Customer Reviews

Particle or Wave: The Evolution of the Concept of Matter in Modern Physics (History of Science Physics)

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I've read numerous popular physics books as an interested non-scientist in those 'deep' questions about the nature of reality and I'm really impressed with how deeply the author has gone into the mysteries of the standard model of quantum mechanics. As in most books of this type the majority of the book is occupied with a recapitulation of scientific development beginning with the greeks, continuing with newton, the enlightenment scientists and mathematicians, all of which is necessary presumably for those who are reading this without any science background in secondary education.

However, in the later chapters he really gets into the big questions surrounding the standard model, such as the meanings of spin, phase, symmetry, and what these might mean in the description of the point-like mathematical objects that are posited to constitute the fundamental particles. His approach is to emphasize the field concept as the more basic concept compared to say particles traveling through absolute space and interacting with other particles. Nonetheless, the mystery of what a field 'really is' remains, as do all those other big questions in the standard model, such as the three generations, the number of constants that have to be put in by hand, etc. He seems to be very direct in admitting to ignorance in places where other writers seem to gloss over, such as the origins of matter-antimatter asymmetry, or the long way to go between current particle accelerator energies, and the planck energy, which might contain all kinds of new physics. Plus, he manages to communicate the mysteriousness of the standard model without recourse to mathematics at all. All in all, a great, meaty book, enjoyable for those who want some philosophical thinking about what physics has learned about the nature of the world.

Mathematical physics hold a very special position within mathematics.

After all, it is the discipline that describes (together with dynamics and finance)

motion, and motion is the most exciting experience.

Unfortunately, despite the availability of excellent semi-popular introductions

to other mathematics disciplines like analysis (e.g. The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue), arithmetic (Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers), etc, up to this point there is no such book for physics.

The present book comes very close (although not fully) in filling this gap.

It starts from the roots, it tries to be insightful and complete.

It offers discussion of the things that matter, without trying to avoid the

deepest and most difficult answers, and in most cases it succeeds. Certainly,

some discussions are not so successful as others; for example field mixing

in modern quantum field theory is not captured with the clarity one wishes,

but the author ought to be congratulated for his effort.

The biggest problem I found is that trying to reach a bigger audience, the author

avoids any mathematics so that the material becomes a bit too descriptive at points.

Certainly, great praise for this wonderful book which might inspire a more

mathematical future introduction that while covering the same topics

would be closer to a mathematicians point of view.