Explaining the Universe : The New Age of Physics

Rating:
Summary: Maxwell, Marconi, Mandelbrot & M-theory
Review: Popular books on physics are now commonplace, but rare are those as articulate and carefully crafted as John Charap's ''Explaining the Universe''. A theoretical physicist with a gift for story-telling, Charap takes us on a tour of the twentieth century's most spectacular discoveries: quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, the expanding universe, quantum field theory, black holes and elementary particles, culminating in the triumphs of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and the inflationary Big Bang cosmology. Yet at century's end physicists faced their biggest conundrum: the incompatibility of Einstein's gravity and quantum theory. With elegance and clarity, the author persuades the reader that radical departures from traditional thinking seem to called for: supersymmetry, extra space dimensions and microscopic extended objects like strings and membranes. Anyone interested in learning more of where physics in the next millennium might take us, and in being entertained along the way, can do no better than start with this book. A delight!

Rating:
Summary: Maxwell, Marconi, Mandelbrot & M-theory
Review: Popular books on physics are now commonplace, but rare are those as articulate and carefully crafted as John Charap's ''Explaining the Universe''. A theoretical physicist with a gift for story-telling, Charap takes us on a tour of the twentieth century's most spectacular discoveries: quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, the expanding universe, quantum field theory, black holes and elementary particles, culminating in the triumphs of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and the inflationary Big Bang cosmology. Yet at century's end physicists faced their biggest conundrum: the incompatibility of Einstein's gravity and quantum theory. With elegance and clarity, the author persuades the reader that radical departures from traditional thinking seem to called for: supersymmetry, extra space dimensions and microscopic extended objects like strings and membranes. Anyone interested in learning more of where physics in the next millennium might take us, and in being entertained along the way, can do no better than start with this book. A delight!