An entertaining and free pdf book on physics - the science of motion.
The free English edition has been improved over 28 years. Various volumes are freely available in French, Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Spanish.
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Explore the motion of plants, animals, lightning, satellites, charges, light and empty space itself! Be fascinated by molecular motors, black holes, the beauty of nature and the simplicity of how it works: Explore the principle of cosmic laziness – least action –, the maximum speed, the largest distance, the highest power, and gauge symmetry, the symmetry that explains electric motors, radioactivity and quarks!
It is a free physics manual and a free physics workbook. These are also free physics notes providing a free introduction to physics. But above all, it is a guide to enjoying physics and nature.
Find out what fireworks, mobile phones and butterflies have in common, how muscles work, how colours appear, how levitation is possible, why we can see the stars, and which problems in physics are still unsolved. Enjoy many wonderful puzzles about nature. Read about the great advances in our understanding of the processes that surround us. Learn how the story of the universe shapes our night sky, the Sun, our landscape, our bodies and all the atoms that make it up. Find interesting experiments to repeat. Explore the power of the concepts that are used in physics. If you are between the age of 16 and 106, you will enjoy reading this physics book. These videos show why. If you want even more motivation and an even longer overview of the wonderful stories and adventures that await you, read this section.
The volumes of the 2018 edition tell how to rotate a ball glued into a soft mattress for ever and ever - and challenges you to be the first to film this feat; they show how to create floating images with a simple toy, explain that usual light bulbs produce speeds faster than light when switched on, tell about why it is correct to say that the sun has already set when we see it just touching the horizon in the evening, challenge you to build a high-precision ball-chain (`Netwon's cradle'), show that a formula for pi is hidden in the hydrogen spectrum, provide more fun with quantum physics and colours, tell about noise-producing plants, ask about the Spanish burton and the fool's tackle, present the measurement unit for the spiciness of chili peppers, and present many other stunning images, facts and stories about motion of things, shadows, light, stars, planets, black holes and quantum particles.
For a present to others or to yourself, get a paper edition at Amazon (in black & white or in colour), at Createspace (in black & white or in colour), or a Kindle version.
Download the files separately here:
Free download of
volume I - FALL, FLOW AND HEAT (260 MB).
Free download of
volume II - RELATIVITY AND COSMOLOGY (50 MB).
Free download of
volume III - LIGHT, CHARGES AND BRAINS (80 MB).
Free download of volume IV - THE QUANTUM
OF CHANGE (38 MB).
Free download of
volume V - PLEASURE, TECHNOLOGY AND STARS (85 MB).
Motion Mountain is written for pupils, students, teachers and anybody curious about nature: the text is full of telling anecdotes, captivating riddles, unusual tables, astonishing photographs and beautiful films. It has been downloaded over 300 000 times.
An Introduction to Modern Physics: relativity and quantum physics, cosmology and particles, optics and modern mechanics, technology and biophysics
Entertaining and surprising on every page, the five pdf files tell about
- Sport, raindrops and animal life: mechanics, gravity and heat,
- Moving empty space and the sky at night: relativity and the structure of the universe,
- Lightning, lasers and nerves: electricity, optics, the brain, language and truth,
- Colours and the quantum of change: quantum physics and light quanta.
- Pleasure and the stars: biophysics, nuclear physics and radioactivity.
- To read about the strand conjecture, a conjecture on the common description of general relativity and the standard model, go to the research page.
Prizes and rewards are offered for solving a number of challenges and for helping to improve the text.
Free Physics Textbook for Download - a physics course for everybody
Donations to the Free Physics Textbook
are welcome! No profit has ever been made: of the sum spent on the project so far - many tens of thousand Euros - less than a quarter has been covered by donations.
Motion Mountain Physics Free PDF for Download
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Translations
- Free Vietnamese translations of the three volumes on relativity and on quantum theory are available, admirably translated by Cao Sĩ Sơn. More volumes are in work.
- Free Spanish translations of classical physics and on quantum theory by Jerónimo Hurtado Pérez, and by José Manuel López López on special relativity are available. More volumes are in work.
- A free Japanese translation of the volume on relativity and cosmology is available, admirably translated by Hirooka Megumi.
- Free French translations of the three volumes on mechanics & heat, on relativity and cosmology, and on electromagnetism are available – as free pdf or as affordable paper edition – due to the fantastic effort of Benoît Clénet.
- Free Italian translations of the three volumes on mechanics & heat, on relativity and cosmology, and on quantum theory are available, due to the efforts of Salvatore Spampinato and Alessandro Gori.
You are always welcome to expand a translation or to add a new one.