QED

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!

Rating:
Summary: hmmm?
Review: An excellent explanation of QED with no formalism. Good diagrams are used in place of the mathematics, with clear explanations and nice analogies to make this subject very accessible and understandable.

This will certainly get the mind wheels turning, a very stimulating and fun read.

Rating:
Summary: Illuminating
Review: Get it? Illuminating. This book explains the interaction between light and matter, which is illuminating. If you understand the pun, then you have the brain capacity to understand this book.

Richard Feynman possessed some kind of special brand of genius which enabled him to masquerade as a regular guy. He was able to cut to the quick of Nature's mysteries and explain in plain english what he saw there for the benefit of those of us lacking in genius.

Feynman freed us from the need to relate to quantum physics by memorizing a set of arcane mathematical expressions, and delivered to us a way of understanding the probabilistic nature of quantum reality by drawing a bunch of little arrows pointing this way and that. His method, known as "Feynman diagrams", is so simple that it seems almost childlike, yet it works every time.

The theory of Quantum ElectoDynamics is the most complete theory that science has in its arsenal. The theory explains 99% of everything we see at the classical level of reality. Feynman was never quite able to tie in the oddities observed in the interaction of nuclei or gravitrons, but reality as we observe it is more or less dictated by the interaction of electrons, and this theory describes that interplay perfectly.

Feyman's "sum over histories" explains reality even better than Newton's seemingly incontrovertable laws of Nature, which in actuality, decribe only the end result of the sum over histories. Where Newton described one reality, the one observed by all of us, Feynman described every microscopic reality, each as real as the other, and all culminating in the one macroscopic reality as described by Newton. Feynman described particles moving faster than light, and even backwards in time - all of which is explained in his "strange theory of light and matter", and all of which is endlessly verifiable in the laboratory.

For anyone willing to break out of the Newtonian mindset which humanity has been in for over 300 years, and which is still taught in today's high school science classrooms, this book is a must read. Treat yourself to 150 pages of plain english which will infuse you with wonder for the rest of your days.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I am an Electrical Engineer and had the usual education. It is a delight to read this book and learn about the fundamental theory upon which much of the Electrical Engineering profession is based.

Much of what we are taught in schools is an approximation and sometimes wrong. It is great to learn, even if it is only qualitatively, about more accurate representations.

I wish that Feynman were alive to keep updating his lectures with the latest developments. The lectures seem to have been last updated in 1980s and I am sure Physics has moved on since then.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Great!
Review: I had this book for a while now, and finally got around to reading it.
It is truly amazing because of the way Feynman breaks down complicated things into their abstract main ideas (e.g. the three steps involved in all of the theory of light). And yes, like a previous reviewer mentioned, this is a short book and if you read it like some literature book you will quickly find yourself confused and lost, thus it requires from time to time a careful study of the material.

I would also recommend Six Easy Pieces (and I think it would be beneficial to anyone to read Six Easy Pieces first then QED).

Rating:
Summary: A classic in the physics community!
Review: QED. It's not Quod Erat Demonstrandum; no, it's not even Quickly Ends Dandruff. Then, what is it? Quantum ElectroDynamics. Now, if you're ignorant of physics, you're probably still thinking, "That says a whole lot. What is it?" By this rather formidable name, you might not be able to tell if you want to read the book or not, so I'll synopsize. Over three quarters (75%, if you prefer--ooh, I can do math!) of this book explains movements and interactions of electrons and photons expressed as probabilities. The last section discusses a variation of QED, quantum chromodynamics (i.e. quarks). Unlike some abstruse conjectures (most notably, string theory), quantum electrodynamics can be and has been experimentally verified. In fact, it is the most accurate theory ever devised! This does not mean that QED is totally compliant with common sense (fortunately; physics addicts often find common sense to be rather dull--and incorrect!). The reader learns to accept that light does not always travel in straight paths, that light reflects from all parts of a mirror, and that electrons can travel backward in time. Richard Feynman, who (along with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger) was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize for his work on this theory, elucidates QED so that even those who have never before studied physics can understand it. (To be more accurate, they can understand *how* QED works; Feynman admits that no one, himself included, truly understands *why* QED works.) If you already are familiar with the theory, you are likely to become bored with this book. On the other hand, I'm not sure that this book is the best for physics neophytes, since it is specific in explaining this one given area (even skipping the historical background present in most popular accounts of physics). You might want to first obtain more general knowledge of modern physics. If you find optics interesting, definitely read this book. For anyone who wants a deeper knowledge of modern physics or chemistry, an understanding of quantum electrodynamics is a sine qua non, and this book is probably the most explicit introduction on the market.

