|  | Author: Frank Wilczek
Publisher: Basic Books
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 32532
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Showing reviews 21-25 of 28
 The Lighness of Being October 25, 2008
Christophe C. G. (Pleasant Hill, CA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Lighness of Being by Wilczek.
Great booik. Not quite done with it yet. Very good on the Core Theory (or Standard Model). Very understandbly written.
Chris G.
 Particle physics still alive? October 10, 2008
Donald Hsu (NYC, United States)
4 out of 44 found this review helpful
Frank Wilczek, Physics Professor, MIT, Nobel Prize winner 2004,
427 publications, impressive work on theoretical particle physics.
This book is a classic, and a great read for anyone who is interested in physics.
Looking at the MIT website, there are many physics professors. What about the students? They can do research on particle physics. Where are the jobs when they graduate? How do they make a living? This is the main reason that Physics is fairly dead for the rest of the country.
I got my Ph.D. in Chemical Physics. I worked at Princeton University, under the late Dr. Lyman Spitzer. The first thing he told me, was there was no guarantee of jobs if you worked here. He was brutally honest and I appreciated that to this day.
I subsequently changed my field, Physics to Chemistry, to Computer Science, then to work as a Business Professor. Today, I teach everything from Accounting to Unix.
Yes, Physics is the foundation of everything. Dr. Wilczek has done very well. But for the young aspiring physics researcher, you need to put in 10 times the effort to be the next Dr. Wilczek. Good luck.
Crystal clear October 7, 2008
Nigel Seel (Andover, UK)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
Wilczek got his Nobel Prize for his part in developing Chromodynamics, the theory of quarks and gluons and their strong force interaction. In this book we get an awe-inspiring jaunt through the most modern views of the quantum vacuum (which W. calls "The Grid") and unification theories (including SUSY).
Lots of stuff I hadn't understood before - for example, the mass of protons and neutrons (actually hadrons in general) is not at all a primary attribute. Instead it's Nature's optimisation compromise between the energy in the colour field (decreases as quarks and antiquark, for example, get closer together) and the increasing energy of 'localisation' as the said quarks and antiquarks are constrained into the same place: (more precision in location means higher momentum and energy). This energy (E/c2) is what turns out to be the proton or neutron mass: the quarks and gluons themselves are almost massless.
Wilczek writes in a humorous and crystal clear way, which makes his book that rarity in popularisations - a bit of a page turner! Warning: you need to be comfortable with the conceptual basis of 'undergraduate' quantum mechanics and special relativity to engage with this book.
Mass and QCD explained October 1, 2008
Jaume Puigbo Vila (Barcelona, Spain)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This book continues the themes of "Fantastic Realities" (which was more a collection of articles than a real book), but it is much more intelligible. The title corresponds to the fact that a human being is 95% pure energy. The reason: proton's and neutron's masses are very much larger than the rest masses of their constituent quarks, i.e. most of these baryons' mass is pure (m= E/c*c) energy.
If you are not familiar with Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interaction, you will get a good grasp of it by reading this book and you will understand quark confinement. QCD is an exceptionally rigid theory depending only on three parameters. The author won a Nobel Prize for the development of QCD based on asymptotic freedom together with David Gross, although this work, as graduate student, was not recognized until 20 years later.
By reading the book you will also discover why gravity is so weak compared to other forces (a magnet lifts a clip against Earth gravitational pull) and you will learn about the theoretical framework to extend the Standard Model group of symmetries to Supersymmetry, a theory that suggests a unification of all interactions, including gravity, at high energies. Predicted superpartners of the standard particles may be discovered at the LHC in Geneva. On the way you will also come to accept that empty space is a most complex structure: a multilayered, multicolored superconductor.
The author questions Popper's falsifiability dogma to which all scientific theories must obey. Part 3 is titled: Is Beauty Truth? It reminds me of Sir Michael Atiyah's presentation at Cosmocaixa in Barcelona with a similar argument and the author presents historical evidence (Dirac's prediction of the positron, for example). Wilczek argues that a good beautiful theory (SUSY) is worth keeping even if some things do not really fit in. He adopts the Jesuit credo: "It is more blessed to ask forgiveness than permission". Nature is, of course, the last judge.
I will quote a beautiful description he makes of the LHC: "In sheer size, the LHC is our civilization's answer to the pyramids of ancient Egypt. But it is a nobler monument in many ways. It is born out of curiosity, not of superstition. It is a product of cooperation, not command". Blessed are we to live in such exciting times in science!
a must read if you'e interested in the topic September 28, 2008
Halcatalyst
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I loved the book! First because of the topic, in which I'm very interested. I learned a LOT and feel I now have a good general understanding of the current state of particle physics. I liked Wilczek's explanation of the origin of mass and appreciated his theory about why, from the quantum perspective, gravity appears to be such a weak force. Most of all I liked his style: very readable with a truly light manner that remained completely serious about the subject matter itself. I laughed at the humorous asides. Highly recommended.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 28
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