This comprehensive text is based on the authors' course notes, refined and updated over 15 years of teaching. The core of the text focuses on water and its transformations. Four chapters lay the foundation, from energy conservation to the ideal gas law, specific heat capacities, adiabatic processes, and entropy. An extensive chapter treats phase transitions of water, and a lengthy discussion of the van der Waals equation sets the stage for phase diagrams. Free energy is applied to determining the effect of dissolved substances, total pressure, and size on vapor pressure. The chapter on moist...

Ever wonder why steam rises from a bowl of hot soup or why a greenhouse retains heat? And have you ever puzzled over the real meaning of -once in a blue moon- or why sand is darker when it's wet than when it's dry? And just why, exactly, do bubbles appear in a glass of beer when you add salt to it?
These and many other baffling questions are answered in this engaging book by a physics professor at Pennsylvania State University. Ranging from playful to serious, Professor Bohren's lively and entertaining discussions employ a liberal mixture of humor and anecdote to debunk a host of...

"Informative and engagingly idiosyncratic . . . brings the subject down to earth with offbeat, everyday examples and easy-to-follow experiments. . . . Both professionals and laymen can learn from this book." "The New York Times Book Review"
"A brilliant collection of intriguing examples of the physics of everyday phenomena, with the examples presented as puzzles." "Discover"
"A delightful book." "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society"
This is the sequel to Craig Bohren's popular "Clouds in a Glass of Beer" (also available from Dover), the book that made the fascinating...

"Informative and engagingly idiosyncratic . . . brings the subject down to earth with offbeat, everyday examples and easy-to-follow experiments. . . . Both professionals and laymen can learn from this book."-The New York Times Book Review "A brilliant collection of intriguing examples of the physics of everyday phenomena, with the examples presented as puzzles."-Discover "A delightful book."-Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society This is the sequel to Craig Bohren's popular Clouds in a Glass of Beer (also available from Dover), the book that made the fascinating world of atmospheric...