Under The Microscope

PRACTICAL PHYSICS for senior students BOOK 2, by Peter Kinsler; Longman Paul 1991; 85 pages; $16.95.

This eighty-five-page, spiral-bound booklet contains forty-five experiments. An English teacher might say "exercises", reserving the word "experiments" to mean tests of hypotheses. Physics teachers will not quibble.

The expressed aims are to study phenomena and to measure the measurable. The theory is presented as fact -- which, at this level, it is -- and pupils are quite properly warned against rewriting the theory to suit their own measurements. The apparatus and procedure to be used are clear, and the diagrams adequate. The sample results tables are invaluable.

Questions on the exercise make it pointless to copy the results from one's neighbour. Separate problems in examination style serve to test whether the theory -- that is, the facts -- have been understood.

If no class set of this book is available, far be it from me to encourage illicit photocopying, but wise physics teachers will keep a copy in their knapsack.

Ken McAllister