What does the path taken by a ray of light share with the trajectory of a thrown baseball and the curve of a wheat stalk bending in the breeze? Each is the subject of a different study yet all are optimal shapes; light rays minimize travel time while a thrown baseball minimizes action. All natural curves and shapes, and many artificial ones, manifest such "perfect form" because physical principles can be expressed as a statement requiring some important physical quantity to be mathematically maximum, minimum, or stationary. Perfect Form introduces the basic "variational" principles...

Presenting classical thermodynamics as a concise and discrete whole, Mere Thermodynamics is a perfect tool for teaching a notoriously difficult subject.

Accomplished teacher Don S. Lemons introduces the physical theory's concepts and methods and uses them to solve problems from a broad range of physics. He illustrates, at a gentle pace, not only the fundamentals of the subject but also advanced topics such as the relationship between the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. He highlights the intellectual structure and history of the discipline and explores the logical...