Product Description
This landmark work chronicles the origin and evolution of solid state physics, which grew to maturity between 1920 and 1960. The book examines the early roots of the field in industrial, scientific and artistic efforts and traces them through the 1950s, when many physicists around the world recognized themselves as members of a distinct subfield of physics research centered on solids. The book opens with an account of scientific and social developments that preceded the discovery of quantum mechanics, including the invention of new experimental means for studying solids and the establishment of the first industrial laboratories. The authors set the stage for the modern era by detailing the formulation of the quantum field theory of solids. The core of the book examines six major themes: the band theory of solids; the phenomenology of imperfect crystals; the puzzle of the plastic properties of solids, solved by the discovery of dislocations; magnetism; semiconductor physics; and collective phenomena, the context in which old puzzles such as superconductivity and superfluidity were finally solved. All readers interested in the history of science will find this absorbing volume an essential resource for understanding the emergence of contemporary physics. ... Read more

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By focusing on the conceptual issues faced by nineteenth century physicists, this book clarifies the status of field theory, the ether, and thermodynamics in the work of the period. A remarkably synthetic account of a difficult and fragmentary period in scientific development. ... Read more

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This enlightening book, a sequel to QUIPS, QUOTES, AND QUANTA, helps readers to understand how physicists think about and look at the world. Starting with the discovery and investigation of cosmic rays, the book proceeds to cover some major areas of modern physics in laymen's terms. Unlike other books that deal with the history of physics, this volume concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists who created the new ideas, with a heavy emphasis on personal incidents and quotes. At the same time it presents, in every day language, the ideas created by these physicists. Both thematic and biographical in nature, readers will be entertained with humorous events in the lives of some famous scientists. Readers will also learn quite a lot about modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts intact. ... Read more

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A physicist himself, Gino Segrè writes about what scientists do—and why they do it—with intimacy, clarity, and passion. In Faust in Copenhagen, he evokes the fleeting, magical moment when physics—and the world—was about to lose its innocence forever. Known by physicists as the miracle year, 1932 saw the discovery of the neutron and antimatter, as well as the first artificially induced nuclear transmutations. However, while scientists celebrated these momentous discoveries—which presaged the nuclear era and the emergence of big science—during a meeting at Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen Institute, Europe was moving inexorably toward totalitarianism and war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A great read, reminds me of Overbye
This book is a great way to understand the events of the Miracle year of 1932 when nuclear physics was born, ..... leading to the A-bomb, H-bomb and transformation of physics from an intellectual parlor game into big science. Gino Segre writes very well, and his synthesis is at just the right level for someone like me, who studied physics in the 50s and 60s.He reminds me a little of Dennis Overbye, who wrote a related book on cosmology "Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos". Both are GREAT reads.

Disappointing, and poorly written
Being very interested in the early history of quantum mechanics, having read "Thirty Years That Shook Physics," and having scanned through all the positive reviews on Amazon, I borrowed this book anticipating a great read. I got about a third of the way through it and took it back.Frankly, I found the book boring and uninsightful.As story-telling FIC is badly organized: it jumps back and forth between bits and doesn't seem to have a consistent line it wants to develop about what actually happened in those magical years.Worse yet (from my perspective), with all the trading in personal details about these great individuals, we actually get very little insight into who they were and why they had the effect they did.There is *endless* restatement of the theme that Niels Bohr had a profound effect on other physicists, especially the younger ones.Okay, yeah, we get it already. Pappa Bohr was a big, big deal: the "Miss Jean Brody" of quantum physics, no less.But why did he have this effect?Because he was intense?Because he was profound?Because he accompanied the younger folks to movie theatres?All very charming, but we never get beyond superficialities in any of these questions.And often it is extremely annoying, not just because of the repetition, but because of missed opportunities to develop what seemed to me important themes.There is a very interesting anecdote in FIC about Bohr visiting Goettingen for a series of lectures and surprising the German physicists with his account of how physical ideas came to him: first as a visual picture, then as a model, and only much later as a theory that could be formalized with equations.This point is interesting because we know that Rutherford was profoundly unhappy with quantum physics exactly because of his inability to form a simple physical picture of interactions under it.There is an interesting story to be told here, and embedded within all the details that FIC collects that story may be present, but I couldn't find it. Personally I think the author did not do justice to the subject matter.And if the answer is that I should have kept on reading, I'm sorry but that's just a concession to the poor quality of the writing.

