QED

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Summary: Elementary expostion, NOT popular science
Review: Here's a book that shows, clearly, that explaining science to a lay audience is something altogether different from "popular science". This book will not teach you buzzwords and catchphrases with which to impress your next non-physicist audience. It will not help you wow the crowds with your knowledge of "philosophical" issues of science.

What this book will do for you is give you a fascinating, lucid and yet elementary introduction to the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), as told by one of the Nobel laureates whose mind it sprang from. It amazes me how much ground Feynman managed to cover in just four lectures, without assuming ANY foreknowledge of higher mathematics or physics (not even complex numbers, which are central to QED).

Every scientist who deems his work too esoteric to be digested by laymen should be made to read this. Everyone else: get this book and be prepared to learn some amazing and intuition-confounding facts about physics.

[For the record: I'm a mathematician and computer scientist, not a physicist.]

Rating:
Summary: Earnest Enthusiasm and Elfish Delight
Review: *QED* is an edited version of four lectures delivered to a lay audience at UCLA in 1983. It conveys Feynman's unique combination of earnest enthusiasm and elfish delight at the fact that "the way we have to describe Nature is generally incomprehensible to us." (p. 77) It is probably true that the book can be profitably read by every class of reader, from Feynman's physicist peers to street people (if this is not the contemporary equivalent of "the man in the street," why isn't it??) who have never studied physics. Feynman was a great communicator, and knew how to throw out a lifeline of wit, reason, or good sense in the midst of the most bewildering complexities. Twenty-first century humanity urgently needs to integrate something of the quantum view of reality into its common understanding of things, and Feynman's work is a precious contribution toward that end. Highly recommended!

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Summary: QED is a dippy process
Review: Physics at the " Oh, Golly!" level... So why do I go bck to this book almost as much as Pauli's Relativity? I suppose it is his neat process graphs or his homey style? The neutron decay beta process: d(-1/3)-> u(2/3)+W(-1); W(-1)->e(-1)+v(0) Even looks good until you start adding up the masses! If nonlinear renormalization is a dippy process, then so is QED.

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Summary: Thought-provoking book - even for non-physicists!
Review: I found this to be one of the most thought-provoking books I ever read. Feynman addresses an extremely weird subject in a simple straight-forward way. I reccomend it to anyone interested in Quantum mechanics.

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Summary: Should be required reading
Review: If you'd like to know how reality REALLY works, and don't know much about Quantum Mechanics, this is probably the best place to start. If you don't care, and want to live the rest of your life in ignorance, avoid this book like the plague :-) After reading this, I suggest picking up a copy of "The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch. While you're at it, it won't hurt to read the classic "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Hofstadter. Caveat: reality is nothing like you imagined, and seeing it for the first time can have adverse psychological effects.

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Summary: Very good .... but very disappointing !!
Review: First of all there are two books authered by Feynman on this subject ...QED and Quantum Electrodynamics. I have studied only QED.

My recomendation is that every new and curious mind should read it once.

This is an excellent book to know and understand what QED is, what it deals with and how it deals with. But it is very disappointing in the sense that its very lean and thin. This entire book desrves to be an indispenseable first chapter of a bigger book. This books ditches you at the very momment when you have understand the basics and you want to know more ..... you want to know actually how calculations are done ...your mind starts questioning and Feynman becomes quite ...... too teasing !!!!

I would like to humbly comment, in general, about the Feynman's books. I feel there are two faces of science which attracts and fascinates bergeoning minds. First is that its ability to pridict ...... even after senselessly lenghthy looking mathematics one finds that still nature behaves the way science predicts. Second is the ELEGANCE that science, as distinct from other subjects, has. How beautifully science maintains the consistency ...... how beautifully it has been formulated ..... how severe are small assumptions ...... and how carefully each small assumption is mentioned in the formulations ...!!! This second phase is where Feynman lacks. Feynman's books failed to impress the new minds with the BRILIANT mathematical ELEGANCE of science !!! He fails to bring out the GRACE of CONSISTENCY !! The lengthy circular line integrals and surface integrals of electrodynamics, the elegant linear algebra quantum theory, the variations in Hamiltonian formultaions .......all these have an intrinsic beauty which Feynman fails to bring forth to new entrants into the field of science.

There is a satge in one's educational growth till which one likes to understand how the nature behaves ....how science enables one to predict nature .....I mean things of general curiosity. But finally a stage comes when you want to study science with all its ELEGANCE. There is a stage when you want to admire the beautifull science ..... elegantly decorated and precisely dressed with mind boggling mathematics.

Hence, all new comers should definately read QED of Feynman's Lecture .....but togather with that they should also read some formal treatment of science like those by Landau or Sakurai to admire the science with its true colors.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely unique!
Review: We cannot complain about lack of science books for laymen. Among them, many are of very good quality, describing sectors of science with competence and, sometimes, charm. The books by Gamow, for instance, are notable, as are those by Jeremy Bernstein. Then there are books which not only explain physics to you, but give you tools so that you can, by yourself, understand new things. These are very rare. I can think of two. Cosmology, by Harrison, allows you to derive by yourself consequences of the universe expansion by the trick of moving mirrors, a nice, simple and useful tool. But it is restricted to this rather esoteric corner of science. Then there is Feynman's QED. This is unique. By the clever trick of a clock attached to each photon and by the use of it in combination with his breakthrough idea of summing over all paths, he succeeds in extracting not only the specialized phenomena of high energy physics, but magically renews the good old optics of mirrors and refraction. Using his simple rules you can understand light "like a pro", and even do your own little research projects. I published papers on quantum field theory, yet, learned quite a bit from this small and precious book.

