Customer Reviews

Einstein's Heroes

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Despite its title, this book's central themes are: the work of James Clerk Maxwell and the expression of scientific principles in the language of mathematics. In discussing Maxwell's life and work, the author allows a few excursions mainly into the work of Newton and Faraday - work related to that of Maxwell. In addition, the book contains a few digressions on some extremely basic mathematical principles, e.g., basic geometry, basic algebra, elementary graphs, etc. - material that is likely covered at the junior high school level if not earlier. Other material is presented on more advanced concepts such as vectors and vector spaces. The explanations are so clear, basic and painless that this book should be very popular among those who are mathematically challenged but who would like to know more about important scientific developments that have a mathematical flavor. As stated, the prose is quite clear, friendly and engaging. Science buffs that are better versed in mathematics should also enjoy this book because of its fascinating historical and biographical information.

This book doesn't really say whether the scientists discussed were Einstein's heroes, but it does a superb job of detailing the life and work of three scientists: Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell. Focusing mainly on Faraday and Maxwell, the author shows how the relationship between these two very different men produced one of the most important contributions in the history of physics: the theory of electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves.

The two men couldn't have been more different, Faraday, the self-taught, working class experimenter, and Faraday, the intuitive mathematical genius and theoretician. However, the author is quite correct in pointing out how important Maxwell thought Faraday's own theoretical ideas were, such as the idea of varying density of lines of force with distance. In fact (and the author doesn't mention this), late in life Maxwell was once asked what his most important discovery was, and he said, "Michael Faraday."

One interesting theme that the author uses to good effect in the book is to show the power of mathematics as a creative language to express concepts that would be otherwise impossible. In this ability Maxwell was probably the greatest of his age, and Arianrhod points out that Maxwell, although not always the fastest with arithmetic talents, knew that mathematics at the highest level wasn't just simple arithmetic and bean-counting; it was a different language and a profound way of thinking about reality that could be used to discover the universe's otherwise hidden secrets.

Maxwell understood how difficult it would be to mathematically formalize Faraday's ideas, even though he suspected Faraday was right. Their two contributions created the greatest achievement of 19th century physics, and one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. Part biography and part popular science writing, Arianrhod's achievement recall's the great John Casti's earlier book, The One True, Platonic Heaven in it's lively blend of biography and science writing.

This book gave a valuable overview of the influences of Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell, and how their discoveries led from Newton's inverse square law of gravitation, Faraday's electric and magnetic fields, and to Maxwell's work that mathematically described electromagnetic waves are the same as light waves. The book contains a few equations, but those do not need to be understood to appreciate the discoveries and contributions of the scientists who contributed to our current knowledge.

I will further my knowledge by digging deeper into the mathematics of these scientist to further my knowledge, but this book was a great start for me.

The earlier reviews of this book give a good idea of its contents, but I would add that the author's larger point is that the greammer of mathematics can lead scientists to come to conclusions that would be by no means obvious. For example, James Clerk Maxwell did not expect his mathematical formulation of Faraday's idea of electrical and magnetic fields to indicate that these fields propagate at the speed of light. This result lead Maxwell to hypothesize that light was electromagnetic radiation, and that it should come in forms other than familiar, visible light.

full of information, history and math. great anedoctes about Maxwell and a demonstration of scientific collaboration. I read this book very quickly for a book about science.

Physics is the science of describing the physical world at its most fundamental level, and math is the language physicists use, the world of equations. "Mathematics is our language -- a sublime creation of the human mind, built by countless generations from all parts of the world. A language of unity, both culturally and philosphically. It has given us a synthesis of waves and particles, energy and matter, language and reality, just as it embodies in its very grammar and symbols a synthesis of intellectual contributions from the East, the Middle East and the West. And it has changed forever the way we think about reality, and about our place in the universe."

Albert Einstein is considered the father of modern physics. His equations showed that the universe was created in an explosion called the Big Bang theory. Although his "general relativity theory predicted the existence of black holes and the Big Bang, it cannot tell physicists what happens at the center of a black hole, or what happened at the moment of the Big Bang. It works on the cosmic scale, describing the origin and evolution of the universe itself." No one will ever be able to prove beyond doubt that mathematical creations like black holes exist, and that the Big Bang actually happened "because we can never return from an exploratory trip into a black hole."

Sir Isaac Newton's predictive theory of physics is "the mathematical law -- an equation -- that accurately described the effects of this ubiquitous but little understood downward pull." The most astounding part of Newton's theory was its use of math to prove a brilliant and radical hypothesis "that laid the foundations of the modern science of astronomy" -- the hypothesis that gravity is a universal force, not just and earthly one ...and that the ancient mystery of why the planets move through the sky can be explained by assuming the Sun's gravity is responsible for holding them in their orbits."

She gives the ancient history of the field of astronomy of Copernicus, Gailileo, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Ptolomy, Kepler and others who paved the way for William Thomson, the most famous physicist of his day, who took James Clark Maxwell under his tutelage. It was his work which primarily inspired Einstein's special theory of relativity in 1905, and his portrait hung on the walls of Einstein's lab. The 100th anniversary of this discovery has just been observed by MIT as the era of modern physics. His general theory of relativity was developed in 1915.

Many scientists, still riding on Newton's wave of success, had turned to science rather than religion for answers to the important questions about the nature of the universe and our role in it. Maxwell saw science as a means of "understanding...creation." Charles Darwin developed his theory of human evolution by natural selection, which would bring "renewed heat to debates about God's role in designing and creating the universe. Meanwhile, in an Apostles essay on the nature of the evidence for design by an intelligent Creator, Maxwell wrote (following Kant) that 'our understanding of nature is limited by the structure of our brains,' so that the very belief in design 'is a necessary consequence of the Laws of Thought acting on the phenomena of perception.'"

Einstein is quoted as saying, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Whatever the ultimate reality of our origins, "and whatever the fate of relativity theory itself, physicists have learned an incredible amount about the universe over the past century, guided by Einstein's mathematical theory of gravity." The high success rate of various tests of Newton's theory over the previous 160 years had made astronomy 'the most glamorous and prestigious of the sciences.' Einstein also said, "The discovery of nuclear chain reactions need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than did the discovery of matches. We only must do everything in our power to safeguard against its abuse."