Offbeat physics: machines, meditations and misconceptions

Offbeat Physics: Machines, Meditations and Misconceptions is a collection of articles on various topics in classical physics that have intrigued the author and their students throughout the years.The book is divided into three parts. Part I ... Machines comprises chapters that explain or model the workings of a number of machines (understood in a broad sense) on the basis of physical principles. These machines can be as simple as a rolling wheel, or as complex as a jet engine. Then in Part II ... Meditations, the authors go beyond the standard examples, experiments and approximations discussed ad nauseam in most physics textbooks, but which are not always very exciting or realistic. For example, what happens when colliding bodies are not perfectly rigid ... as we know real bodies are not? Finally, Part III ... Misconceptions aims to correct misconceptions that students may have about physical phenomena, or clarify issues that are often presented misleadingly, confusingly or imprecisely in textbooks, such as the relationship between angular momentum and angular velocity in rotational motion.This is a book for all those who wish to learn physics beyond the textbooks and from more realistic problems, often occurring in engineering contexts. It will be useful to instructors at all levels, as well as highly motivated students taking General Physics courses in higher education. .

Section 1: Machines, 1. Dynamics of Braking Vehicles: from Coulomb Friction to Anti-lock Braking Systems, 2. Simple Thermodynamics of Jet Engines, 3. Surprises of the Transformer as a Coupled Oscillator System, 4. Maximum Thermodynamic Power Coefficient of a Wind Turbine, Section 2: Meditations, 5. Mutual Inductance between Piecewise Linear Loops, 6. The Hertz Contact in Chain Elastic Collisions, 7. Tilted Boxes on Inclined Planes, 8. Magnetic Forces Acting on Rigid Current-Carrying Wires Placed in a Uniform Magnetic Field, 9. Comparing a Current-carrying Circular Wire with Polygons of Equal Perimeter: Magnetic Field versus Magnetic Flux, 10. The Elastic Bounces of a Sphere between Two Parallel Walls, 11. How Short and Light Can a Simple Pendulum Be for Classroom Use?, 12. Experiments with a Falling Rod, 13. Oscillations of a Rectangular Plate, 14. Bullet Block Experiment: Angular Momentum Conservation and Kinetic Energy Dissipation, 15. The Continuity Equation in Ampère's Law, Section 3: Misconceptions, 16. On the Relation between Angular Momentum and Angular Velocity, 17. A Very Abnormal Normal Force, 18. Rolling Cylinder on an Inclined Plane.