Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets - Softcover

[A] delightful little book...[Livingston] connects magnetism to both past and present human culture and its underlying technology. This connection ranges over an incredible breadth of topics and personalities, a few (nonscientist) examples of the latter being James Bond, Plato, Ben Jonson, Gilbert and Sullivan, Jonathan Swift, Mary Baker Eddy, Dick Tracy, Uri Geller and Madonna...A smashing book...I wish there were more science books for the general population written with so engaging an approach. -- Paul M. Grant Nature Livingston introduces magnetic principles through eight "facts about the force," and uses these to explain the theory behind later examples of applications. Mixed in with this excellent educational approach is a history of magnetism and its influence, which takes in everything from Plato to Gilbert and Sullivan...The book is an excellent and comprehensive look at magnetism and its applications. It is a good read for materials (and other) scientists, a thorough introduction to the subject for the layman, and, to boot, a useful reference text for students. -- Steve Hill Materials World This fascinating book gives a historical view of science undergirding the technology we use daily at home and in the workplace...[Livingston's] clear explanations, background information, and creative use of analogies guide any interested reader smoothly through the concepts [such as electromagnetic theory, the microstructure of matter, and quantum electrodynamics]...Livingston writes with a passion that grows out of his lifelong interest in materials science, and his personal experiences are woven throughout this scientific adventure story. He has a knack for keeping the science stimulating and the historical connections exciting...I recommend this book highly for readers who want to know the science involved in everyday applications of technology...This is truly a tour de force on magnetism. Science Books & Films Livingston's engaging style and evident love of his subject should go far in attracting readers to a study of magnetism. Many of the applications discussed in the book are fascinating in their own right...Driving Force is a welcome addition to the library of books that seek to popularize hard science. -- G. Lyle Hoffman American Journal of Physics Any book that has jacket blurbs from D. Allan Bromley, Leon Lederman (with pun) and Dave Barry has got to be worth investigating. For those who maintain a collection of books in the style of David Feldman's When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth? (HarperCollins, 1992) or David Macaulay's The Way Things Work (Houghton Mifflin, 1988), this is another one for the shelf...Livingston has devoted much of his career to magnetism, first at General Electric as a physicist in the materials department and more recently as a senior lecturer in materials science at MIT. He also tells a good story...[T]he book is mostly a serious and comprehensive discussion of the field, carefully crafted for the nonspecialist...I highly recommend the book, both for enjoyable reading and as a valuable source of information on the history of magnetism. -- Frederick R. Fickett Physics Today Driving Force is a popular science book about magnets and how they have affected our lives, written to be easily understood by any intelligent and interested person...After covering the basic physics and material science of magnetism in the early chapters, Livingston discusses application of magnets to a wide variety of instruments and technologies. Those include the use of magnets in home appliances, toys, magnetically levitating trains, and medical imaging devices. Perhaps what distinguishes this book from most others of its type is that throughout, one also reads about connections with history, politics, economics, literature, art, popular culture. Choice Dr. James Livingston makes the physics of magnetism clear in this marvelous book, Driving Force. Livingston writes in a delightfully readable style. Readers will not only learn marvelous facts about lodestones, how the earth generates its own electromagnetic field, and the role of magnetism in nearly every modern technology, but they will also see how pseudosciences have exploited the mystery of magnetism. National Council Against Health Fraud Newsletter Dr. Livingston presumes that some consumers, perhaps latently curious about their microwave oven beyond its instant zapping capability, wonder how the contraption works. In that appliance, as in dozens of others, Livingston describes the key as a magnetic device originally invented for a completely different purpose, in this case, for the radar that defeated U-boats in World War II...On top of making unexpected technology connections, Livingston simplifies Maxwell's electromagnetic theories into nine principles of magnetic behavior, whose action he regularly reminds the reader of during his crystal clear explanations of what, for example, makes a maglev train levitate or magnetic resonance imaging resonate...A stimulating variety of science, history, and technology delivered enthusiastically. -- Gilbert Taylor Booklist

Driving Force unfolds the long and colorful history of magnets: how they guided (or misguided) Columbus; mesmerized eighteenth-century Paris but failed to fool Benjamin Franklin; lifted AC power over its rival, DC, despite all the animals, one human among them, executed along the way; led Einstein to the theory of relativity; helped defeat Hitler's U-boats; inspired writers from Plato to Dave Barry. In a way that will delight and instruct even the nonmathematical among us, James Livingston shows us how scientists today are creating magnets and superconductors that can levitate high-speed trains, produce images of our internal organs, steer high-energy particles in giant accelerators, and--last but not least--heat our morning coffee. From the "new" science of materials to everyday technology, Driving Force makes the workings of magnets a matter of practical wonder. The book will inform and entertain technical and nontechnical readers alike and will give them a clearer sense of the force behind so much of the working world.