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|  | Author: Frank Wilczek
Publisher: Basic Books
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 42365
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 292
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0465003214
Dewey Decimal Number: 531
EAN: 9780465003211
ASIN: 0465003214
Publication Date: August 25, 2008
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Showing reviews 11-15 of 28
 Need a Degree In Physics March 28, 2009
sean wilkins (Scunthorpe, England)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am a keen fan of popular science - having A levels in maths and physics and a degree in maths and economics I would hope Im up to reading most popular science books. This book started off so well, funny, easy to read, difficult concepts well explained and laid out. However, part way through, once it starts to try and explain quantum chromo dynamics etc I was lost. I kind of understood things but my general level of understanding was not up to the job. I believe the author did his level best to "dumb down" the issues but I suspect there is only so much dumbing down that can be done! It was a good read but above my head - shame - Ill have to buy another book and try and grasp the concepts through further reading.
 A little preachy - light on science March 19, 2009
Robert Alan Koeneke (Dallas/FtWorth, Tx)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was expecting more science and less...well...opinion. I didn't find the deep insights I had hoped for. This book is too light for me but might be right for someone totally new to the subject area - maybe.
Still, a lot of great quotes inside; I write them down for use at work as I find them.
 Physics but not Math March 18, 2009
John Carpenter
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
For a layman who has the desire to find out what is really happening in the world of the very large, and very small.
Could be much better March 12, 2009
B. Style
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've read a few popular titles on QM (and typically give them 4 or 5 stars just for rising to the challenge of presenting such complex ideas to the layman) -- and this book has great potential in the breadth of the material it covers -- but the potential isn't realized due to weak development. The author is obviously very intelligent, but tends to skip through the development of an idea often making assumptions and vague references. For example, in chapter 9, Computing Matter, he shows some simple wave functions for systems of single and two qubits. Then he drifts into a pair of entangled particles and presents their combined wave function. It isn't at all clear to me (I'm not a physicist) if this formulation is a choice that the experimenter makes or is it a consequence of being entangled. I switch to Wikipedia and look up entangled particles and learn that simultaneously created (complimentary) particles resulting from decay or collision can exhibit this property. So now I can understand that the wave function is describing a particular state that is in part defined by past history. A few more sentences here could have made this section so much better. This is one example of a recurring pattern in the book -- too many assumptions (in my opinion) for a layman's book.
So, in some respects, if you want to be challenged to stop and think to more fully develop the ideas on your own, this book is good as it does provide a framework for thought.
As a casual read it might create more confusion than enlightenment. I wouldn't recommend this as a first read for QM.
Unification Without Strings February 26, 2009
The Spinozanator (Waco, Texas)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I carefully choose a new quantum physics book to read every couple of years. Each time I become convinced that my new selection is the absolute best and this one is no exception. Wilczek's book came largely from public lectures he has given over the last few years: "The Universe is a Strange Place," The World's Numerical Recipe," "The Origin of Mass and the Feebleness of Gravity," and "The Persistence of Ether." Readers of this book, get ready for a wild ride:
Part I: Chapters 1-12
Chapters 1-5 - Our senses - vision, hearing, smell, touch - did not evolve to understand the quantum world. It takes another "sense" - our minds - to try to grasp an understanding. Even then, attempts to put quantum concepts in words can compare to trying to understand the nonsensical flow of words from an automated postmodern paragraph generator. Mathematics (unfortunately for me) is the language of science.
Newton took mass for granted as the lowest common denominator of matter - a gift from God. But contrary to what Newton thought, mass is not conserved. When electrons and positrons are smashed into each other at almost the speed of light, new particles result - 30,000 times as much mass comes out as what went in. Einstein suggested we need to explain mass in terms of energy.
The extent of knowledge as of 1935 - still in most introductory physics books - is as follows (paraphrased, 24, 25): "All things are made from atoms and photons. Atoms in turn are made from electrons and atomic nuclei. The nuclei...contain all the positive electric charge and nearly all the mass....Atoms are held together by electric attraction between the electrons and the nuclei. Finally, nuclei are held together by the strong force." In this book, Wilczek will modify every concept.
The weak force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity are all created by the fields set up by strong force interactions in the nucleus. To find the origin of mass, the author says we must find how the constituents of protons, made of pure energy, endow protons and neutrons with mass. It took decades of experimental effort and theoretical ingenuity - and particle accelerators - to discover the fundamental equations that govern what goes on in atomic nuclei. Bizarre, more fundamental building blocks were found - quarks and gluons.
Chapter 6 and 7 - Spins, color charges, hadrons, partons, asymptotic freedom, virtual particles, Feynman's diagrams, and the ultrastroboscopic nanomicroscope - that visualizes the quantum aspects of quarks. This chapter jumps completely beyond classical physics and into the realm of fantasyland - complete with solid evidence. The equations to describe gluons turn out to be a natural mathematical generalization of Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics. Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong force and its central idea is symmetry - best described in the language of mathematics but the author does his best with words. These are tough chapters.
Chapter 8 - The heart of the book - Wilczek's effort to unify the forces: His "Grid" (diagram on page 75) fills in the gap left by the absence of Newton's discredited "ether." What we perceive as empty space is not empty. It is a rich, dynamic medium, bursting with virtual activity that shapes the universe - quark and gluon fields constantly seeking equilibrium.
From page 111:
"*The Grid fills space and time.
*Every fragment of Grid - each space-time element - has the same basic properties as every other fragment.
*The Grid is alive with quantum activity. Quantum activity has special characteristics. It is spontaneous and unpredictable. To observe quantum activity, you must disturb it.
*The Grid also contains enduring, material components. The cosmos is a multilayered, multicolored superconductor.
*The Grid contains a metric field that gives space-time rigidity and causes gravity.
*The Grid weighs, with a universal density."
Chapters 9-12 - The Grid can explain Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" and QCD can explain the mass of protons made from virtually massless quarks and gluons of energy. The color charge of a quark creates a disturbance in the gluon fields of the Grid - that grows with distance. Nature strikes a balance between the demands of the gluon fields that don't want to be disturbed and those of the quarks and antiquarks that want to roam free. The total energy won't be zero and that is the origin of mass.
Part II & III: Chapters 13-21 - Gravity is feeble in practice but not in theory. Historical solutions as to gravity's derivation are: gravity might be derived as a by-product from the imbalances of the other forces; the other forces might be derived from gravity; or all the forces might appear on the same footing, as different aspects - perhaps related by symmetry - of a single whole. Wilczek finds a uniquely different source for gravity - then meanders through various supersymmetries, mathematics, and the particle zoo, ending up with a Unification Theory! - one that the author hopes will be vindicated by findings from the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland.
As easy to read as this subject is ever gonna get, any physics buff will like this book. It is written with flair and humor as exemplified by this excerpt about working on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: "You orchestrate a carefully designed sampling of results at different energies and momenta to extract accurate positions and times (for experts: you do Fourier transforms)." There are appendices and a glossary. Following Einstein's lead, I would say he made it "as simple as possible but no simpler."
Showing reviews 11-15 of 28
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