Strange Beauty : Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics

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Summary: 20th-Century physics mirrored in one mired genius
Review: As a former classics student I like to learn that Truth and Beauty have not left the scene. In Strange Beauty we learn that particle physicists, like Plato, consider the two inseparable. And if all ugliness is banned as untrue then surely the universe that physics builds is one that we can look upon and say that it is good? (The love of symmetry, though, which is -- the psychologists tell us -- more a masculine than a feminine passion, may be blocking the view. My guess is that when women begin to find their place in science the world will turn out to be much more lopsided than the current masters allow it to be.)

Strange Beauty offers a sympathetic but not uncritical analysis of the life of one temperamental genius. It is also masterfully composed, with an understated elegance not often encountered. The science in this book is sometimes difficult for the non-scientist but never opaque -- laid out so clearly, in fact, that it holds its own even against my artist's mind. I feel inclined, as I have after reading each one of Johnson's books, to start again at the beginning so as to discover what I may have missed while gliding effortlessly on the tide of his words.

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Summary: Success and Frailties of a Nobel-Prize Physicist
Review: George Johnson beautifully describes the life and work of the Nobel-Prize physicist Murray Gell-Mann and the revolutionary history of elementary particle physics. In addition to how the important discoveries of the Eightfold Way and quarks were made, we learn Gell-Mann's diverse interests in linguistics, ornithology, archaeology, environmental problems and complex phenomena. The author writes not only about the physicist's brilliance and success but also his human frailties such as his experiences of writer's block and procrastination and his brooding temper, thus making the biography complete as viewed from every side. This is a good book for laypersons as well as for physicists.

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Summary: beautifully written
Review: George Johnson's bio of Murray Gell-Mann is an excellent read for anyone intersted in what has been transpiring in post WWII Particle Physics. While providing a long overdue biography of one of the most important physicists of the century, it also has very lucid explanations of the complex theories that Gell-Mann and his cohorts have devised. The only caveat for the potential reader is to be aware that these concepts, while very well explained, are not easy going without some degree of patience and some high school level (or better) physics. The reader can choose to ignore this material and stick with the biographical portion, but it is well worth the effort to understand the clear discussion. In short, an excellent read for anyone intersted in contemporary physics and its practioners.

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Summary: a wonderful study
Review: George Johnson's scholarly work, Strange Beauty, takes us to a rare and exotic place. A region frequented by very few men. Men who talk a peculiar and usually incomprehensible language of particle physics and advanced mathematics. He shows us the workings of their exceptional minds and, in particular, the thinking of a leader in the field, Murray Gell-Mann. This Nobel laureate is both revered and disliked by some of his peers and that dichotomy adds much to make this a fascinating and highly worthwhile book.

David L. Sagman, M.D.

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Summary: Strange Beauty:Murray Gell-Mann
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. Gell-Mann's contribution to quantum physics is explained well (to the extent that anyone can explain that subject). The author also did an excellent job of exploring Gell-Mann's complex personality and his (often stormy) relationships with other great physicists of the second half of the 20th century. The author's personal relationship with his subject (getting permission to do a biography, getting access to Gell-Mann) is an entertaining sub-theme to the book. My main disappointment with the book (and perhaps this unfair, since the author's subject is Gell-Mann, afterall) is that there is not enough about the interplay between Gell-Mann and his equally great contemporary at Cal Tech--Richard Feynman.

All in all, a well written and enjoyable book.

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Summary: Dear George Johnson, esq.
Review: I have this book of March 4, 2003.

I ask you about its edition in Russia?

[e-mail]

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Summary: Popular science writing at its best
Review: Strange Beauty is a consummate piece of popular science writing that captivates the reader with tales of a fascinating 20th century particle physicist, but without letting the human narrative occlude the science itself. This is no easy accomplishment; often popular accounts of science veer too far into the cult of personality, making their heroes appear to be larger than life and their science to be some kind of high melodrama. George Johnson's storytelling helps us to know the flawed genius of Murray Gell-Mann and to care about him as a lead character. We also care about the knowledge that he and his colleagues are uncovering about the ephemeral wisps of particle reality that give rise to the material world. Gell-Mann comes off in this book as a devoted theorist and a passionate thinker, but also as a real human being. Johnson's portrayal is a more even-handed and fair treatment of Gell-Mann than he has received in other popular writings. The search for new particles reads like a detective story, but not in an affected style. The reader may not fully grasp each stage of the particle trail--a rarefied world that is difficult even for experts to feel at home in. But the particle search that Johnson unfolds makes it clear how mathematical constructs give rise to funny sounding names like "quarks," which then lead researchers on a hunt to find them. Twentieth-century particle physics is strikingly close to Platonic philosophy, which suggests that the foundations of reality can never be known, but only surmised from shadows. Yet, even as Strange Beauty is eliciting all of these insights from the reader, it does so while still managing to to be a ripping good story.

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Summary: This is strange beauty for a popular science
Review: The author intrigues and grasps the reader by the stories about physics of 21 century. It is physics of a particle and only particles. The author makes it do benevolently to allow human reason to penetrate in salt of a science and to open for itself new.

Further it can directly flash in a good pleasant society, with the friends or before the heads on a service. So!

It is not population of a science. It is introduction far in a cult of individuality, doing elementary particles huge as our life and a science.

The author comes off in this book as the devoted theorist and passionate man, but also and as the real man.

The search of this "new" particles it are always jumps on a hippodrome. In synhro-, fazo- and so on -tron, the same circle for run and same human passions.

The reader can want to ignore some material of the author and to not read all¸ in succession.

However, to tell the truth, it is an excellent and well readable material for any educated man and woman, especially, if they are Americans, moreover and lives in USA.

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Summary: Powerful biography of a powerful physicist
Review: This is an easy 5. George Johnson took care of the writing and left the physics to Murray. I have always felt an uneasy awe when hearing of the "next" Gell-Mann concept as I grew up hoping to someday become a scientist.

Johnson's book exposes the raw energy of scientific creation in a man so obsessed with "doing it all". It reveals personal traits of a driven human spirit. Based on the prose, Murray must have been something to deal with; but of course, wasn't it well worth it. I know I haven't; but I feel I have met the physicist that orchestrated the rag-tag "particle zoo" of Opie to perform its siren songs.

From the birds that he knew, and thru languages he expressed himself of which math was only one, Gell-Mann would have fit well in the Renaissance. Johnson also exposes Murray's personal life, its beauty, its tragedy, its strangeness.

Though a biography, Johnson's book is also an excellant account of the competition to paint a picture of the physical world. There is little physics, but the events and descriptions of the breakthrus are a must read for any serious physicist.

I hope to hear more from Johnson and more from Murray Gell-Mann.

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Summary: Genius and Humanity Revealed
Review: Very good, imho. The author has an interesting subject & a good ability to explain the physics in a way that is understandable for the layperson. He also has a nice ability to turn a phrase which makes the book more enjoyable.