Customer Reviews

Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World

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It is 8 November 1895 in the late afternoon and you are a physicist working in France, feeling somewhat dysphoric because everything that is knowable in Physics has been discovered, and the world and its clockwork mechanism explained and codified in a series of brilliant differential equations. All that remains is to dot a few i's and then the great course of knowledge begun by Galileo and brought to perfection by Newton will be complete. You are performing some experiments with a mysterious substance that intrigues you: cathode rays. Your main apparatus is a one meter long vacuum tube, its pressure reduced to one-thousandth of a torr. In your hand you hold a small apparatus at some distance from the tube and which you wave in a slow, desultory fashion. You are not expecting anything, frankly you are feeling a little bored. But you are curious and perhaps the nature of these cathode rays will reveal themselves. Suddenly, you are quite startled to notice a fluorescence on the device you are waving, a detector or small screen covered with barium platinocyanide. The fluorescence is caused by the cathode rays. You are determined to discover the nature of this mysterious substance.

Your name is Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen and that fluorescence you have discovered is what the world would soon know as X-rays, a term you invent for your first paper. You quickly learn that these rays have the extraordinary effect of penetrating matter, allowing you to take astonishing photographs of the bones of the hand. Reports of these photos cause a sensation in the world press in January 1896. And when Le Matin publishes a story on X-rays on 13 January, another French scientist, by the name of Henri Becquerel, is stirred to begin his own experiments with rays. Eventually he decides to expose rocks to the sun. His experiments are sidetracked, however, when he accidently photographs a key with the rays given off by a piece of uranium-bearing ore called pitchblende that had never been exposed to the sun. His astonishment causes him to rush across the hall and invite Pierre Curie and a young female student named Marie, who is working in his laboratory, to witness this strange event. They in turn are induced to discover the nature of these strange and powerful rays, now known as radiactivity. Their work is instrumental in Max Planck's explanation of black-body radiation (radiation is discretely emitted in quanta of energy), which catches the eye of Albert Einstein who explains the photoelectric effect in 1905, for which he wins the Nobel prize in 1921.

With such a dizzying chain of events, the notion at the end of the 19th Century that Classical Physics was complete was repudiated and a new, much more radical view of nature was inaugurated. Abraham Pais, a physicist who knew many of the actors, author of Subtle is the Lord, the brilliant biography of Einstein, has written one of the finest histories of science I've ever read. It offers an encyclopedic overview of the development of elementary particle physics from 1895 and Roentgen's discovery of X-rays until the discovery of W and Z Bosons in 1983 by Carlo Rubbia and the researchers at CERN: a history from X to Z. It is also a brilliant and engaging portrait of the physicists who profoundly deepened our understanding of matter and physical forces. It is told in chronological order, with scientific depth (including significant equations) and a sure knowledge of every major event and discovery in the nearly one hundred years with which the book is concerned. During that period, the smallest distances explored have shrunk a hundred millionfold. This book will reward those with some knowledge of physics, but can be read selectively, without significant loss of content, by those whose knowledge of science is rudimentary at best. This is indeed a sweeping narrative that places the great discoveries in atomic physics of the last century at your fingertips and is most strongly recommended.

Mike Birman

The odd phenomenon's of "Brownian motion", and Hertz's "photoelectric effect",... the failure of the classical equipartition theorem to account for experimental results of specific heats and blackbody radiation, set the stage for the revolution that was to come.

Abraham Pais is one of the finest physics historians you're likely to find. The experimental and theoretical events leading up to the scientific revolution of the twentieth century are meticulously described here. What is particularly appealing about this history is the presentation of the struggle, the dead-ends, and reluctances in accepting the conceptual paradigm shift necessary from the classical view of reality.

Pais also has written exceptional biographies of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Paul Dirac.

"Subtle is the Lord - Life and Time of Albert Einstein"
"Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity"
"Paul Dirac: The Man and his Work"

This is a superb history of 20th century of physics written for physicists more than historians. It does an excellent job of discussing the history, but also takes time to really talk about the ideas and the intellectual struggles to understand the ideas. The first half of the book (physics before WWII) is really the gem, with the second half more of an afterthought.

At points, this book tells a tale and is readable. At other times, it feels more like a diary, journal, or work in progress.

One topic I was interested in was the development of the weak force. The book mentions some conferences, equations, and says hundreds or thousands of papers were published. This was about 4 pages. I was hoping more for the story and highlights here. It is one of the four fundamental forces. It does have an interesting history from the study of radioactivity, its role in fusion, the discovery of Z particles, etc.

Then, neither as a plus or minus, simply a comment: The book can be highly technical. In general, I wouldn't describe it at all as a book for the general public.

For a more general survey and reader, you might look at Emilio Segre or Frank Close's books. Segre gives much of a human account, and Close's short book provides a good summary.

This is a well written and superbly researched book. Anyone with an interest in the theoretical developments associated with Gravity, Magnetism and Electricty will find this book a masterpiece.