The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics [Hardcover]

Robert P. Crease (Author), Charles C. Mann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1986

The Second Creation is the intimate story of the decades-long scientific quest for "unification," a theory that draws together all matter and energy, from the hottest supernovas to the whirring fragments of the atom. Based on scores of in-depth interviews with such brilliant scientists as Max Planck, Erwin Schrodinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, and Steven Weinberg, Robert Crease and Charles Mann vividly portray the tense, exciting world of investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. In telling the richly human story of the two generations of scientists who set out to find the "theory of everything," the authors recount a sweeping saga that moves from the early days of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr arguing in a Copenhagen park to the vast, mile-long atom smashers of today. The Second Creation is a definitive group portrait of twentieth-century physics. Robert P. Crease is an associate professor of philosophy at SUNY--Stony Brook. Award-winning science writer Charles C. Mann is a contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly and Science magazine. His most recent book is Noah's Choice.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A perfect model of "free enterprise" at work is the competitive-cooperative pursuit of knowledge about nature's fundamental particles by our century's physicists. Columbia University science historian Crease and Technology Illustrated editor Mann here trace virtually the entire story of what is today known as particle physics from Einstein's 1905 theory suggesting matter was both particles and waves, while at the same time Rutherford made his first proposals about the nature of the atom, through Bohr, Dirac, Schrodingersp?/have no way to check, so leave it.gs and others who developed quantum theory and quantum mechanics. These authors describe the heated arguments, debates, conferences and world-wide exchanges that took physicists, especially in the 1970s, to the discoveries of quarks, mesons, gluons and other such breakthroughs. Today, decades after Einstein's failure, Unification theories tying together the four fundamental forcesthe fourth, gravity, remains elusive, howeverare formulated almost daily. This is a demanding book, and gripping in an epochal sense.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is the latest effort at a popular treatment of the "Grand Unified Theory" contemporary theoretical physicists are aiming to achieve. It presents a human-interest-style history of quantum electrodynamics and the ensuing elementary particle theory, enlivened by brief sketches of many of the key participants. As a whole, it is an entertaining volume, but some of the judgments and interpretations are questionable. Also, the complex mathematics of modern physics is entirely omitted, and a novice is likely to end his reading with some notion of the historical background but without a coherent understanding of the current "standard model" in elementary particle theory. Recommended, with reservations, for academic and public libraries. Jack W. Weigel, Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: MacMillan; 1ST edition (1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0025214403
• ISBN-13: 978-0025214408
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,082,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best popular science book yet written, January 16, 2002

By 

Dr. C. G. Oakley (Dunstable, Bedfordshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics (Paperback)

This book has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the telling of the story of 20th century fundamental physics is a task that should not be entrusted to physicists. No, it appears a journalist and a philosopher are not only able to bring the story to life in a way that almost all physics text books fail to do, but at the same time to never lose sight of the important scientific issues.

I thought that I understood these issues well, having been a researcher in the area myself until 1987, but I have to report that they filled embarrassingly large gaps in my knowledge, particularly in relation to experiments, including in subjects that I used to teach to undergraduates.

I would recommend this book to anyone, but most of all to those who call themselves practitioners in the subject, to remind them of how, if at all, what they do fits in to the bigger picture, and also to remind them, to quote Murray Gell Mann (who was probably quoting someone else at the time), that "the best instrument that a theoretician has is his waste paper basket". As the mathematical tangents that theoreticians have gone off on in the last twenty years get ever more bizarre and disconnected from reality, I fully expect this to be full to overflowing soon.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Physics Can Be Fun!, February 13, 2000

By 

Cheryl A Hackworth - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics (Paperback)

Given, I find the sciences interesting, but I never thought I would find myself endlessly turning pages of a physics book. The lives of these physicists was amazing and sometimes even more interesting than their discoveries. If you are at all interested in a "behind-the-scenes" look at post-Einsteinian physics, I would whole-heartedly recommend this book. I guarantee you'll be pleasently surprised. (Now if only there was a biology version of this book...)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think you'll want to read this., January 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics (Paperback)

I noticed this book in a store, picked it up, and almost couldn't put it down! It rewards the reader with insight on the current theoretical structure of physics, excellent background on how it got to where it currently is, and a wonderful personal view of the Theorists and Experimenters who helped to "get it there". Great for physicists, students, or interested laymen. A well written and well balanced book on a complex subject (up to and including the Standard Theory, and Grand Unified Theories).