Customer Reviews

The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Unfortunately, the first book by Gary Zukav that I read was 'Seat of the Soul.' That was a mistake. I was disappointed because he offered no background, or justification, or source for his ideas. he simply laid them out pedantically, as fait accompli.

This book is much better. I can see why it achieved critical acclaim. It is a clear attempt to explain physics to the layman in terms that he will understand. It still has some faults, but generally he does an excellent job.

Well, maybe not faults--just misplaced emphasis. For example, he goes on at great length explaining the connection between wavelength and frequency and amplitude, charting them and talking them to death, although they are very simple, easy to understand concepts. He does the same thing with three-dimensional coordinates. But, when he comes to difficult material to grasp, he often slides into incomprehensible language, for example:

"In a quantum mechanical experiment, the observed system, traveling undisturbed between the region of preparation and the region of measurement, develops according to the Schrodinger wave equation. During this time, all of the allowed things that could happen to it unfold as a developing wave function. However, as soon as it interacts with a measuring device (the observing system), one of those possibilities actualizes and the rest cease to exist. The quantum leap is from a multifaceted potentiality to a single actuality." (Page 75).

Pretty turgid prose. What he is talking about is the firing of a photon through a shield with two slits in it, at a wall where the hits were registered. Much of the book could have been written in far simpler terminology, while approximating the activity discussed in more intelligible terms for the layman.

However, that said, Zukav does a good job of explaining some very difficult material. Probably the scientists whom he ran the manuscript by contributed to the confusion by insisting on language more precise than was needed in order to get the ideas across.

He does manage to express the mysteries uncovered by high-energy physicists, and the tendency of quantum mechanics, more and more, to resemble statements made hundreds of years ago by the Eastern mystics.

I recommend this book, and have no difficulty assigning it five stars.

Joseph Pierre,
Author of The Road to Damascus: Our Journey Through Eternity

What a pity the two responses to "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" chosen as "spotlight" reviews are both cynical and derogatory. I hope they don't deter others from reading further. Neither reviewer seemed to grasp the fact that Gary Zukav was not writing about physics: He was writing about mental mastery in the *context* of physics, going to great lengths to explain the implications of "Wu Li." The whole book, in fact, is based on five of the many representations of "Wu Li." Zukav even says in the introduction, "This is not a book about physics or eastern philosophies."

All the same, Zukav checked his facts out with "five of the finest physicists in the world" and footnotes their comments where they "punctuate, illustrate, annotate and jab at everything in the text." What more can you want? Those physicists even allowed themselves to be named, surely professional suicide if Zukav is substantially incorrect - as some reviewers maintain. Zukav also warns the reader that knowledge in physics at the time of writing was set to progress rapidly. What was accepted then would soon be made redundant as more information arose.

I feel really sorry for those who get no joy out of this book. I, for one, will go back to it again and again out of sheer delight. Zukav puts it this way: "Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li masters know they are only dancing with it."

All I can say is that, with this book, I danced too.

This is one of the most accessible and most fascinating introductions to the new physics that I have ever read. I took a class in Thermodynamics and Modern Physics last summer at a local university and I did not learn a tenth as much as I did from this book. Granted I learned more mathematical details from the class, but this book taught me why what I was learning and doing made sense, which at least for me is far more important. I feel if I went back and took that class over again it would be extremely easy now.

The other wonderful aspect of this book is its constant ties to Eastern Philosophy. This is something that seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in recent years in the sciences. The whole world is becoming more and more interdisciplinary and this book is a fine example of what cross-fertilization can do to inspire new ideas and concepts.

I would highly reccomend this book for any one interested in science even if they are not interested in physics per se. This book provides and excellent analysis of how scientific ideas and conceptions change and incorporate new ideas and new experience. This book is also very relevant from the aspects of philosophy, history, and sociology of science as well since it delves into all three of these aspects at times. Overall an extremely enjoyable and accessible read.

I am a scientist who has taught physics my entire career, and was really impressed with this book. It was given to me as a Christmas present by my daughter. I did not get to it for a while, but when I did, I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! I never thought it was possible to explain quantum mechanics without math, but Zukav did it in a marvelous way. I would recomment it to anyone who would love to come into contact with new ideas and concepts. Truly a great book!

Zukav explains the most complex principles of quantum physics in way that most anyone can understand. He uses metaphors and beautifully written prose instead of complicated, dull, discursive, scientific jargon. Instead of describing this subject from a strictly left brain approach his writing is from a whole brain perspective appealing to both the artist (or in my case musician) and the scientist. He takes physics to the brink of philosophy and beyond in an effort to describe the physics of the universe in spiritual terms. I tried to read _A Brief History of Time_ by Stephen Hawking a few years ago and didn't get past chapter four. After the education I received from Zukav in _Wu Li_, I was able to read and comprehend almost all of _A Brief History of Time_. Give it a try

Let me start simply, by saying this book is no Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, even though a title-reviewer mentions ZMM in passing. It is, however, a discussion of quantum physics that you could have with a knowledgeable friend who lacks a pen and paper (well, perhaps an envelope and a pencil for some sketches).

This book isn't the "definitive" discussion of QPhysics in simplistic terms, but it does do a nice job of introducing how QPhysics came to be from Plank to Einstein through Feynman... [Others have mentioned Feynman's "QED", which I haven't read but plan to.]

What this book did for me was to solidify QM/Qphys after being taught by 3 Physics professors at one of the top universities in the country, as well as an electronics-materials prof. who couldn't seem to explain a single thing about Schrodinger's equation. And, for a book that's kept me reading it, that's quite a bit to say about it.

I kept saying, "Ah! Well, why didn't those sillies [Prof's] ever tell us that?!"

Agreeing with others here, I will admit at times it's slightly difficult to keep the whole particle/wave thing separate. If one stops to think about the book while reading it, it's not difficult in the least.

It also helped me to solidify a thought that's begun for me in past readings... that on the edge of knowledge, all of us are putting faith in our ideas. Science is closer to philosophy than most will admit.

This book, I agree, does not touch much on Eastern philosophies in the least. For that, I suggest reading Alan Watt's "Way of Zen", or perhaps the somewhat silly at times Benjamin Hoff's "Tao of Pooh" and "Te of Piglet", 3 classics for starters. [While you're at it, pick up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig if you haven't yet - it's not really only about motorcycles.]

This book implies that you will get a startling revelation by reading it, but when all is said and done, it's basically a 314-page layman's introduction to quantum physics and relativity, with a few doses of "And that's just what Buddha was saying all along!" thrown in.

Here is the book in a nutshell: "From the time of Newton until about 1900, physicists thought that physics was a set of provable laws about predictable forces, such as gravity, operating on solid objects. However, a series of experiments around the turn of the last century, conducted by Michelson, Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and others, showed first that the behavior, and later even the nature, of light, of subatomic particles, and other fundamental elements of the physical world were not at all what we thought. The world we 'see' may seem solid and predictable, but at bottom, we are entitled to wonder whether 'matter' even exists at all in any permanent way, or is just a momentary meeting of forces that we call 'matter' as a convenience. Interestingly enough, this echoes some things said centuries ago by the Buddha and other eastern philosophers about the fundamental nature of reality."

There. If you read that, you've basically read the book, but mercifully without Zukav's "Oh, wow, it's just so...like WOW" tone. I have no idea whether the details are correct in his discussion of physics, though he claims his manuscript was checked and approved by experts, chapter by chapter. As a technical writer, I was rather surprised to see occasional lapses in copy editing, such as printing "even horizon" for "event horizon."

But the book actually amounts to less than what Zukav thinks it does. If you want to learn physics, you can go read a physics book. If you want to learn about eastern philosophy, you can read the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching. But basically, Zukav's book amounts to saying something like, "Gosh, you know, they've found out that even the biggest ocean wave is just made up of drops of water! And even the smartest scientist can't tell you just which drop will be where, in that big ocean wave! So that proves that a tidal wave is just a construct of our rational minds!"

Uh huh. And meanwhile, we still have the tsunami. To the extent that this book contributes anything to knowledge, it really would have worked better as an article in "Harper's" or "The Atlantic." I've basically said all that was worthwhile in it in one paragraph, above, and Zukav didn't need to recite every last detail of particle physics to show that the Buddha knew that a mountain is only so many grains of dust.

This book is THE book to read for those who are not familiar with complex math, but are interested in the basic principles of quantum physics. First, I must say that anyone who gives this book a bad rating has either not understood any of the material or not read the book at all. It covers all aspects of basic quantum theory from the first beginnings of it (Plank's constant, discovery of quanta through study of Black-body radiation; wave-particle duality, Heisenburg's uncertainty principle, Schrodinger's wave equation & wave functions, etc...) to relatively newer quantum theory (the Space-Time Continuum, Black Holes, Bell's theorum, quantum logic, etc...) as best as english (combined with articulate diagrams) can describe WITHOUT MATH. This book contains the best desciption and examples of Einstein's Special and General Theories of Relativity that I have ever UNDERSTOOD. Coupled with Zukav's amiable style this book is an extreme pleasure to read. One thing I found foresightful was that many parts of the book have footnotes that are written by physists who previewed the book and expounded upon the writing therein with by clarifying concepts for those who are familiar with physics and math already. 95% of this book is about understanding these new ideas (more specifically being led upon the road to experience and understanding rather than having things crammed into your brain just to be regurgitated into nothingness) and 5% (in the introduction and last chapter mostly) about how this "New Physics" coorelates to eastern religious views (NOT NEW AGE RELIGION) that have been in practice for thousands of years. The book comes complete with bibliography of all the literature Zukav has referenced in his own quest to understand quantum physics and the nature of reality and a extremely complete index that is very useful when you need it. Over all this book was relatively very easy to read (when it comes to science books) and I would recommend it to anyone who is curious about how reality is defined.

Being involved with Martial Arts for several years is what attracted me to this title in the beginning. I had recently read Dr. Zukav's book "The Seat of the Soul" for the second time in the space of two weeks, and I found myself connected to the story. I wanted more. There was a reference made to other books by Dr. Zukav in "The Seat of the Soul". So, finding myself in one of the major brick and mortar bookstores, I sought out the title "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" not being aware of "An Overview of the New Physics" part of the title. Heck,(can I say that in here), my thoughts about content couldn't have been further from the mark. But not wishing to summarily dismiss a potential syncronicity, I scanned through the preface and stumbled on various separate passages that promised the following: no exposure to arcane mathematics, a correlation of the history of 'physics' in a meaningful and digestible way from Newton to Einstein and then some, and finally a suggested relationship to 'The Physics of Eastern Metaphysical Philosophy'. The last being my words for summarizing the amazing parallels Dr. Zukav has woven into the story. I am not a scientist at all. Yet I feel more than sure that I have a decent grasp, in my opinion of course, of the fundamental differences between the classic definition of physics, the important players there and the New Physics and respective players in that space. I should probably pass some sort of test to demonstrate on what classic scale of understanding I rate .... but I can tell you that prior to Dr. Zukav's book, a fat zero is where I was. The grade matter's not however. What does matter is the discovery of all that I have missed for better than 20 years (I am pushing 49). Truly sad, almost appaling and yet marvelous at the same time as the words better late than never pop into mind. What sanguine impression could I leave with this review (tongue in cheek here)? Perhaps this: If you have ever felt certain that science has all the answers; If you have ever felt certain that religion isn't cut and dry or that it definately is; If you have ever felt certain that there must be something more, that this reality you experience everyday is all there is; If you have ever felt certain that you needed more substance from which you could build your answers to your searching questions, questions that you had not even realized you could indeed ask, needed to ask, about why 'things' are as they are, including 'you'; If you are certain that you are open, a seeker - then read this book. You are already interested, I hope I didn't spoil it for you! Carpe Diem, Brutus.

One day, years after obtaining my science degree, someone asked me, has anyone ever seen an atom? "That depends..." started my embarrassed answer to a question that I should have known, but did not.

So began my interest and second attempt to navigate the impenetrable jungle known as physics - or as Gary Zukav implies - better descibed as philosophy. How else can you describe a scientific endeavour in which you cannot even see your subject. Religion? Perhaps.

This book successfully establishes that physics when looked at with an oblique, nonscientific eye, is not what you were taught at school.

School physics is about why the chair you sit on does not collapse. Philosophy is about why you sat down in that chair - but 'out of school physics' is all about 'are you really sitting in a chair, or is something else at work here?'

Consider, the visible mass of the chair is one trillionth of the overall structure. What's the rest? Forces? What forces? The answer is that no-one really knows, but physics speculates what where and why they are there; and speculation ends up in strange places. Multiple Universes, 11 dimensional worlds - these are not the ideas of Star Trek - this is the reality of Physics, this is what we are. A friend may look fat, but remove the empty space secreted away in the atom, and that friend would not be visible with the naked eye, or a telescope or a microscope. Interesting? Magic? No, just physics.
Gary Zukov cries out from this wilderness, look everyone, look what I've found - physics is the most astounding subject in the world!. His book expands clearly on this theme. A great introductory read.