~pythia~

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Richard Feynman always amazes me. This book is my first experience with QED. when I was just one high school student, I read it during a boring holiday, I was attracted by it at once!
the book tells you what is physics, tells you how beautiful physics is!
I think everyone who have fundamental physics knowledge can understand QED from the book,. someone usually say S.Hawking's"the brief history of time" is excellent, but I don't think so. the book is more excellent ,maybe the best popular science book!

Rating:
Summary: Easily understood intro to QED
Review: Richard Feynman, along with Schwinger and Tomonaga, won Nobel prizes in the 1960's for their development of quantum electrodynamics (QED). In this book, Feynman attempts to bring this esoteric field down to the layman's level and succeeds as usual. The chapters in the book are taken from lectures he presented to a largely nonscientific audience, but the material is not dumbed down. Of course, many of the details are left out since only years of study can provide a true understanding of the theory, but Feynman presents his lectures in such a way that only a reasonable amount of thought is needed to appreciate the basics of QED.

"The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" is an entirely appropriate subtitle to a book that attempts to explain the theory behind phenomena that escape our everyday experience and intuition. QED is arguably the most successful scientific theory in existence. Its predictions have correlated extraordinarily well with experiment although "prediction" in the QED sense is not what we are generally used to. The quantum world is inherently probabilistic. There are certain things we just cannot "know." We cannot predict which photons will reflect of a glass surface, but with QED, we can at least accurately calculate the percentage of photons that do reflect. That's just one of the results of QED that Feynman attempts to explain, and he does so in a very straightforward fashion.

Feynman never insults the intelligence of his audience by pretending that the basics of QED are beyond its grasp, but instead repeatedly insists that no one really understands QED, but that should not prevent anyone from appreciating some of its results. With this attitude, Feynman explains the basics of partial reflection, particle interactions, and the discoveries of new particles, and he does all this through numerous figures and analogies rather than mathematical equations.

Richard Feynman was not your ordinary physicist. He was a physicist's physicist and a great teacher (read James Gleick's bio of Feynman called Genius). His teaching abilities are in full display in this book as he is able to bring an incredibly strange theory down to the average reader's level. I highly recommend this book. It will tax your thinking abilities but will never insult them.

Rating:
Summary: Easily understood intro to QED
Review: Richard Feynman, along with Schwinger and Tomonaga, won Nobel prizes in the 1960's for their development of quantum electrodynamics (QED). In this book, Feynman attempts to bring this esoteric field down to the layman's level and succeeds as usual. The chapters in the book are taken from lectures he presented to a largely nonscientific audience, but the material is not dumbed down. Of course, many of the details are left out since only years of study can provide a true understanding of the theory, but Feynman presents his lectures in such a way that only a reasonable amount of thought is needed to appreciate the basics of QED.

"The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" is an entirely appropriate subtitle to a book that attempts to explain the theory behind phenomena that escape our everyday experience and intuition. QED is arguably the most successful scientific theory in existence. Its predictions have correlated extraordinarily well with experiment although "prediction" in the QED sense is not what we are generally used to. The quantum world is inherently probabilistic. There are certain things we just cannot "know." We cannot predict which photons will reflect of a glass surface, but with QED, we can at least accurately calculate the percentage of photons that do reflect. That's just one of the results of QED that Feynman attempts to explain, and he does so in a very straightforward fashion.

Feynman never insults the intelligence of his audience by pretending that the basics of QED are beyond its grasp, but instead repeatedly insists that no one really understands QED, but that should not prevent anyone from appreciating some of its results. With this attitude, Feynman explains the basics of partial reflection, particle interactions, and the discoveries of new particles, and he does all this through numerous figures and analogies rather than mathematical equations.

Richard Feynman was not your ordinary physicist. He was a physicist's physicist and a great teacher (read James Gleick's bio of Feynman called Genius). His teaching abilities are in full display in this book as he is able to bring an incredibly strange theory down to the average reader's level. I highly recommend this book. It will tax your thinking abilities but will never insult them.

Rating:
Summary: Read it
Review: This book is great! There isn't much to say here that hasn't already been said. If you have a desire to learn about quantum mechanics but you lack a science background, this book simply cannot be beat. This is the only book that gives you the real deal. A Brief History, Elegant Universe, etc. all gloss over the topic. But don't fool yourself. Even though Feynman is a great teacher, this is not easy stuff. If you hope to really grasp what Prof. Feynman is saying you are going to have to really think about it. I remember reading one page over and over again for an hour until I grasped one concept. But it is definitely worth it in the end. I believe that anyone of above average intelligence (which I believe most people who read this sort of book are) should be able to fully grasp the ideas presented in this book. Enjoy.