English

Physical Paradoxes And Sophisms (Science For Everyone)

Now we come to a book in the Science for Everyone series which eluded me for years, only to be found with one of my dear friends. This book is Physical Paradoxes and Sophisms by V. N. Lange. Long before I had read about this book in the advertisements on the back pages of other books, but had never a chance to see it. Many of the problems discussed in this book are revealing and take you to deeper levels of understanding about physics. Two similar books that I have read are Surprises in Theoretical Physics and More Surprises in Theoretical Physics by Rudolf Peierls. From the Preface This book was written for senior schoolchildren and presents a series of physical paradoxes and sophisms differing in theme and complexity. Some of them were known long ago, yet most are published for the first time. "Sophism" and "paradox" are Greek words. A sophism is an argument, though apparently perfectly correct in form, actually contains an error that makes the final deduction absurd. A well-known sophism is "That which you did not lose, you possess. You have not lost horns, hence you possess them." On the contrary, a paradox is a statement that seemingly contradicts common sense, yet in fact is

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