<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Fair history, poor science
Review: Beyond Einstein provides a decent historical narrative of the efforts to unify physics: quantum mechanics with general relativity, the 4 forces with each other. It is occasionally repetitious.The book also attempts an exposition of the pertinent physics. In this, it falls far short, at every point. The exposition is too superficial to carry the historical narrative. For instance, although the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with relativity is of great importance, its essence is nowhere discussed. Simply saying that quantum mechanics is good in the small world and relativity in the large is neither adequate nor quite correct. The book reads like one of those manuals produced by a technical writer who doesn't really grasp the subject matter. The hope is that the reader won't notice. The fact that the senior author is a physicist who has done research in the field makes Beyond Einstein all the more disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting at Times, but Leaves You Wanting More
Review: Beyond Einsten tells the story of the quest to find a "Theory of Everything" which would unite the four forces of nature into a single force. Kaku describes the past attempts by Einsten and others to find this elusive theory. He then proposes Superstring theory, which may or may not be the theory of everthing. I found this book is confusing in parts. For example, sometimes Kaku would introduce a new term and not explain it adequately. Then he would go and use that terms umpteen times and I'd wonder what the hell it meant. If you don't have a background in physics you may have a hard time understanding it too. Also, I wanted more information about the specifics of superstring theory. He explains briefly about how it may unite the four forces but is light on details. An ok book, but not as good as his others.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting at Times, but Leaves You Wanting More
Review: Beyond Einsten tells the story of the quest to find a "Theory of Everything" which would unite the four forces of nature into a single force. Kaku describes the past attempts by Einsten and others to find this elusive theory. He then proposes Superstring theory, which may or may not be the theory of everthing. I found this book is confusing in parts. For example, sometimes Kaku would introduce a new term and not explain it adequately. Then he would go and use that terms umpteen times and I'd wonder what the hell it meant. If you don't have a background in physics you may have a hard time understanding it too. Also, I wanted more information about the specifics of superstring theory. He explains briefly about how it may unite the four forces but is light on details. An ok book, but not as good as his others.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a very good book
Review: Numerous occasions of poor writing and some wrong statements of fact combine to disappoint me. Some of the more egregious examples are these. On page 37 we read "astronomically small", which is an oxymoron. On page 68 we read "billions of chemical compounds that were known to exist." There are only about 20 million known at this time. On page 82 we read "...literally picking one's self up by one's bootstraps..." The bootstrap business is a figure of speech, not a literal statement of fact. (It is also a cliché). On page 136 we read "The vice-like grip of the black hole's gravitational field is so great that nuclei are ripped apart..." I believe it is the high temperature, not the pressure, that dissociates the nucleons. On page 185 the aliens are said to reply "We understand what cobalt-60 is. We know which element has sixty protons in its nucleus." Cobalt still has only 27 protons. It's hard to trust a book that has such obvious mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction.
Review: This book is a well explained introduction to recent speculation in the field of astronomy and physics, more particularly superstrings and supersymmetry. Here lays his hope to find a 'Theory of the Universe'.
Most of the book tells us the story of 20th century physics (special and general relativity, quantum mechanics).
I missed the swinging style of a John Gribbin for instance. For the content, I prefer the books of John Barrow 'Theories of everything', Martin Rees 'Before the beginning' and Brian Green 'The elegant universe'.
I must say that the book 'Visions' by the same author is of another calibre.
Rating: 
Summary: Fuzzy!
Review: This book reads well and it is easy to grasp, however there is little focusing on the various subjects especially string theory in general. Overall for the beginner and casual reader this is a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Breezy, light, and unsatisfying
Review: This rambling survey of modern particle physics and cosmology reads well, but ultimately one has to ask, "where's the meat?" Granted, these topics are so esoteric and abstract that trying to relate them to everyday experience is nigh impossible, but a few authors (e.g, Richard Feynman and Steve Adams) have been able to accomplish this. Kaku flits from one subject to another, reciting a canon of gee-whiz observations (such as John Wheeler's suggestion that there may be only one electron in the universe, traveling back and forth in time), but he offers no logical structure upon which these conjectures are based. The book reads more like a collection of fables and fairy tales than a scientific treatment. BEYOND EINSTEIN could arguably be recommended for those who have never done any reading on particle physics whatsoever, but for those who have already looked into it, the book will probably disappoint.
Rating: 
Summary: Simplified, Not 'Stupified'
Review: This rambling survey of modern particle physics and cosmology reads well, but ultimately one has to ask, "where's the meat?" Granted, these topics are so esoteric and abstract that trying to relate them to everyday experience is nigh impossible, but a few authors (e.g, Richard Feynman and Steve Adams) have been able to accomplish this. Kaku flits from one subject to another, reciting a canon of gee-whiz observations (such as John Wheeler's suggestion that there may be only one electron in the universe, traveling back and forth in time), but he offers no logical structure upon which these conjectures are based. The book reads more like a collection of fables and fairy tales than a scientific treatment. BEYOND EINSTEIN could arguably be recommended for those who have never done any reading on particle physics whatsoever, but for those who have already looked into it, the book will probably disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: A littlechallenging.
Review: While I take a profound, almost religious, satisfaction in physics, especially the more exotic concepts of relativity and quantum theory, I have not the math-physics type of mind that my friend Steve Smith has--lucky fellow. I found this book readable enough, though, because it doesn't belabor the math side of physics, nor is it one long list of arcane physics formulae. It is still a little more advanced in places than I was fully able to appreciate, but I do enjoy the mental exercise that this kind of a challenge provides. I had heard of the Superstring theory when it first arose, but I did not take the time then to find out much about it. It took Steve's intervention to bring it again to my attention, and this book seemed a good place to start. As a person with an interest in history, especially the history of science, I found the background data on the individual physicists responsible for the various components of the Big Bang Theory and of the Superstring theory of especial interest. It certainly made the acheivements of these people more human to me and therefore more wonderful. It also helped me put together, at least at my rudimentary level of understanding, the thought processes that went into making each advance, much as the works of Australian physicist Paul Davis' books do. Both have a facility for taking the average person through the processes in constructing and testing a theory of the universe. With each step forward presented by the author, the theory made a little more sense. I thoroughly enjoyed the learning expereince and plan on reading some of the other books by the same author.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting subject, poorly written book
Review: Yet another book on the unification of general relativity and quantum theory. The subject itself is a most exciting one. This book, however, could well dissuade people from knowing more about it. It's full of repetitive sentences and clumsy wordings. A few examples will make the point: To begin with, an excerpt from page 99: "A sphere has even more symmetry because it is invariant under all possible rotations because it rotates into itself". On the next-to-last paragraph of page 131 we read: "Our universe today is horribly unsymmetrical with all four forces looking totally dissimilar." Then, on the second paragraph of page 133 we find: "the universe looks horribly unsymmetrical and broken, with all four forces dramatically different from one another." The last line of page 139 and the initial lines of the following page are, in this sense, a treasure: "our entire visible part of the universe was only a tiny speck on the surface of the universe, it was possible for our tiny speck to ber mixed uniformly. Inflation simply blew up this uniform speck into our present universe". Near the end of page 181 we find that "[Wheeler] now knew why all electrons in the universe look alike", while the following page teaches us "a fundamental principle of chemistry: that all electrons are alike". On page 194 we are told, *twice* in a row, that "the superstring theory provides one answer to Dirac's objections". And there is more, much more; for instance, most accounts on the lives of researchers are stereotypically tragical and depressing. All this makes the book increasingly boring, not to say irritating. It's like the manuscript has been turned into a book without the slightest revision, though the very cover states it's "revised & updated"! This is not to say the science in Kaku's book is wrong; only the exposition is. Frankly, if you want a *fluent* and *interesting* nontechnical introduction to string theory, try Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe".
<< 1 >>
| 
