Rating: 
Summary: Keep looking. There must be better books on this topic.
Review: I have been dreading this review for a few days now.Good stuff first. I learned an aweful lot about quantum physics and in particular particle physics in this book. Many of the mysteries about what happens in those huge particle accelerators are revealed, and many of the theories which they support and spawn are truly amazing. For example, do you know what two particles are release when a proton and an anti proton colide? (the answer is two photons) Did you know if you turn a graphic displaying this reaction on its side it implies that a photon and a proton can generate a photon and an antiproton? Pretty cool stuff. I was also quite pleased to really understand the distinction between Special and General relativity; thanks Al. Furthermore, I was amazed to learn that Bohr was possibly the actual founder of quantum physics way back in 1900 I think (and I just thought he was that guy that made that electron shells model of the atom.) Unfortunately, there is lots of bad stuff. Some of the charts are absolutely unintelligible, and at times it seems the text meant to describe those charts may actually be referring to a different book entirely. Not good. There are some huge leaps of logic, especially near the end where he discusses Bell's theorem. One in particular left me livid. We are told to believe all things are connected (non-locality of space) based on an experiment that the author never says has been verified. Another explanation is mentioned but cast off, particles moving at superluminal velocities. And finaly, the frequent injection of, "just like Eastern philosophy has been saying for a gazillion years" is just plain annoying. Zen can be a useful for understanding what cognition and perception are, but as a tool for understanding subatomic physics it is just plain ridiculous. "Our world is what we percieve it to be," is fine when you are talking about the mind, but falling back on it to explain away the wave-particle duality of light is a cop out. The answers may be "inside the watch case we can never open" as Einstein said, but those answers are there. A light wave does not "choose" to go through one slot or the other because I saw it do it. The most important statement in the book is in a footnote. Paraphrased it says, "The current state of sub-atomic physics is analogous to the Ptolomeaic (spelling?) world of Astronomy before Copernicus." It seems likely to me that the subatomic equivalent of "the earth is not the center of the universe" could take these bizzare particle behaviors we see and make perfect sense of them. If our answers are bewildering, it can only mean that our premise, and therefore our questions, are the ones that are flawed.
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Summary: Physics for the light hearted
Review: Such a great way to look at some of the most complicated material (to the average Joe). This book was able to show a lighthearted approach, sometimes comical, and bring "Physics" to a different level. Deems to be a great book for someone who has physics knowledge and wants to be amused; or for one who is intimidated by "physics" and wishes to have a better understanding.
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Summary: I couldn't stop "Dancing."
Review: "Unfortunately, when most people think of 'physics'," Gary Zukav writes, "they think of chalkboards covered with undecipherable symbols of an unknown mathematics. The fact is that physics is not mathematics. Physics, in essence, is simple wonder at the way things are and a divine (some call it compulsive) interest in how that is so. Mathematics is the tool of physics. Stripped of mathematics, physics becomes pure enchantment" (p. 4). First published four years after Fritjof Capra's TAO OF PHYSICS (1975), Zukav's overview of physics has since sold millions of copies (p. xxviii). It provides a fascinating explanation of quantum mechanics for readers like me, who have no mathematical or scientific background. Zukav's book provides "a useful translation" for those readers "who want to know about advanced physics but who are ignorant of its terminology and, perhaps, of its mathematics," and it also offers insight into "the extraordinary process which is occurring in theoretical physics" (pp. xxxii; 8-9). The premise of Zukav's book is that twentieth-century physics "is the story of a journey from intellectual entrenchment to intellectual openness, despite the conservative prove-it-to-me nature of individual physicists" (p. 346), and that the material world, "as it appears to the unenlightened, consists of many separate parts. These separate parts, however, are not really separate. According to mystics from around the world, each moment of enlightenment (grace/insight/samadhi/ satori) reveals that everything--all the separate parts of the universe--are manifestations of the same whole. There is only one reality, and it is whole and unified. It is one" (p. 248). G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: Physics that doesn't shrink your head
Review: I read this book quite a number of years ago and it still holds the place of showing me I'm not totally stupid. A sort of special theory of relativity exists between the reader and Gary Zukav. In most writings (even textbooks) there appears to be a move to obscure the plot line in order to provide drama and heighten ones sense of the authors profound wisdom. Gary has no ego of this sort. This is a friendly book. Gary is magical in making some of the most seemingly difficult theories understandable. I read this book and shortly thereafter, so did my wife who usually expresses no interest in things "scientific". I was amazed at the high fallootin' conversations that occured with my wife. We were throwing around physics terms like doctoral fellows.
