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Art and science

Art and science

Losing physics Pictionary

20 Jun 2017 Sarah Tesh
Taken from the June 2017 issue of Physics World

Sarah Tesh reviews Drawing Physics by Don S Lemons

Drawing Physics
Drawing Physics by Don S Lemons

Physics is often best explained with the help of a diagram, as anyone who has ever tried to explain the photoelectric effect will attest to. Whether in a lesson, lecture or coffee shop discussion, diagrams offer a simple way to portray complex information. Drawing Physics looks back on how this has been the case throughout history. In a series of short essays, author Don S Lemons aims to illustrate 51 key ideas in physics and mathematics using diagrams. Lemons, a physics professor at Bethel College in the US, begins as far back as Thales of Miletus and his work on triangulation in 600 BC, before travelling through the history of physics, up to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. On the way, he covers a huge array of topics aimed at those with little mathematical and physics background. As a book covering subjects from mechanics to astrophysics, it’s understandable that Lemons cannot go into much detail. Yet, rather than using his limited text to clearly explain the basic science, he focuses on the history of the scientists instead. While interesting, this seems to be a distraction from the book’s main aim as set out by Lemons in the preface, which was to outline the important role drawing has played in teaching and understanding physics. Furthermore, despite the book’s title, there are typically only two (poorly labelled) diagrams per chapter and these are not described particularly clearly. Although the book’s premise is promising, Lemons doesn’t quite do it justice. The diagram for the photoelectric effect, for example, is simply a rectangle containing circles with dashes and two wiggly arrows – there are no labels. His follow-up description is then reliant on bracketed directions, providing a rather stilted read. In a game of Pictionary, physicists may recognize this as a sea of electrons, two incoming photons and two outgoing photoelectrons, but Lemons’ target audience would likely be left wondering.

  • 2017 MIT Press 264pp £22.95hb

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