Lucifer's Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry [Paperback]

Frank Close (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2001 | ISBN-10: 019866267X | ISBN-13: 978-0198662679

As we begin a new millennium, it becomes clearer that true understanding of our Universe will come only from identifying and understanding the asymmetries that surround us. While modern scientific theory describes a uniformly perfect and symmetrical creation, we know if that were so, matter would have been destroyed within an instant of its appearance and nothing that we now know could ever have happened. Not only cosmic life but our own everyday variety is full of other examples of asymmetry, from the human body to the molecules of life. In this volume, physicist Frank Close explores the origins of asymmetry from the molecular level to the Universe at large, and asks whether this multitude of examples can be traced back to a single event that took place at the origin of our Universe. Inspired by a chance encounter with a statue of Lucifer in the Tuillerie gardens in Paris, Close takes the reader on a sweeping tour of asymmetry in the world around us, from the development of human embryos to the mysterious Higgs boson. His tour culminates in the research now underway at CERN to recreate the Big Bang in Switzerland in 2005 and thus to solve this mystery of the original asymmetry.
Vividly and engagingly written, Lucifer's Legacy reveals that whenever asymmetry occurs in Nature, it points towards deeper truths.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Is the universe perfectly balanced? Physicist Frank Close looks at symmetry and the deep structures of the universe in his luminescent book Lucifer's Legacy. Matter and antimatter, positive and negative charge, even the curious properties of quarks all seem to be arranged in diametrically opposed pairs (or triplets, when you consider zero-state properties like neutral charge). Yet we plainly live in a skewed environment--we can't find antimatter unless we make it, almost all of our proteins are left-handed, and there are 10 Windows machines for every Mac. Is this asymmetry essential for life? Is it, in fact, a necessary consequence of creation? Dr. Close examines these questions and more in intimate but not obsessive detail, showing that life as we know it couldn't exist without a few crucial imbalances.

The question of whether or not we just got lucky with this universe is due to be answered in 2005, when CERN, where Close works, will test theories relating to the Big Bang. The author has a gift for explaining the intricacies of particle physics in terms that lay readers can easily grasp and even come to love. His poetic sensibilities, which frame the book and give it its title (from the statue of Lucifer at the Tuileries gardens in Paris), reflect the human and cosmic mysteries inherent in both the nature of physics and the work of physicists. There's a wee bit of math and geometry herein, but not enough to scare off the numerophobic; in fact, the cogent explanations and illustrations may win Close a few converts to hard science. In the final analysis, Lucifer's Legacy carries a hint of irony: it is such a thoroughly good read that you'll find yourself hunting in vain for flaws. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"[A] jewel of a book....Close, a professor of physics at the University of Birmingham in England, embarks on a deep and illuminating exploration of the symmetries and asymmetries that surround us."--Scientific American

"This is Frank Close's masterpiece - his best book, and one of the very best introductions to physics for the layperson...Close is a master expositor."--Sunday Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019866267X
• ISBN-13: 978-0198662679
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,036,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frank Close, OBE, is Professor of Physics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Exeter College. He was formerly vice president of the British Association for Advancement of Science and Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He is the author of several books, including the best-selling Lucifer's Legacy, and the winner of the Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics for his "outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating panorama, May 3, 2000

By 

CERN Courier - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucifer's Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry (Hardcover)

Frank Close has already provided several popular science standards, and in his new book takes us on a guided tour of modern science, following a theme whose study started early in 19th century: the fascination and appeal of the underlying symmetry of Nature, and its attendant asymmetry. First the author reviews symmetry at large, with examples taken from everyday life. One of the enigmas dealt with is my own favourite, Martin Gardner's puzzle: why does a mirror invert left and right, but not top and bottom? Here the author adds much of his own insight and wit ('the muscles which close a mouth are stronger than those which open it - as is well-known to all who have sat in committees'). The result is a fascinating panorama, down to the molecular level, of the asymmetries around us. Life, intrinsically related to asymmetries, is the theme of this book, and the author revisits what has already been written on this theme, offering us an absorbing, lively and scientifically correct account of symmetry and its deep implications.

Yves Sacquin /Saclay

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reason for the existence of life to elementary particles, August 27, 2000

By 

Tatsuo Tabata "tttabata" (Sakai, Osaka Japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lucifer's Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry (Hardcover)

The author beautifully narrates to laypersons how broken symmetry, i.e., asymmetry born from symmetry is important in the natural world for the existence of life, molecules, atoms and elementary particles. The riddle of the symmetry associated with the last of these items when the universe was created is yet to be solved in the near future. At the end of the book, the reader will be surprised to learn that Pasteur anticipated the importance of asymmetry in 1860. In an early chapter the author writes about the moderately well-known teaser "Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not top and bottom?" His answer to this is astonishingly simple. However, he should have been careful to give a more educational answer that includes the explanation for the reversal of the left- and right-handedness in mirrors, because he describes about "mirror asymmetric" left-handed and right-handed molecules, right-handedness of DNA and left-handedness of "the mirror DNA," etc. in a later chapter. [The latest academic articles on the mirror reversal problem can be found in M. C. Corballis, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 163-169 (2000) and T. Tabata and S. Okuda, ibid. pp. 170-173 (2000).] This book would also be interesting for scientists to learn how they can talk well about scientific topics to laypersons. It would have been much better for the book to include a bibliography for citations and further reading.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book - Collector's Item?, January 10, 2002

By 

Larry Kaplan (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lucifer's Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry (Paperback)

The book is extremely well written, fascinating, and easy to read. But the best part is the little errata sheet that comes with the book that may make it a collector's item. There is a drawing in the book of the Tullieries Garden in Paris meant to show the symmetry humans wish to achieve. The drawing has an error that breaks the symmetry, just like the one headless Lucifer statue in the Garden broke the symmetry when the author visited it, giving him a starting point for this book. The errata sheet attempts to restore the symmetry with a new drawing, but the irony has already made its point; human attempts at symmetry are doomed to fail in an asymmetric universe.