Thinking in Physics

Part I Acquiring reasoning skills: words, images and functions.- Some tools essential for comprehension.- Words we have to understand.- The image: is it really doing its job?.- Graphs and functions.- Some surprising invariances.- Introduction.- The speed of light in vacuo.- Propagation of mechanical signals.- Coefficients of friction.- When mass doesn't count.- The mirror.- The power and non-obviousness of invariance.- Analysis of functional dependence: a powerful tool.- Numerical or functional?.- Even before values: the form of the relationship.- Keeping an eye on a causal reading of relations.- Some factors not apparent in a relation between quantities, by no means always trivial.- Functional dependencies and graphs: an example in geometrical optics.- Neglected treasures, and some hazards highlighted.- Putting into practice.- Introduction.- The field of a mirror.- Deflection of a charged particle by a magnetic field.- Sliding on an inclined plane.- The slide projector.- Flotation between two immiscible liquids.- Part II Physics: linking factors.- Links between phenomena in terms of type of functional dependence.- Introduction.- Delayed signals: from stars to bats.- Graphical version of the Doppler effect.- Even more links? Doppler and Römer.- Investing?.- Links between different approaches to the same phenomenon.- A hot air balloon for teaching.- A ritual colluding with inconsistency.- A very unusual linkage.- Some evidence of intellectual satisfaction.- Yet more links? Weight and gas pressure.- The benefits of changes of scale in analysis.- Part III Simplicity: ruin or triumph of consistency?.- Simple experiments: how to optimise their use.- Is simplicity relevant?.- Archimedes' weighing machine.- The upside-down glass.- The upside-down test-tube.- Beyond the ritual.- Echo-explanations and linear causal reasoning.- When simple experiment challenges simplistic reasoning.- The "Lovemeter".- Final remarks.- Popularising physics: what place for reasoned argument?.- Mission essential, mission impossible?.- Reason and rigour: some critical points.- A tendency among non-specialists: liking stories.- Authors (as teachers): tendency towards the "echo-explanation".- A real margin for manoeuvre.