The Great Heart of Bohr
In "Faust in Copenhagen", Gino Segre takes the reader through the history of the development of the theory of quantum mechanics by looking at the people and their work that made the revolution possible.The book wisely focuses more on the personalities and lives of the young and brilliant minds that reshaped humanity's understanding of the world of the very small than on the specifics of the highly technical and mathematic science done by those minds.

The centerpiece of the narrative is the 1932 meeting at Neil Bohr's Copenhagen Institute in what is called by many the "Miracle Year" of science and the the touchstone of this narrative is the parody of Goethe's Faust written and performed by the junior attendees at the conference.It is through the lines of this parody that Segre introduces us to the principle players in the narrative and shows us the issues facing them as they passed from being the young, upstart visionaries they came into the story as to becoming the wisened old hands (so to speak).

The central figure in the story is Neils Bohr and I can honesty say that I've never read an account that is as good at revealing the deep character of the man who shepherded physics through a tumultuous time by nurturing and encouraging the brightest young mind around the world in peering into unknown.Additionally, much time is spent discussing the other great figures, Heisenberg and Pauli.

The final thing that sets the narrative apart is the deep sense of poignancy the story has as the events unfold in the shadow of Hilter and that Nazi party's growing power and rise within Germany.Segre's personal connections to the events and times are shared which adds a deep richness and familiarity to what is related so that I never felt like I was reading some dry, cleaned up version but instead a more personal "fireside" recollection.

The only drawback of the book is that I would love to have seen a complete copy of the Copenhagen Faust as an appendix to the book.Nevertheless, I strongly recommend this book to any student of physics, history of science or the culture of Europe in the period between the two world wars.

History of quantum theory with personal touch
Well written book consists of a lot of interesting historical information. Seven "main characters" are shown in a process of creating quantum theory.All other figures are randomly chosen, many names are missing, others are mentioned briefly.

Clear insights into a complex world
Excellent book with fascinating characters - Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Fermi, et al leap out of the page with a clarity that makes one appreciative of what each contributed to our understanding of the physical universe.

It helps to have at least some basic grounding in physics but you don't have to be an expert by any means. Segre mixes anecdotes with concepts quite well and using the eponymous skit as a framework, paints vivid pictures of each of the principals involved.You get to know them about as well as one could from a book.

One minor quibble - Segre makes great mention of models and formulas which would have been aided by an appendix with some sort of illustration.Understanding that such complexities are simply not easily explained to a layman, even a crude depiction might have been helpful in grasping the concepts at play. ... Read more

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A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the ensuing years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world--observations that have confirmed many of Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book.

Now a decade later, this edition updates the chapters throughout to document those advances, and also includes an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel and a new introduction. It make vividly clear why A Brief History of Time has transformed our view of the universe.Amazon.com Review
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists inhistory, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to helpnonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today:Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come toan end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (andwhere we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Amongthe topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, thenature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This isdeep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to causevertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's abilityto synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking aboutthings like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking,for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be aglimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Customer Reviews (331)

Uneven level of detail
The first chapters of the book are nice preliminary material for the more advanced subjects. However, starting from chapter 3, when the more complex arguments are discussed, Mr Hawking does not spend much time and detail to introduce difficult concepts. He just talks about black holes, virtual particles, strings, symmetry and higher dimensions as one can talk about apples.
I had the feeling that he switched from the really basic to the really advanced without providing the necessary logical connection and intermediate steps.
I think this is a missed opportunity.

Great For the Interested Non-scientist!
Dr. Hawking is an extremely intelligent individual who can take his theories, as well as other theories related to the Universe and our existence, breaking them down into easy to understand concepts.I found the book to be very interesting and entertaining, as it expanded my awareness and thoughts on what is happening all around us.I recommend the book for anyone interested in the various theories surrounding the Universe and our existence!

Terry M. Drake, LSW, NBCCH
Author of Live Happily, Ever After... Now!

A little deep but mostly readable.
I'm slogging through this.It's very interesting but, of course, a little over most people's heads.I like how he presents a theory and then gives an example.

a brief classic
Many readable introductions to the concepts and issues of modern physical theory have been offered over the last few decades. I have enjoyed many of them. With the publication of The Grand Design by Hawking and Mlodinow, I decided to revisit Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

After two decades, this remains the most succinct, parsimonious and carefully written introduction for the non-specialist that I have read. He passes over bits ( a whole Newtonian law of motion) for brevity and clarity, and pads it out for relevance, all appropriately. For example, introducing quantum theory through black body radiation and the uncertainty principle is a common approach, but Hawking is lucid and direct, inspiring a "wow, that was easy" moment. Many books roll out phenomena and theories, duality, tunnelling, entanglement etc, and while these are excellent for learning about elements of quantum theory, a clear take-home message is usually elusive. Rolling this, black whole theory, anthropic principles, no boundary condition, string theory and the unification of physics all together is a singular achievement for this classic. What an inspiration to tackle the maths and learn more.

The Hobo Philosopher
A Brief History of Time

By Stephen W. Hawking

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

I read this book several years ago and since that time I have read it several more times. Since my first reading, I have not been able to get this book off my mind. On that account I should give it five stars. But the things that I can't get off my mind are all negative criticisms. On that account I should give it one star.

My criticisms start before I even get to the author.

In his introduction Carl Sagan speaks of "Einstein's famous question about weather God had any choice in creating the universe." Unfortunately Mr. Sagan paraphrases this one of Einstein's many famous questions incorrectly, as my memory recalls.

If there were a God why would he not have a choice in creating the universe? This paraphrasing makes no sense.
Einstein's question as I recall it was whether or not God had any choice in his own existence.

Now that is a big question to all us philosophy buffs. Mr. Sagan's incorrect paraphrasing makes Einstein's "famous question" no question at all.

Asking whether God had a choice in his own existence is a subtle way of stating the impossibility of the God concept.

If there is a God he could not have had the choice to exist or not to exist. He either was or he wasn't. If he wasn't, he could never have been because something can not come from "nothing."

The answer to the rhetorical question is that he had no choice and therefore was lacking in freedom. God can not be God and be lacking in freedom. Therefore the concept of God is untenable.

The above is not my opinion; it is simple philosophic logic that can be found in any philosophy book debating the God concept.

This was really a rhetorical question in my opinion on the part of Einstein. He was expressing his dubiousness on this subject.

If there is a God whether or not to create the universe is no problem at all; God can do as he pleases. He can create it or not create it. Who or what is going to make him do it or not do it? What logic says he can't do it? Sagan's question makes no sense.

Now we come to Mr. Hawking and friends.

Unfortunately there is a lot of sloppy language going on in the scientific community. Mr. Hawking is just one of many who "slop" around terms to the point of meaninglessness. One such term is the word "universe."

The universe is defined briefly as, "all that is." I am sorry but there can not be two "all that is." All that is, covers everything. It follows then that there can be no multiple universes, parallel universes or competing universes. There can only be one universe.

Scientists are obviously using the word "universe" with a different understanding than "all that is." Somebody should explain to readers how the scientific community is defining the word universe.

Other improperly used words are infinite and annihilate.

The universe can not be at the same time infinite and limited. An infinite universe can not expand. It is already infinite. It can't get no bigger than that.

A particle can not be annihilated and at the same time transformed into something else. If a particle is annihilated it not only disappears, it ceases to exist. It doesn't just disappear. As far as I know annihilation is impossible. Therefore if a particle turns into light and/or energy, then it hasn't been annihilated. It has been transformed. It can only be annihilated if it has been turned into nothing - and this is an impossible theoretical state. A state of "nothing" does not exist.

Space is also something. Its influences may be so minimal that they are not necessary to mathematical equations but space is more than a state or condition fabricated by gravity and other magnetic forces. There are scientists who are presently working to discover exactly what space is and what its influences are on the universe.

Light travels in straight lines in all directions infinitely - but it also bends. This is impossible. It does one or the other. It either travels infinitely in straight lines or it bend and wiggles its way through space.

If light bends and wiggles it way through space then it certainly can not be used as a measurement of the distance between planets or galaxies. Unless someone can measure the exact amount of wiggle at every distance in space - which I doubt very much is possible. What the heck are these scientists talking about?

An ellipse is an extended circle? Then I suppose a circle is a square with rounded sides. I know these guys are trying to dumb this stuff down for folks like me but if they dumb it down too much they are me and then we are all going nowhere.

I'm not a Big Bang guy and neither was Mr. Hubble. I have read that Mr. Hubble who established the notion of red shifts and blue shifts said that he in no way concluded from this observation that the universe is actually expanding or that any Big Bang was involved.

I think the Big Bang notion is comparable to "the world is flat" notion along with the Ptolemaic universe and phlogiston. It is being challenged by plasma theorists and others. The whole concept seems to be imploding in favor of an infinite, self-evolving universe.

I am reading a book at the moment by Eric J. Lerner "The Big Bang Never Happened." It is making some sense to my way of thinking.

Question posed in Mr. Hawking book: What was God doing before he created the universe?
Answer provided in book by St. Augustine: Time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

So then where was God? He obviously did not exist before the universe either. Is God not a part of "all that is"? Does he exist? If so then he must have existed within the concept of "all that is" - the universe. No universe, no God.

And if the universe had no beginning - and the Big Bang can not be construed as the beginning of "all that is" -then St. Augustine may be right. Time began when the universe began; the universe always was and always will be
(in one shape or another) therefore time always was and always will be.

Mr. Hawking, Mr. Sagan and others in the scientific community I don't think are/were big on philosophy. They know their math but seem short on logic and semantics.

This book to me is pretty much an exercise in scientific madness (time going backwards, the universe collapsing, parallel universes, universes that are cone shaped, or infinite but finite and limited) but it is not just Mr. Hawking who has gone mad. He has a whole bunch lined up to jump off the edge of the universe and splatter on the nothingness below following eagerly behind him.

Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher:
"Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.."
"A Summer with Charlie" Salisbury Beach, Lawrence YMCA
"A Little Something: Poetry and Prose
"Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" Novel - Lawrence, Ma.
"The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column.
"Noble Notes on Famous Folks" Humor - satire - facts.
"America on Strike" American Labor - History
"A Baker's Dozen" Short Stories


... Read more

Product Description
(Icon Books) Explains Newton's ideas in mechanics, mathematics, and optics, the foundation for later theories, including Einstein's. Previous edition: c1997. Softcover. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

On Newton's discoveries, as well as my own
I found this book, one evening in a basement in Oxford, and picked it up thinking it was a coloring book. Although the type-setting seemed a bit bizarre, I forged ahead and began reading through the first few pages.
As I delved deeper into the book, it became more apparent, that there was much more to Newton than I had learnt from the past 12 years of studying physics, and fluxions.
Moreover, I had no idea that he discovered the Binomial Theorem - a formulation that permits the extraction of roots , and the expansion of variable sums raised to powers.
As far as gravity, corpuscular theory, Calculus, Kinematics - dynamics and statics, I was easily able to follow Rankin's arguments and recollections.
Something else, of no less interest was Newton the theologian and and Isaac the Alchemist. He pursued what he called "prisca sapientia", which he felt had been disseminated incognito by the elders of the Vestal Cult, and claimed that gentile theology had somehow alloyed this "TRUTH."
As he rightfully said to Hooke and many of other Mathematics progenitors, " Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident - If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Quite good, not great.
I would recommend for someone into the Introducing... series, but not one of their best works.

"Newton and Classical Physics" is a brainstormed surprise.
This could be the best book in the "Introducing" series. It seems to have the best story, illustrations and topics. Newton is considered smarter then Einstein by many. It reads like an action movie. This is the best place to start on physics however I recommend that you also try "Introducing Mathematics" in this series if you need an maths refresher.

Core material:

Arithmetic
Geometry
Pythagoras
Squaring the Circle
John Bate's The Mysterious of Nature and Art
Sundials
Fireworks
Physis - The nature of a thing is its end
Crystalline Spheres
Ptolemy and Earth as the centre
Copernicus and Sun as the centre
Strange motions of Mars
Tyco disproves Aristotle fixed stars hypothesis by discovering Supernova
Tyco proves a comet in past the moon
Kepler covers 900 folio pages of Mars' orbit and discovers it is oval.
Kepler creates Copernicus model with oval elliptical orbits.
Galileo proves heavy and light bodies fall at same speed
Giovanni Battista della Porta develops telescope and Galileo develops it
Galileo talks about four moon of Jupiter, Venus phases, Saturns rings, Spiral Galaxy in Andromedia
Galileo pushes Copernicus on the Church
Galileo publishes resistance, cohesion, motion and acceleration, projectile curves
Descartes, matter only effecting matter by contact, everything parts of a machine, doctor is a mechanic, vivisection and animals have no feelings.
Euclid's Geometry, Schooten, Oughtred, Wallis and Descartes.
Binomial Theorem and infinity
Fluxions
Calculus
Optics
White is a mixture of colors
Mirror telescope
Principia
Laws of Motion
1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
2. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.
3. III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Core pages of the discoveries and math is on p.122-129

User-Friendly Newton
This is one of the best of these illustrated "Introducing" books I've read so far.You won't learn that much practical knowledge of calculus or physics from this 170-page volume; however, you will get a lot of tasty info on Newton's life, his theories, his conflicts, and his eccentricities.

I found particularly interesting the fact that Newton wrote as many words about alchemy and other occult subjects as he did about mechanics and calculus.His notion of "action at a distance" (e.g., gravitational attraction), for example, was probably inspired by his alchemical research.

Also, it's a shame Newton decided to spend his later years running the British Mint, wanting do something more useful with himself than perform further research!

I also enjoyed the author's brief polemic against Galileo, apparently one of the most obnoxious takers of credit in the history of ideas.

It's a fun book, and informative.I may track down a few of the others mentioned in the bibliography.

Let Newton be!
This is a book from series of book including Einstein,Quantum theory,The Universe,Chaos,Stephen Hawking,etc.If you like this book,you might want to collect other books in series.The book presented Newton's life and works on science in illustrative,humurous way.It is also factual so for those who want detail descriptions and formal presentation probably dislike.For general reader it is an excellent book.Everyone know that Newton is the great man in science so this book tried to tell you in different way. Also recommended for secondary students.They will find about a giant in Physics in very interesting way. ... Read more

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Product Description
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of ideas about the sun and the stars, from antiquity to modern times. Two theoretical astrophysicists who have been active in the field since the early 1960s tell the story in fluent prose. About half of the book covers most of the theoretical research done from 1940 to the close of the twentieth century, a large body of work that has to date been little explored by historians.

The first chapter, which outlines the period from about 3000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., shows that at every stage in history human beings have had a particular understanding of the sun and stars, and that this has continually evolved over the centuries. Next the authors systematically address the immense mass of observations astronomy accumulated from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth. The remaining four chapters examine the history of the field from the physicists perspective, the emphasis being on theoretical work from the mid-1840s to the late 1990s--from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics, from nuclear physics and magnetohydrodynamics to the remarkable advances through to the late 1960s, and finally, to more recent theoretical work. Intended mainly for students and teachers of astronomy, this book will also be a useful reference for practicing astronomers and scientifically curious general readers. ... Read more

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An eminent mathematician and writer explores an idea both simple and complex, both multidisciplinary and unifying--the story of symmetry.

Hidden in the heart of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, and modern cosmology lies one idea: symmetry.

Symmetry has been a key concept for artists, architects, and musicians for centuries, but as a mathematical principle it remained, until very recently, an arcane pursuit. In the twentieth century, however, symmetry emerged as central to the most fundamental ideas in physics and cosmology. Why Beauty Is Truth chronicles its history, from ancient Babylon to twenty-first century physics. World-famous mathematician Ian Stewart tells the compelling stories of the eccentric and occasionally tragic mathematical geniuses as he describes how symmetry grew into one of the most important ideas of modern science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Good History of Math, Misleading Title
The author has penned a dozen stories of mathematical discovery joined by the theme of symmetry.The individual stories are good biographies, historically interesting and their mathematical principles accessable to the layman.The links from story to story are plausible.The abstract level of the principles is made clear.

In the end, the beauty of the mathematics or structures discovered is not clear.The deeper commonality of the mathematics escapes the general reader.The connection of symmetry to beauty or truth is not really attempted.

The reader who enjoys the history of math and mathematicians or who seeks some understanding of post-calculus math will enjoy this book, but don't expect to learn the meaning of the universe.

Fearful symmetry framed.
An excellent history of the roles played by symmetry various fields of mathematics. Complex ideas are well explained in a way accessible to anyone with good high school mathematics (hardly any equations appear). Many eccentric characters are brought to life, entwining the explorers with their discoveries.

I wasn't fully able to grasp the beauty
This book has many good points, and some drawbacks. I think my own lack of mathematical knowledge held me back from fully appreciating it. (I got A in O level maths in 1981. I enjoyed maths at school, and felt I was getting to the interesting bits when I was forced towards physics chemistry and biology for A levels- looking back I wish I had the chance to do all four subjects)

The good points are that is well written with a clear narrative showing how our mathematical thinking has developed over time. It shows well how seemingly abstract problems lead on to many insights that may be interesting of themselves (pure maths) or may help solve practical problems. (applied maths) What seems like purely abstract mathematics may later turn out to be the route to new applied knowledge. The "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics is shown in many examples throughout the book. The discussion of the relationship between truth and beauty is well nuanced, and it seems likely that truth will be beautiful, and that a current "ugly" or "messy" formulation is one awaiting its simplification. At school I was just beginning to get the idea that graphs, coordinates, geometry, equations and matrices were all ways of expressing the same idea in different formats. This book shows how these relationships come about, and evolve out from one another.

The drawbacks of the book for me was that the final 100 pages largely lost me. I got certain headline points, but I did not understand the ideas behind group theory, Lie groups, Hamilton's work, Killing's work. I think this is a reflection of my ignorance, not the author's writing.

My feeling about this book is that it would be a great read for someone studying maths at A level or university and wanting to get an idea of how maths has developed and where it is going. It would whet the appetite and encourage their studies.

Bad writing style for an otherwise stellar topic and approach
I very much agree with Israel Ramirez's review.

I love the topic and the approach the author used. Math history is fascinating and I'm sure more people would understand and appreciate math if it were taught with more of a historical perspective rather than the rote learning approach used in most k-12 education these days in north america.

I found this book to drag on at times and not go into enough depth on what it promised to discuss - group theory.

Reading was made difficult by the fact that everything happened at the same level of discourse. Whether it was a pages long setup starting with Maxwell's grandparents, The author's opinion on how 2 historians recordings differ on a less important fact of Sumarrian school children, or the Ah Ha! moment that revolutionized mathematics from a study of quantitative calculations to the analysis of the abstract, it's all written in a way that holds the same level of importance.

That being said I also cried my eyes out with his recounting of Galois's untimely death - something I never thought possible of a math book.

Why beauty is Truth is more than a simple book about math and group theory but a book about humanity's attempt to understand the natural world culminating with the latest triumphs in theoretical physics. However, this book could have easily been half the length and still kept all the main points. It was very hard to get into a rhythm while reading since it was hard to tell what points were important and what points made up the background information.

An inspired but muddled mess
I agree completely with the review by Israel Ramirez.Stewart religiously avoids mathematical expressions throughout, assuming his audience will choke on anything more than a polynomial equation, but he doesn't think twice about spewing esoteric math and physics jargon when attempting to explain fantastically complicated concepts in words. To his credit, it works some of the time, but any honest reader will admit it doesn't work much of the time. As others have noted, there are many positive things about the book, but by the end the author is throwing new thoughts into the mix helter skelter as if cleaning out his ideas closet, and it all just falls apart. What are we supposed to take away from nonsense such as: "So now the general opinion is that the exceptional Lie groups exist because of the wisdom of the deity in permitting the octonions to exist."?? ... Read more

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Readings from Physics Today With over 300 photographs and illustrations, this volume is a valuable library reference, a useful supplementary text for a wide range of courses, and stimulating leisure reading for physicists and non- physicists alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Bravo!
Rather than a collection of historically important papers, this is a collection of papers ABOUT the history of physics (spread over the history of Physics Today). I was confused at first, but I'm not disappointed in the book. This bookhas a large-format with plenty of room for photographs, charts and even newspaper clippings. It's approx 8" x 11" with 373 densely packed pages of three-color ink printing. The third ink is a septia tone added to all the photographs and article titles and charts for distinction. There are so many individual articles organized by chapters, it's impossible to list them all. All the articles are reprints from Physics Today (they seem to be exact photocopies of the pages because sometimes you can see the bleed-through in the photographs and the bleed through isn't from this book, but from the original magazine). Needless to say with such a pedigree, the articles don't pull punches and will serve any serious student well.It includes a section called "Personal Accounts" with, well, personal accounts by Einstein on Einstein,Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck. ... Read more

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This classic and comprehensive history of physics, written by the Hungarian scientist and engineer Karolyi Simonyi, has been translated and updated. The book combines a wide-ranging, in-depth account of the science of physics with an insightful interpretation of the cultural context in which these experimental discoveries and conceptual interpretations developed. A wealth of original sources and illustrations, both technical and historical, allow the reader to get involved in the intellectual dialogue with the great scientific minds that created our understanding of the physical world that the author reveals. ... Read more

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This book deals with the history of physics, covering important developments in physics from the end of the nineteenth century to about 1930. Major topics include relativity theory (both special and general) and quantum mechanics.This book is unique in that it concentrates on anecdotes about the physicists creating the new ideas. Both thematic and biographical in nature, it contains a heavy emphasis on personal incidents or quotes. Readers will be entertained with humorous incidents in the lives of some famous scientists, and simultaneously learn quite a bit of modern physics without the mathematical details, but with the important concepts. Academics and anyone interested in science in the most general sense are likely to want to read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fun book
A fun book, worthy of reading -- especially for lecturers -- as it supplies much material that can be used to "lighten up" lectures and, also make the presentations more human. ... Read more

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Variational principles have proven to be surprisingly fertile. For example, Fermat used variational methods to demonstrate that light follows the fastest route from one point to another, an idea which came to be a cornerstone of geometrical optics. This book explains variational principles and charts their use throughout modern physics. It examines the analytical mechanics of Lagrange and Hamilton, the basic tools of any physicist. The book also offers simple but rich first impressions of Einstein’s General Relativity, Feynman’s Quantum Mechanics, and more that reveal amazing interconnections between various fields of physics.

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In The Age of Entanglement, Louisa Gilder brings to life one of the pivotal debates in twentieth century physics.In 1935, Albert Einstein famously showed that, according to the quantum theory, separated particles could act as if intimately connected–a phenomenon which he derisively described as “spooky action at a distance.” In that same year, Erwin Schrödinger christened this correlation “entanglement.” Yet its existence was mostly ignored until 1964, when the Irish physicist John Bell demonstrated just how strange this entanglement really was. Drawing on the papers, letters, and memoirs of the twentieth century’s greatest physicists, Gilder both humanizes and dramatizes the story by employing the scientists’ own words in imagined face-to-face dialogues.The result is a richly illuminating exploration of one of the most exciting concepts of quantum physics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (42)

Intriguing and entertaining!
This was a great way to put the history and the science together, and provide a most stimulating and encouraging invitation to dive into the wonderful world of Quantum Computing! QBits, here I come!

hopeless!
I challenge anyone who doesn't already know something about quantum physics and entanglement to give any kind of sensible explanation whatsoever about what is meant by quantum entanglement after reading this book. I'm not talking about an explanation of the actual physics and math, just a layman's explanation. The descriptions in this book are so vague and scattered that I came away feeling less knowledgeable about the topic than I was before I read it. There's all sorts of interesting background information on the various personalities involved etc. etc. but as far as explaining the topic itself, forget it! Try Aczel's book "Entanglement" instead.

And as far as what the author means by the phrase in the title "when quantum physics was reborn", .... I haven't a clue. It's just meaningless.

Unique book, but unnecessarily unfair to Robert Oppenheimer
Louisa Gilder's book "The Age of Entanglement" is a rather unique and thoroughly engrossing book which tells the story of quantum mechanics and especially the bizarre quantum phenomenon called entanglement through a unique device- recreations of conversations between famous physicists. Although Gilder does take considerable liberty in fictionalizing the conversations, they are based on real events and for the most part the device works. Gilder is especially skilled at describing the fascinating experiments done by recent physicists which validated entanglement. This part is usually not found in other treatments of the history of physics. Having said that, the book is more a work of popular history than popular science, and I thought that Gilder should have taken more pains to clearly describe the science behind the spooky phenomena.

Gilder's research seems quite exhaustive and well-referenced, which was why the following observation jumped out of the pages and bothered me even more.

On pg. 189, Gilder describes a paragraph from a very controversial and largely discredited book by Jerrold and Leona Schecter. The book which created a furor extensively quotes a Soviet KGB agent named Pavel Sudoplatov who claimed that, among others, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer were working for the Soviet Union and that Oppenheimer knew that Klaus Fuchs was a Soviet spy (who knew!). No evidence for these fantastic allegations has ever turned up. In spite of this, Gilder refers to the book and essentially quotes a Soviet handler named Merkulov who says that a KGB agent in California named Grigory Kheifets thought that Oppenheimer was willing to transmit secret information to the Soviets. Gilder says nothing more after this and moves on to a different topic.

Now take a look at the footnotes on pg. 190-191 of Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin's authoritative biography of Oppenheimer ("American Prometheus"). B & S also quote exactly the same paragraph, but then emphatically add how there is not a shred of evidence to support what was said and how the whole thing was probably fabricated by Merkulov to save Kheifets's life (since Kheifets had otherwise turned up empty-handed on potential recruits).

If you want to obtain even more authoritative information on this topic, I would recommend the recent book "Spies" by Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev. The book has a detailed chapter which discusses the Merkulov and Kheifets letter procured by the Schecters and cited by Gilder. The chapter clearly says that absolutely no corroboration of the contents of this letter has been found in Kheifets's own testimony after he returned to the Soviet Union or in the Venona transcripts. You would think that material of such importance would at the very least be corroborated by Kheifets himself. A source as valuable as Oppenheimer would also most certainly be mentioned in other communications. But no such evidence exists. The authors also point out other multiple glaring inconsistencies and fabrications in the documents cited in the Schecter volume. The book quite clearly says that as of 2008, there is absolutely no ambiguity or the slightest hint that Oppenheimer was willing to transmit secrets to the Soviets; the authors emphatically end the chapter saying that the case is closed.

What is troubling is that Gilder quotes the paragraph and simply ends it there, leaving the question of Oppenheimer's loyalty dangling and tantalizingly open-ended. She does not quote the clear conclusion drawn by B & S, Haynes, Klehr, Vassiliev and others that there is no evidence to support this insinuation. She also must surely be aware of several other general works on Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, none of which give the slightest credence to such allegations.

You would expect more from an otherwise meticulous author like Gilder. I have no idea why she gives credence to the canard about Oppenheimer. But in an interview with her which I saw, she said that she was first fascinated by Oppenheimer (as most people were and still are) but was then repulsed by his treatment of his student David Bohm who dominates the second half of her book. Bohm was a great physicist and philosopher (his still-in-print textbook on quantum theory is unmatched for its logical and clear exposition), a dedicated left-wing thinker who was Oppenheimer's student at Berkeley in the 1930s. After the War, he was suspected of being a communist and stripped of his faculty position at Princeton which was then very much an establishment institution. After this unfortunate incident, Bohm lived a peripatetic life in Brazil and Israel before settling down at Birkbeck College in England. Oppenheimer essentially distanced himself from Bohm after the war, had no trouble detailing Bohm's left-wing associations to security agents and generally did not try to save Bohm from McCarthy's onslaught.

This is well-known; Robert Oppenheimer was a complex and flawed character. But did Gilder's personal dislike of Oppenheimer in the context of Bohm color her attitude toward him and cause her to casually toss out a tantalizing allegation which she must have known is not substantiated? I sure hope not. I think it would be great if Gilder would retract this material in a forthcoming edition of this otherwise fine book.

Too many entanglements
Nice, even impressive try, but the reader get sometimes the impression that personnal details related to the actors' daily lives get in the way of a clearer presentation of the science and its progress.

An interesting mix of history and theory
Entanglement has vexed some of the greatest minds of the 20th century and this is what I loved about this book. Books on physics (other than text books) tend to either be histories focused on an individual or books focus on a subject matter without history. I really enjoyed how the author unraveled the subject over time through the individuals making the discoveries creating a interesting timeline. It did start a little slow but got very intersting later. ... Read more

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Outstanding text by one of the 20th century’s foremost physicists dramatically explains how the central laws of physical science evolved—from Pythagoras’ discovery of frequency ratios in the sixth century B.C. to today’s research on elementary particles. Includes fascinating biographical data about such immortals as Galileo, Newton, Huygens, Einstein and others.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Very Informative!
This book contained everything you could wish to know concerning just about every physicist that has had a major scientific contribution.This is a great book for intermediate scientific readers.I also liked that it had diagrams especially drawn by the author himself.

An excellent overview of discoveries in physics.
I have read a fair amount of books on physics and found this one to be very enjoyable. Gamow keeps things pretty simple (until the end when he starts talking about his specialty) and very accessible. He is careful that the math is sequential; he always builds on previous examples to take you to the next step.

The book was published in the 60's, so there are many recent discoveries missing, but you need to know your history of physics to see how we got where we are.In fact, I found that this bookshowed just how new all of our current theories are and that there is promise for many new things on the horizon. ... Read more

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more