he idea of this book is to make science come alive and show that science canbe fun. People watch their sporting heroes and naturally want to imitatethem. At the same time, many children and yound adults in the 13-20 agerange have a fear of science as something terribly complicated that does notrelate to them or to their life. Similarly, for older people, cricket thesedays is full of technology and jargon, a lot of which may not becomprehensible to them.The idea is to use cricket as a hook to make science fun and to try andexplain why certain things that happen on a cricket field are the way thatthey are. The link between a fast bowler slinging down the ball and opticsor atomic physics is not immmediately obvious, but when the bowler catchesthe edge of the bat he is reproducing a classic experiment from the 1930'sthat demostrated the existence of the nucleus of the atom and when the ballbounces, it follows simple laws of optics (in its most basic form: angle ofincidence, angle of reflection.... something that school children havelearnt about in science lessons for decades). When a bowler searches forreverse swing he is trying to crack some extremely complex equations ofhydrodynamics and when Hot Spot says that Stuart Broad did catch RickiePointing's edge it is simply applying the same technology as in heat-seekingmissiles and the same science as an infared telescope.There is even science invovled in the tossing of a coin at the start of thematch: even if Andrew Strauss has won ten tosses in a row calling "heads" ,he still has a 50% chance of getting it right again if he calls "heads" foran eleventh time.The reader will have fun, indulge their passion for cricket and learn some ofthe basic science and physical laws behind the game. I will not help thereader to bowl like Wasim Akram, or bat like Brian Lara, but it will allowthem to understand better what is going on when their heroes play. The aimof the book is to entertain, to educate and to inform.
- ISBN: 978-1-90476-192-1
- Editorial: NOTTINGHAM UNIVERISTY PRESS
- Encuadernacion: Rústica
- Fecha Publicación: 31/07/2010
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés