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Summary: Superior
Review: Absolutely fantastic...comprehensive and very direct. I guarantee you you're gonna be smarter after reading this one! I feel bad though, because I can't imagine the author will get the money he deserves for the time it must have taken to write this. So for that reason...buy this, I guarantee you you won't regret it. Also be prepared to do some critical thinking, he doesn't wait around and explain every little thing: scalar fields, Higgs field/particle are just a couple of the more advanced concepts he'll expect you to pick up on immediately.
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Summary: The book I wish I'd written!
Review: After building his credibility by writing 42(!) books and innumerable articles about information systems, John Vacca has finally turned his skill to a topic of interest to the intelligent lay reader. This book offers fascinating subject matter, knowledgeable information sources, and interesting treatment of scientific issues. A must read!
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Summary: Guide to Fascinating Scientific Questions
Review: Fascinating compilation of research questions from biology, psychology, physics, neuroscience, paleontolgy, etc. that shows how the basic questions from these disciplines has only begun to be answered. A must-read for the lay reader, as well as for people interested in careers in science.
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Summary: Science Fiction becomes Science Fact
Review: Having just seen the movie "I, Robot" after reading this book, I was amazed by how John Vacca was able to capture the wonder of science I used to feel as teenager when I first read Issac Asmiov's book over 30 years ago. John's ability to bring the "technology" down to the layman's level without losing any of the fidelity is the truly remarkable. I, for one, am looking forward to the forthcoming discoveries described in John's book with great anticipation.
Rating:
Summary: Well Researched and Thoughtfully Compiled
Review: I have only had my hands on John Vacca's "The World's 20 Greatest Unsolved Problems" for a few days now, but already I can say that this book will sit on my shelf next to two of my favorite science books, "A Brief History of Time" and "The Search for Life in the Universe." Sure, it's not written by a world-famous cosmologist, but like these two seminal books, Vacca's sweeping survey of scientific conundrums both teaches and intrigues.
I think what appeals to me the most about this book is that it's written with a great sense of wonder at the physical world that surrounds us. As a result it brings what are often esoteric and complicated musings into sharp relief against our daily lives. Take, for example, the notion pondered by CERN physicists of creating a black hole within a laboratory. Mr. Vacca doesn't stop at merely mentioning the dangers, he provides details of how a microscopic black hole would quickly gobble the lab and then burrow down to the center of the earth where it would consume all we know very quickly.
Though I was mostly interested in the cosmology chapters in this broad book, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly areas such as paleontology, neuroscience, and chemistry grew on me. They were all very intriguing and accessible, mostly due, I think to the fact that this books is both very well researched and thoughtfully compiled by an author who himself is fascinated by all of these areas of science.
One final though. Mr. Vacca gets high points for successfully tying in the popular U.S. show SciFi TV series, Stargate SG1, within his discussion of time travel via wormholes, cosmic strings and rotating cylinders.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is already or simply wishes to be captivated by science.
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Summary: Another excellent book by John Vacca
Review: The Worlds 20 Greatest Unsolved Problems, the latest Vacca book takes a departure from his normally information technology oriented subjects. The book provides profound insight into some of the most complex unresolved problems that have been confronting scientists for centuries. Some of the chapters I found most interesting include Cosmology: The Creation of The Universe, Solid State Physics: The Mechanism Behind High-Temperature Superconductors, Free Will, and Nuclear Fusion and Waste. I found the book to be an interesting and enlightening read. John does an excellent job at keeping the reader interested with well articulated descriptions of each problem and discussions of the scientific research both completed throughout history and currently on-going. I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in the sciences and the remaining challenges.
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Summary: Amazing book for science lovers
Review: This is a great book for anyone who is interested in knowing about the frontiers of science. The author uses a layman's language to explain complicated and advanced science concepts and problems.
-Vikas Panwar
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Summary: A very interesting read
Review: This is a shift from John's usual books, nevertheless a very interesting read. He tackles some real issues and makes for a very intellectual and informative book.
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Summary: Science, Wisdom and Hope
Review: This is an amazing book. I opened John Vacca's The World's 20 Greatest Unsolved Problems and I smiled. Instantly in a state of inquiry, I wondered why I was smiling. As a psychiatrist in an urban church program, I spend my days with many of the community's painfully unsolved personal and social problems. Yet, there was something strangely comforting about this science book written for the general public (with some background in science).
Of course, at first consideration there was my own joy in learning something new. A 600+ page volume full of cutting-edge facts, figures, theories, research date, spanning an incredible range of subjects was in front of me. I immediately plunged into pondering the wonders of "dark matter". I look forward to reflecting on each chapter's unsolved problem, sometimes reading and re-reading a sentence until I grasp the newest concept in this vast range of human thought.
Even more than this anticipation, what pleased me about the book was that the author could span this scope of science with such depth, clarity and focus--and then encourage others to do so as well. It is a book that teaches and informs with an honest, caring, affirmative and often humorous tone. It is a book that assumes from the onset that the reader (that means you) is capable of both learning and critical thinking, and thereby, in his or her own way, participates in our collective discovery and understanding of the mysteries of life. The practical format of sidebars, notes, and summaries serves as a helpful guide to digesting the more weighty scientific information making the material even more accessible to a wide readership. This book is a reminder that along with our survival instincts, human beings are both equipped and driven to seek knowledge and understanding.
I smiled because these chapters, coverning some of the most complex and even urgent scientific problems, are woven together with wisdom and hope. As John Vacca concludes his chapter on Consciousness: "The hard problem is a hard problem, but there is no reason to believe that it will remain permanently unsolved".
Susan Nettleton, M.D.
Albuquerque, NM
Rating: 
Summary: Overall well done
Review: Vacca offers us a grand tour of science at the start of the 21st century. Not so much of what science has thus far solved, but the big puzzles beyond the perimeter. He covers cosmology and particle physics and a possible Grand Unified Theory. Good descriptions of ideas like an inflationary universe and universe of universes.On a more practical bent, high temperature superconductors are given a chapter of their own. And in biology, of course, we have problems in understanding protein synthesis, which is shown to help fuel the rise of bioinformatics. Vacca shows ideas on how human longevity might be greatly extended within the current lifetimes of many readers. But perhaps of all that is discussed, the most relevant and immediate to any of us is the puzzle of consciousness. A chapter describes what we currently know about what it means to be self-aware. Overall, the depth of writing is quite understandable, whatever your field of science, or indeed if you aren't in the sciences, but have a good general education. The only gripe I have is with part of the chapter on high temperature superconductors. Vacca describes how Irvine Sensors (IRSN) got a contract for $2 million to develop a superconducting router, using the company's chip stacking technology. But IRSN has a miserable track record in the last 10 years, of trying to commercialise their technology. They produced expensive custom prototypes with typically only NASA as the customer. They have made grandiose claims to the Los Angeles Times. Like when they bought part of a fab from IBM. Only to close it several years and several million dollars later, due to lack of orders. Unable to make products for a mass market. (Their stock was once at $330. Today it is $2.30.) Don't get me wrong. I also think high temperature superconductors have a potentially vast future. But I am very dubious about IRSN playing any part in bringing this about. Vacca should have checked more carefully the background of this company.
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