Lawrence Weinstein

Physics Department

Old Dominion University

Nuclear Physics Explained
Lawrence Weinstein

The Great Courses, April 2018

A 24-lecture video course for the intellectually curious. No exams, no problem sets, no grades. Watch the exciting trailer!

Nuclear radiation is everywhere. At this moment, byproducts of cosmic rays are raining down on you from the galaxy, neutrinos produced in the Sun are piercing your body by the trillions, and nuclear particles from everyday sources in rocks, air, food, and water are bombarding you from all directions. If you had a supersensitive "Geiger counter" that picked up all nuclear particles, it would chirp nonstop.

Yet despite this continuous exposure, "radiation" is a term that evokes worry and even panic. There are sources of radiation to be concerned about, but true vigilance lies in understanding the physics of the atomic nucleus—an endlessly interesting structure that defines the universe we live in.

Then, of course, there are nuclear weapons, which have arguably kept a fragile peace since the end of World War II, but which also threaten civilization with an unparalleled cataclysm. All of these insights, benefits, and dangers trace to an inconceivably tiny subatomic structure that was unknown until a century ago.

Covering the science, history, hazards, applications, and latest advances in the field, Nuclear Physics Explained is your guide to a subject that is rarely presented at a level suitable for non-scientists. In these 24 eye-opening, half-hour lectures, Professor Lawrence Weinstein of Old Dominion University begins by bringing you straight into the sometimes mind-bending ideas of nuclear physics, and then takes you into the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to explain the awe-inspiring machines at the forefront of nuclear research—machines he is using in his own work. Then, the second half of the course—watchable separately but deepened by your engagement with key principles and methods from the first half—explores the many scientific and technological applications of nuclear physics, e.g., understanding accelerators in the first half deepens your understanding of nuclear medicine in the second half.

Throughout these lectures, Dr. Weinstein shows how nuclear physicists think, analyzing problems in a rapid, off-the-cuff style that dispenses with exact numbers in favor of rounding, making the math in the course easy to follow for anyone familiar with exponential notation. Viewers will find Dr. Weinstein’s presentation clear, enthusiastic, and tinged with humor. Plus, Nuclear Physics Explained is richly illustrated with diagrams, charts, and computer animations, as well as lab demonstrations that bring the nuclear realm alive.

About the Great Courses: Of the more than 500,000 college professors in the world, only the top 1% are selected to teach one of The Great Courses. Our esteemed faculty includes award-winning experts and professors from the most respected institutions in the world, selected by our customers exclusively for their ability to teach.

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Guesstimation 2.0: Solving Today's Problems on the Back of a Napkin
Lawrence Weinstein

Princeton University Press, October 2012

Available from Princeton University Press or from Amazon

Guesstimation 2.0 reveals the simple and effective techniques needed to estimate virtually anything--quickly--and illustrates them using an eclectic array of problems. A stimulating follow-up to Guesstimation, this is the must-have book for anyone preparing for a job interview in technology or finance, where more and more leading businesses test applicants using estimation questions just like these.

The ability to guesstimate on your feet is an essential skill to have in today's world, whether you're trying to distinguish between a billion-dollar subsidy and a trillion-dollar stimulus, a megawatt wind turbine and a gigawatt nuclear plant, or parts-per-million and parts-per-billion contaminants. Lawrence Weinstein begins with a concise tutorial on how to solve these kinds of order of magnitude problems, and then invites readers to have a go themselves. The book features dozens of problems along with helpful hints and easy-to-understand solutions. It also includes appendixes containing useful formulas and more.

Guesstimation 2.0 shows how to estimate everything from how closely you can orbit a neutron star without being pulled apart by gravity, to the fuel used to transport your food from the farm to the store, to the total length of all toilet paper used in the United States. It also enables readers to answer, once and for all, the most asked environmental question of our day: paper or plastic?

Lawrence Weinstein is University Professor of Physics at Old Dominion University. He is the coauthor of Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin (Princeton).

Endorsements:
"This is an absolutely great book, a worthy sequel to Guesstimation. The breadth of scope of the problems is truly impressive. Weinstein's arguments are always convincing and, in many cases, very clever. His sense of humor provides a pain-free tutorial on how analysts can make real progress in understanding vaguely defined problems."--Paul J. Nahin, author of Number-Crunching: Taming Unruly Computational Problems from Mathematical Physics to Science Fiction

"Guesstimation 2.0 is an entertaining read, with the added attraction that it can be consumed in small portions by opening it on almost any page. I can easily see having this book close by and returning to it again and again."--Mark Levi, author of Why Cats Land on Their Feet: And 76 Other Physical Paradoxes and Puzzles


book cover

Guesstimation: Solving the world's problems on the back of a cocktail napkin,
Lawrence Weinstein and John A. Adam
Princeton University Press, April 2008

Look at the Princeton University Press website and read the first chapter
Read the Amazon reviews (and maybe even buy it)
Read the other reviews:

Translated into Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Dutch.

Estimation is featured in the April 2009 National Geographic Magazine. See the 'Science' page in 'Visions of Earth'.


Videos:

SCALE-UP:
me

Research:

Teaching:

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

Words Matter (Art Hobson 2004)
The ODU Physics lecture demo page

How I teach Physics 101 and 102 (Elementary Physics)

Physics 101 Course structure
Physics 101 demos
Physics 102 course structure
Physics 102 demos

Outreach:

Rules for the 2009 SPS Pumpkin Drop


Old Courses and Syllabi:

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