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly organized, poorly written, woolly thinking
Review: This book is annoyingly poorly written. It doesn't explain, it obscures. It is muddled and disorganized. It introduces concepts without explaining them until some chapters later. Some important concepts have incorrect explanations, or no explanation at all. The book insults the careful thinking of 4 centuries of physicists. Worse, it insults the intellect of the reader. I would be ashamed to have people think I learned about quantum physics from this book, because that would imply that I do not know what "learning" means. The only thing I learned from this book is to avoid other books by this author. He takes on an ambitious task. But he doesn't succeed. While avoiding even the simplest equations, he also says to the reader in effect "you wouldn't understand what the math expresses, so just trust me that it is deep and obscure and organic and dancing and only in our minds anyway". In my opinion the average reader may not know the math symbols, but is intelligent enough to understand a clear explanation. Unfortunately too many of Zukav's explanations are not clear. Let's take the title as a case in point. He describes that the Chinese characters for Physics, "Wu Li", are ambiguous. This is not true because the tone in Chinese is a part of a word's identity. He doesn't know what he's talking about. But it gets worse. One of the possible meanings for the characters, he states, are "Wu"=matter or energy, and "Li"=organic patterns, such as woodgrain. Fine, but then he says "Wu Li" = patterns of organic energy. This is wrong, it is the patterns, not the energy, that are organic. Then later he says that "organic" = "conscious", and that therefore subatomic particles are organic and conscious, so by studying them we can learn more about ourselves. His logic evades me. In discussing the famous 2-slit experiment, he avoids the obvious possibility that photons can exhibit wave-like behaviour. He keeps saying "but we KNOW they are particles, not waves". If physicists do "know" it, it is not at all convincingly explained in this book. Yet this is the most fundamental and important basis of quantum theory. If somehow I missed his explanation, then that confirms his writing is unclear. He confuses the nature of statistical descriptions. He alternates between saying "this is not an explanation, it is a description of probabilities" and saying "there is nothing in the universe to explain, everything is a construct of our imagination". I could go on. By contrast, an easy-to-read nontechnical explanation of quantum theory is "QED" by Richard Feynman (spelling?), who gained a Nobel Prize in this area.
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Summary: physics stripped of mathematics....
Review: This expository writing has done a great deal of service to reality, at least when oftentimes the art and the science do not always meet ends in expressing their own beauty. This work by Gary Zukav has actually bridged this gap - a commingling dance by the Wu Li masters, as he likes to put it. What he has done is to lavishly present the theories of Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, and Gravitation, and he did not only simplify these mathematically rigorous theories in layman's terms (albeit sometimes in too vulgar ways) but he has actually painted modern physics in a proud manner against the backdrop of beautiful classical physics. The examples he presents are well constructed, the thought experiments are amply explained and the language exudes with the "beginner's mind" attitude of a student. The way he strips off mathematics is not disappointing, and the way he unravels the enchantment is startling. Although I like the way he unveils the mysteries from entities such as the Schrodinger's equation, and Einstein's theories of relativity, I am more repulsed at the way he purposely dwells pleasure in presenting haziness to our reality as he tries to relate the mechanics of subatomic particles with our own experiences, when in fact we both live in basically unreconcilable systems. Although it is not philosophically impossible, he appears to mar the beauty of life, its simplicity, its determinism. His interpretation of reality, as something we only create in our minds is too presumptuous anyhow, besides he had based it from the way subatomic particles behave which in itself is abstract to us, and from eastern philosophies which he confidently likes to mention. Most of the ideas here are hard to grasp at first instant (if that theory can be mentally constructed), but as one gathers understanding throughout the book, the reading will become pure pleasure and curious and exciting, as if one is always reading the first chapter of the book. This is a book I respect, and I recommend it to anyone who loves intellectual adventures.
