganisms are important to their area of expertise. The first part of this book summarizes some basic information about microorganisms, including a discussion of their diversity, physical properties, and metabolisms. From there, the second and third portions of the book are organized around the two-way interactions between microorganisms and their environments. The second portion of the book considers the ways that environmental conditions help determine distributions of microbial activity, including chapters focused on thermodynamic, kinetic, and biological factors. The third and final portion of the book examines the impacts of microbes on their environments. These impacts are placed within the context of earth system science, with chapters focused on impacts to the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. In these chapters, emphasis is placed on microbial impacts to greenhouse gas levels and the quality of water resources, underscoring the relevance of microbiology to environmental concerns of keen interest in the earth science community and beyond.

This book is specifically designed for earth science students and can provide a helpful free resource for students in Geomicrobiology courses. However, portions of the book can also have value for students and professionals from any field who are interested in environmental microbiology.

Minerals are our planet. They form the Earth and the bedrock that we live on, making up all of Earth’s rocks and sediments, and they are important components in soils. So, they literally are the foundations for our lives. Perhaps because they are ubiquitous, most people don’t even notice them or consider that all rock is made of minerals. But, engineers do because building a bridge or other structure on unstable material, or using poor ingredients for construction of all sorts, would lead to disasters. And, farmers care about minerals because healthy soils produce great crops. Petrologists who study rocks of all sorts need to know about minerals. And others who use resources in manufacturing need minerals. So, the world’s people rely on minerals. And, minerals, mineral production, and the study of minerals are absolutely essential to maintain our lifestyles.

This is an open-source, modern physics textbook typically for the third semester students majoring in engineering, physics or chemistry. An emphasis is placed on fundamental principles as well as numerical solutions to equations where no analytical solutions exist. The content begins with optics and uses that as a stepping stone to wave phenomena and quantum systems.

This type of physics course can easily seem to the student like a random grab-bag of topics, consisting of everything that didn’t fit in the earlier semesters on mechanics and electromagnetism. But there is a clear organizing principle for most of what we’ll be studying. It has to do with two surprising facts about time. In particular, one of these facts leads us to the conclusion that light and matter can’t really be made of particles, as envisioned by Isaac Newton’s grand vision of the universe — they must be made of waves.

Short Description:
This open online course is designed to help government, professionals in multiple disciplines and community organizations understand the fast-emerging field of natural asset management.

Long Description:
This course is designed to help local government staff, professionals in multiple disciplines who work with them, and people involved with community organizations, understand the fast-emerging field of natural asset management.

At the end of the course, participants will understand: What natural asset management is, why it matters, and what conditions enable or hinder it How natural asset management is relevant in your own disciplines or community contexts What you may be able to do differently as a result of knowing more about natural asset management Where you can get additional information on natural asset management

This course is part of the Adaptation Learning Network led by the Resilience by Design Lab at Royal Roads University. The project is supported by the Climate Action Secretariat of the BC Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Strategy and Natural Resources Canada through its Building Regional Adaptation Capacity and Expertise (BRACE) program. The BRACE program works with Canadian provinces to support training activities that help build skills and expertise on climate adaptation and resilience.

Word Count: 3588

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as “geospatial”).

The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as “geospatial”).

Short Description:
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon and carbon-containing compounds. Since the core structural, catalytic, information storage, and retrieval systems of organisms are carbon-based macromolecules, organic chemistry is of direct relevance to the life sciences. Just as importantly, the properties of carbon make possible an amazing range of molecules with unique properties, from small molecules to complex plastics and even more complex biomolecules.

Long Description:
The essence of organic chemistry is how carbon atoms interact with other atoms and groups of atoms to produce an astounding array of complex and interesting molecules. The basics of bonding and intermolecular interactions are introduced in the general chemistry version of CLUE (Chemistry, Life, the Universe & Everything), along with how the structure of a molecule affects its properties, how the energy changes associated with chemical and physical changes can be predicted and explained, and how chemical systems can be stabilized or perturbed by changing conditions. These four core ideas (structure-property relationships, bonding and interactions, energy, and stability, and change) are continued on into OCLUE and are deepened and expanded as we discover and explain ever more complex chemical systems.

Word Count: 52755

ISBN: 978-1-62610-102-9

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This wiki is a collaboration between current and former students at UC Davis, with Professor Tessa Hill. Content will include a broad survey of oceanography, including geological, chemical, physical and biological aspects, as well as significant content on major issues in Oceanography and human impacts on this environment. Oceanography is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean and covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries.