Biophysics, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Orthopedics, Biomechanics
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Overview
This entertaining and informative book describes how living things bump up against non-biological reality. "My immodest aim," says the author, "is to change how you view your immediate surroundings." He asks us to wonder about the design of plants and animals around us: why a fish swims more rapidly than a duck can paddle, why healthy trees more commonly uproot than break, how a shark manages with such a flimsy skeleton, or how a mouse can easily survive a fall onto any surface from any height.The book will not only fascinate the general reader but will also serve as an introductory survey of biomechanics. On one hand, organisms cannot alter the earth's gravity, the properties of water, the compressibility of air, or the behavior of diffusing molecules. On the other, such physical factors form both constraints with which the evolutionary process must contend and opportunities upon which it might capitalize. Life's Devices includes examples from every major group of animals and plants, with references to recent work, with illustrative problems, and with suggestions of experiments that need only common household materials.Editorials
Booknews
A book of high scholarship and ingenuity of interest to the general reader and students of biomechanics. Vogel zoology, Duke U. surveys the designs and techniques of plants and animals in terms of how they contend with and take advantage of such constants as gravity, the properties of water, and the compressibility of air. Includes experiments and demonstrations with common materials. Cloth edition $49.50 not seen. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR booknews.comNature
A brilliant and eccentric book that looks at living things from an engineering point of view, assuming astonishingly little previous knowledge of science on the reader's part.Book Details
Published
July 1, 1992
Publisher
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1988.
Pages
384
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780691085043