An entertaining and free e-book on physics - the science of motion.
Now in its 28th year, the text is available for free download in English and some volumes in French, Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Spanish (new: volume 1 in Spanish).
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 its fundamental mechanisms, from the principle of cosmic laziness – least action – to gauge symmetry, the symmetry of charges and quarks!
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.
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 text. 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.
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).
Free download of THE STRAND MODEL – A SPECULATION ON
UNIFICATION (34 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.
Modern Physics: relativity and quantum physics, cosmology and particles
Entertaining and surprising on every page, the first 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.
It is a physics manual and a physics workbook. These are also physics notes. But above all, it is a guide to enjoying physics and nature.
The additional pdf book presents, in contrast to the previous volumes, a research topic: it tells about the search for a final, unified theory of physics.
Prizes and rewards are offered for solving a number of challenges and for helping to improve the text.
Free Physics Textbook for Download
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
If you are in Germany, support the project by buying through Amazon smile: https://smile.amazon.de/ch/143-219-30760 at no cost to you:
Translations
- Free Vietnamese translations of the volumes on relativity and on quantum theory are available, admirably translated by Cao Sĩ Sơn.
- 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.
- Free Spanish translations of classical physics by Jerónimo Hurtado Pérez and of special relativity by José Manuel López López are available. More volumes are in work.
You are always welcome to expand a translation or to add a new one.