Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe

Rating:
Summary: Best introduction to modern physics for humanities majors
Review: One of the problems I face in teaching at a small liberal arts college is providing for our english, theatre, and music majors, a substantive introduction to modern physics. We have to get beyond the basics of heat, light and sound, and we have to talk about quarks, and black holes, relativity, the quantum theory, and the whole wonderful universe. Finally, a book has arrived that does all of this, and wonderfully unifies all of physics under its main mast of symmetry. These things captivate our students. Yet it also helps to have heros (especially some female scientist and mathematicians), and to still be a lyrical and readable account of things, but not to trivialize the subject. Finally, Professor Leon Lederman and Dr. Christopher Hill have risen to the cause. This is the first, and probably the unique, and perhaps the ultimate, attempt to reach out and fill this gap. I can't tell you how happy I am to see this book arrive. I have been using materials from their website, for years, but finally it all comes together in a book that I can assign to my students. This book is great... I repeat, it is great. It isn't easy, but it acheives so much (there are dozens of useless books popularizing science out there). The biography and theme, the life of Emmy Noether, is a perfect lead in to this immense and majestic subject. It is poignant and beautifully written. The appendix, with its humoresque student solving an SAT test problem using symmetry, is probably worth the purchase price of tuition alone. This book will hook my students, and will sit prominently on their bookshelves, in their homes, when they become lawyers, doctors, statesmen, and composers, a ready reference to all that is the mystery of nature, for the rest of their lives.

Rating:
Summary: There's Math Behind These Theories
Review: The famous insights that Einstein brought to the world are usually viewed in the popular literature and on TV shows as being the result of his famous 'thought experiments.' Not as well known is that his theories were developed using, even made possible because of the earlier development of tensor calculus.

In this book the authors finally pay tribute to the mathematics of Emmy Noether. She and Dave Hilbert worked at the University of Gottingen, Germany until as a Jew she was forced to leave Germany. At least she got to leave in time.

Most of her work was on the basic fundamentals of mathematics. But one small foray into theoretical physics has led to the development of Symmetry as described in this book.


Rating:
Summary: Readable for this Layman
Review: This book bridges the gap between esoteric scientific concepts and the truly comprehensible. As someone fascinated by science without a strong background in it, I can truly appreciate the incredible feat of this book. Lederman takes what should be complex and makes it lucid and readable. He takes on the aesthetic of symmetry and translates it to the layman audience. This book is truly worthwhile and informative, for all readers.

Rating:
Summary: The Beauty Behind Symmetry
Review: We are often delighted by the sight of symmetry when we observe it in a beautiful flower, in hexagonal snowflakes, or in man-made structures such as arches or bridges. But how many of us realize that symmetries are closely related to the conservation laws of physics? Lederman and Hill, 2 well-known and practicing physicists, describe the multiple facets of this topic, discussing how symmetry in the flow of time is related to energy conservation. They use this concept as a springboard to expand upon the importance of energy in this period of our civilization with real facts and figures.

The first few chapters deal with symmetries of space and time and their relation to the conservation of momentum and energy. Fascinating stories like that about perpetual motion machines abound, and there are personal vignettes like one about Amalia Noether, a young lady who discovered the deeper connection between symmetries and physical laws and still suffered trials and tribulations as a woman seeking an academic position.

Hill and Lederman take on the task of describing symmetries throughout physics, from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, all the way to modern topics of particle physics. The book is intended for readers at an advanced high-school level or non-physics majors at university. Chapter 6, for instance, gives a refreshing account of the law of inertia- how it was formulated (incorrectly) by the ancient Greeks, later to be discovered by Galileo and to become a basic postulate in the relativity theory.
Relativity is expounded upon in Ch. 7, whereby full appreciation of its contents requires some guidance. Other chapters describe
e.g., symmetries of quarks and leptons, which currently stimulate public imagination. This is, in fact, the intent of the authors, "...to [motivate and] convince high school science teachers to include some of the important concepts of symmetry in the core disciplines of phyics, chemistry and biology" and to use it as a text/reference book. Their purpose is well-served, especially by the many anecdotes and numerical estimates that make the book easily approachable for the reader.