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Summary: The Best Possible Introduction to Modern Physics
Review: This book gives u the best possible introduction to Modern Physics & how it evolved in the twentieth century.
If ever any layman wanted to know what happened to Physics in the twentieth century, this would be the book, he would have to read.
This book, gives u the best possible insight, the experience, into modern physics, without using any mathematical concepts.
After reading this book, I couldn't believe that the author wasn't even a physicist.
Rightly said on the back cover, it is the "BIBLE" for those who are curious about the mind-expanding discoveries of advanced physics, but who have no scientific back-ground.
Though, people with a scientific background, might not appreciate it because of the lack of mathematics in it, it is one of the Best books available, for getting introduced to Modern Physics
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Summary: A TERRIBLE BOOK FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PHYSICS
Review: QUANTUM MECHANICS AND EASTERN PHILOSIPHIES HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON. I AM NOT SURE OF THE AUTHORS KNOWLEDGE OF PHYSICS BUT FROM READING THE BOOK IT MUST BE LIMITED. YES THE BOOK IS EASY TO READ BUT WHO WANTS TO READ A BOOK THAT PORTRAYS QUANTUM THEORY INCORRECTLY. MY OPINION IS THE BOOK BY STEPHEN HAWKING IS MUCH BETTER INTRODUCTION. I CANNOT REMEBER THE TITLE BUT IT SHOULD BE EASY TO FIND
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Summary: Huh?
Review: This book implies that you will get a startling revelation by reading it, but when all is said and done, it's basically a 314-page layman's introduction to quantum physics and relativity, with a few doses of "And that's just what Buddha was saying all along!" thrown in. Here is the book in a nutshell: "From the time of Newton until about 1900, physicists thought that physics was a set of provable laws about predictable forces, such as gravity, operating on solid objects. However, a series of experiments around the turn of the last century, conducted by Michelson, Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and others, showed first that the behavior, and later even the nature, of light, of subatomic particles, and other fundamental elements of the physical world were not at all what we thought. The world we 'see' may seem solid and predictable, but at bottom, we are entitled to wonder whether 'matter' even exists at all in any permanent way, or is just a momentary meeting of forces that we call 'matter' as a convenience. Interestingly enough, this echoes some things said centuries ago by the Buddha and other eastern philosophers about the fundamental nature of reality." There. If you read that, you've basically read the book, but mercifully without Zukav's "Oh, wow, it's just so...like WOW" tone. I have no idea whether the details are correct in his discussion of physics, though he claims his manuscript was checked and approved by experts, chapter by chapter. As a technical writer, I was rather surprised to see occasional lapses in copy editing, such as printing "even horizon" for "event horizon." But the book actually amounts to less than what Zukav thinks it does. If you want to learn physics, you can go read a physics book. If you want to learn about eastern philosophy, you can read the Tao Te Ching. But basically, Zukav's book amounts to saying something like, "Gosh, you know, they've found out that even the biggest ocean wave is just made up of drops of water! And even the smartest scientist can't tell you just which drop will be where, in that big ocean wave! So that proves that a tidal wave is just a construct of our rational minds!" Uh huh. And meanwhile, it still knocks my house down. And the other problem with the book is that you spend about 300 pages wondering what's up with the Wu Li masters, but they are seldom mentioned. Every once in a while, Zukav remembers that that was the title of his book, after all, and throws in something about the universe being one big dance. This book really would have worked better as an article in "Harper's" or "The Atlantic." I've basically said all that was worthwhile in it in one paragraph, above, and Zukav really didn't need to recite every last detail of particle physics to show that Buddha knew that a mountain is only many grains of dust.
Rating:
Summary: Bull
Review: After reading the first paragraph of this book, I determined that Gary Zukav has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. He obviously has no physics training, and what he is in essence doing is trivializing physics. Physics is not easy, yet he tries to sell it as something that's quite simple. Many of the observations he makes and the conclusions that he draws are simply wrong. There's no other way to put it: this book is absolute garbage written by someone who just doesn't have a clue.
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