September 15, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 16)
URL:
http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws
Rating:
Strong Points: Clever idea
Weak Points: A litle light
Summary:
Those crazy physicists. When will they learn the bounds of their domain? Physicists tend to take a wider view of physics than nonphysicists. Perhaps the nonphysicists need to wake up and realize that disciplines like chemistry and biophysics actually borrow significantly from physics. In any event, one of the excellent byproducts of this broad perspective is on view here. The Laws List is a very simple idea. The site simply tallies up a list of laws and arranges descriptions of them alphabetically. Visitors to the site click on a letter and then see a list of laws beginning with that letter. Yes, most of the laws will be seen as pure physics (Faraday’s law, Pauli Exclusion Principle, Planck’s Radiation law), but others will have connections with engineering (Pascal’s Principle), chemistry (Avogadro’s law), and even biophysics (Bragg’s law). This is a dandy little resource, and a quick read of it may help users brush up on their laws of science.