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Summary: An Introduction to Understanding the Incomprehensible
Review: This is the easy, highly simplified introduction to quantumbehavior - and after reading it I still do not understand more than70% of the simplified version! Feynman was both a great physicist anda great communicator, but the subject is both important andperplexingly obscure. This book is based on the Alex G. MautnerMemorial Lectures given at UCLA.

Quantum behavior will matter to the21st century the way the steam engine mattered to the 18th and 19thcenturies, the way the internal combustion engine mattered to thefirst two-thirds of the twentieth century, and the way computers andtransistors have mattered to the last third of the twentieth. Tounderstand Quantum behavior you first have to understand themeasurements and scales involved. One billionth of a meter is a"nanometer." It is how we measure things at the level ofmolecules and atoms. Quantum behavior is what starts happening innano-scale behavior below about 50 nanometers. The rules of physicssuddenly change at this level, and the way you and I were taught thatthe world works is suddenly replaced by very different rules.

AsFeynman said "my main purpose in these lectures is to describe asaccurately as I can the strange theory of light and matter--morespecifically the interaction of light and electrons." Feynman isclear that the theory works in that it accurately predicts outcomes,but that we do not really understand what is happening or how thoseoutcomes are arrived at. In his words: "What I am going to tellyou about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourthyear of graduate school ... No, you're not going to be able tounderstand it. Why, then, am I going to bother you with all this? Whyare you going to sit here all this time, when you won't be able tounderstand what I am going to say? It is my task to convince you notto turn away because you don't understand it. You see, my physicsstudents don't understand it either. That is because I don'tunderstand it. Nobody does."

Feynman goes on to explain whyquantum behavior is so hard to accept: "I'm going to describe toyou how Nature is--and if you don't like it, that's going to get inthe way of your understanding it. It's a problem that physicists havelearned to deal with. They've learned to realize that whether theylike a theory or they don't like a theory is not the essentialquestion. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictionsthat agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theoryis philosophically delightful or easy to understand, or perfectlyreasonable from the point of view of common sense. The theory ofquantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point ofview of common sense. And it agrees fully with the experiment. So Ihope you can accept Nature as She is--absurd." Despite itsdifficulty and remarkable characteristics Feynman asserts that Quantumelectrodynamics is important to all of life. Consider: "Most ofthe phenomena you are familiar with involve the interaction of lightand electrons--all of chemistry and biology for example. The onlyphenomena that are not covered by this theory are phenomena ofgravitation and nuclear phenomena; everything else is contained inthis theory."

"The more you see how strangely Naturebehaves, the harder it is to make a model that explains how even thesimplest phenomena actually work" is a Feynman observation thatgoes to the heart of our current situation. In traditional areas ofscience we are making rapid progress and some people think we are evenclose to the end of the scientific era or in a mature state. Yet inmany areas of science we are just beginning to understand thequestions and do not have a clue as to the answers. For example, 80%of the universe is dark matter and we currently know nothing aboutdark matter. Feynman's book is a good introduction to the frontiersthat beckon us to a great age of discovery in the 21stcentury.

Consider the possibility that at least at very tiny levelsa kind of time travel can occur. Here is the description of figure 63(p.96) "the scattering of light involves a photon going into anelectron and a photon coming out--not necessarily in that order, asseen in example b. The example in c shows a strange but realpossibility; the electron emits a photon, rushes backwards in time toabsorb a photon, and then continues forward in time." Rememberthis is a great physicist lecturing a sophisticated general audienceabout the cutting edge of knowledge. There is much in this onedescription to think about. Feynman goes further on this topic:"This phenomenon is general. Every particle in Nature has anamplitude to move backwards in time, and therefore has ananti-particle."

Feynman's argument is that quantum behavior istruly outside the Newtonian principles of classical physics andcontradicts our understanding of the world as we experience it at ourlarge, bulky level. "Throughout these lectures I have delightedin showing you that the price of gaining such an accurate theory hasbeen the erosion of our common sense. We must accept some very bizarrebehavior...light traveling in paths other than a straight line,photons going faster or slower than the conventional speed of light,electrons going backwards in time...That we must do, in order toappreciate what Nature is really doing underneath nearly all thephenomena we see in the world."

This is a challenging but veryimportant book about a topic which will have enormous implications forour century but which remarkably few public minded citizens have paidany attention to. I strongly recommend it.

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Summary: Wow! (But you'll have to read it a few times...)
Review: As a frustrated high-school student whose teacher could explain certain phenomena only as "QED," this book has been integral in satisfying my curiosity for "why stuff does stuff."

Feynman's work is incredible-it explains so much with so little (on the surface...), and in a way clear enough so that even someone who hasn't been through more than two high-school level physics courses can understand. (Only after several reads, however!)

If you are someone interested in why things work, look, and act the way they do, read QED! (Then read it again!)

Rating:
Summary: Suprisingly Addictive
Review: I am actually borrowing this book from a friend. But the way things look, I will need a copy for myself. I love reading fiction, and have often found non-fiction books boring and lose interest in them. However, once I started reading this book I was hooked, I would rather read QED than that excellent Stephen Baxter book sitting on my bookshelf. Feynman lets the reader understand the many aspects of the concept before moving on, and then he develops the concept to introduce his next point. I am more interested in quantum mechanics than ever before. I highly recommend this title!