Physics in Action

One of my more random collections is of old physics text books.  I don't often add to it, and I only have about 8 books.  But the reason I find these so interesting is that, back in the day, Physics text books were loaded with great photos and illustrations of all kinds of machinery and the like which illustrated "Physics in action".

One such photo is shown here, from "Modern Physics", published in 1934.  It shows an old US Naval battleship going through the Panama canal and the caption lists a bunch of statistics on the boat.

The most interesting part of the book though, was not related to the book itself, but what I found in it.  Inserted in the leaves of the book was the following postcard which had been post marked on February 12, 1944:

W.M. Latimer was a chemistry professor at U.C. Berkeley in the 1940's and 1950's.  When I attended there in the 1980's, several of my classes were in Latimer Hall.  And while I am not a stamp collector (well...at least not avidly), you have to admire the special delivery stamp with the old motorcycle on it....classic!

Until next time...