The Nature of Matter by David Ball - Ebook | Scribd

The Nature of Matter by David Ball - Ebook | Scribd

The Nature of Matter: Understanding the Physical World (Transcript)
Ebook  473 pages12 hours

By David Ball
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

The Nature of Matter: Understanding the Physical World is the companion book to the audio/video series of the same name. It contains a full transcript of the series as well as the complete course guidebook which includes lecture notes, bibliography, and more.

About this series:

From new words such as "bling" and "email" to the role of text messaging and other electronic communications, English is changing all around us. Discover the secrets behind the words in our everyday lexicon with this delightful, informative survey of English, from its Germanic origins to the rise of globalization and cyber-communications. Professor Curzan approaches words like an archaeologist, digging below the surface to uncover the story of words, from the humble "she" to such SAT words as "conflagration" and "pedimanous." In these 36 fascinating lectures, you'lldiscover the history of the dictionary and how words make it into a reference book like the Oxford English Dictionary;
survey the borrowed words that make up the English lexicon;
find out how words are born and how they die;
expand your vocabulary by studying Greek and Latin "word webs"; and
revel in new terms, such as "musquirt," "adorkable," and "struggle bus."English is an omnivorous language and has borrowed heavily from the many languages it has come into contact with, from Celtic and Old Norse in the Middle Ages to the dozens of world languages in the truly global 20th and 21st centuries. You'll be surprised to learn that the impulse to conserve "pure English" is nothing new. In fact, if English purists during the Renaissance had their way, we would now be using Old English compounds such as "flesh-strings" for "muscles" and "bone-lock" for "joint." You may not come away using terms like "whatevs" or "multislacking" in casual conversation, but you'll love studying the linguistic system that gives us such irreverent - and fun - slang, from "boy toy" to "cankles."
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PublisherThe Great Courses
Release dateMay 1, 2015



DB
Author
David Ball

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https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-nature-of-matter-understanding-the-physical-world

Course Overview

Matter is the raw material of the universe. Stars, planets, mountains, oceans, and atmospheres are all made of matter. So are plants and animals—including humans and every material thing we have ever produced. Amazingly, this immense variety is generated by a limited number of chemical elements that combine in simple,...

24 Lectures

Average 31 minutes each

1

Matter, Energy, and Entropy

2

The Nature of Light and Matter

3

A New Theory of Matter

4

The Structure of Atoms and Molecules

5

The Stellar Atom-Building Machine

6

The Amazing Periodic Table

7

Ionic versus Covalent Matter

8

The Versatile Element: Carbon

9

The Strange Behavior of Water

10

Matter in Solution

11

Interactions: Adhesion and Cohesion

12

Surface Energy: The Interfaces among Us

13

The Eloquent Chemistry of Carbon Compounds

14

Materials for Body Implants

15

The Chemistry of Food and Drink

16

Fuels and Explosives

17

The Air We Breathe

18

Materials: The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages

19

Again and Again: Polymers

20

Recycling Materials

21

Resistance Is Futile: Superconductors

22

Resistance Is Useful: Semiconductors

23

Out of Many, One: Composites

24

The Future of Materials

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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33554844-the-nature-of-matter

Charlene

875 reviews · 504 followers

December 12, 2017

Can you be in love with a lecture series? I mean really in love, releasing all the dopamine and oxytocin-- smack dab into that nucleus accumbens-- that you release when falling in love with a human being? If so, then I am in love with this lecture series. I felt the same way about John Kricher's Ecological Planet lecture series. Maybe if it hadn't been so long since I had taken a chemistry or biology class, I would have liked this series but not loved it. There is simply nothing better in life than thinking about how matter, which makes up everything we will ever see, works. It's always magical to me. It doesn't matter how many times I learn about it -- most of this wasn't new to me, and if you have had a few courses in chem, bio, and biochem it won't be that new to you -- it blows my mind every time. I make new connections in the old material. I turn it all over and over and over in my brain and feel a continual deep sense of awe. I tried as long as I could to not finish this series because I will miss it like I would miss an old friend who moved away.

All the matter you will ever encounter is governed by the same fundamental laws of physics. David Ball put together 24 marvelous lectures to bring the magic of those laws to life. You don't need to have any background in the sciences. All that is needed is a curious mind.

Lecture series starts a bit slow. Don't give up. It gets better with each lecture.

Some questions raised by this series:

What do we know about the matter that makes up our world and how did we come to know it? What advances arose each time we discovered new elements and how to take advantage of these new elements?

Why does the term, "Shape determines function," matter and why is so awesome? (Chemicals bond in predictable ways, using simple rules. The shape of each element and each form determines how it will interact with other matter. This matters on the tiniest level possible and the largest level possible. For example, on a microscopic level, receptors reside on cells and interact with ligands (something that wants to fit into that receptor). Ligands and receptors fit together (have that have affinity for each other) when they are the right shape. You can picture a receptor meeting its soulmate ligand and saying, "You are just my type!" When they bond, because they are the right shape, they have reactions that occur on much bigger levels. The bonding of ligand with a receptor might dictate how you bond with a lover, whether you laugh or cry. On a less emotional level, you can think about how the molecules in a vitamin or a pill of medicine mimic the very shape of food or a brain chemical that can kill pain. David Ball does a wonderful job of explaining how chemist mimic different elements in food or in the brain. So good! The shape of things, big and small, allows the interactions of all the matter --which, again, is everything you will ever see in the physical world-- to occur. It is what makes everything happen, all around you, all the time.)

Why do balls bounce? (It's as simple as the shape of the molecules inside them. Balls are made of long polymers. It is simply that aspect which makes them have a rubbery surface. Rubbery surfaces bounce).

What does sugar have to do with your blood type?


How does electricity conduct and what makes a superconductors?

Why do some materials that have the same chemical formula turn out to be so different-- like how carbon can make a hard, shiny diamond or a soft, flaky graphite writing tool? Same chemical makeup but very different products. (This was the only lecture I was a tiny bit disappointed in. Pressure and temperature are some of the best magic tricks planet Earth has to shape the same elements into different products. I felt there could have been a little more awe displayed in these lectures).

How did the discovery of different materials like bronze or metal shape the building of civilization? How might they have brought about agriculture?

How did our discoveries help advance the face of medicine?

This series was filled with wonderful histories that were sprinkled throughout in just the right amount. Sometimes the histories get in the way or serve to force a tangent that steals your focus and is hard to come back from. Every history included served to really drive home the nature of matter. Absolutely wonderful series!

biology favorites general-science 

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Amazon Customer

17-03-2021

OK but struggled through to the end

Designed for American audiences only. Bad pronunciation of non American words, uses only imperial measurements and goes off topic continually. Some nice anecdotes but ignores other disciplines of physics and mathematics.

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Anonymous User

15-02-2021

They didn't give us metric people much love

more metric units of measurement and temperature would have been nice, imperial units of measurement are bad for the science's

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John L. Luick

23-04-2021

Highly recommend

Great stuff. Even as a lifelong physical scientist, I got a heck of a lot from it. And I appreciate the clear and unaffected diction.

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Anonymous User

20-04-2021

Simply wonderful!

When I was at Uni I had a stupid idea that I was concentrating on physics not chemistry. How very silly. This awesome audio book brings it all together.

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