HOW DOES IT WORK TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 CHAPTERS EUREKA MOMENTS 7 PHySICAL SCIENCE CHANgES LIVES 17 OLyMPIC gOLD PHySICAL SCIENCE 27 PHySICAL SCIENCE OF TOMORROW 37 GLOSSARy 46 SELECTED bI bLIOGRAPHy 47 WEbSITES 47 INDEx 48 SCIENTIST IN THE SPOTLIGHT bENjAMIN FRANKLIN 10 SIR ISAAC NEWTON 20 MARIE CuRIE 30 ALbERT EINSTEIN 40 3
HIN K LIK E A T S T CIEN T IS HOW DOES IT WORK INTRODUCTION A screen across the room was glowing Physicist Wilhelm Röntgen wondered what was going on He was experi menting with cathode ray tubes similar to modern light bulbs Röntgen had placed an electric volt through each cathode tube The tubes glowed even when he covered them with paper That was when he noticed the green light glowing on the screen and realized he had created a new type of light ray His ray was passing through solid materials some thing that should have been impossible He wondered whether it would penetrate other subjects What would happen if he tried to pass his new ray through the human body Röntgen placed his wife’s hand over a pho tographic plate and cast the ray An image of her bones and wedding ring appeared on the plate It was 1895 and Röntgen had just taken the first X-ray Physical science is all about how things work in nature Physics studies the most basic forces at work in our world and universe It deals with the relationships between matter and energy Chemistry looks deeper into the structure of that matter examining how substances interact with energy and one another In using the scientific method a physical scientist understands how something works by asking questions and making observa tions Experiments in the physical sciences give people a closer look at the world’s inner workings and can lead to important problem-solving discoveries From X-rays of broken bones to the chemistry needed to make TVs and phones work everything in our world runs on the physical sciences 5 5
