Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time [Hardcover]

Tom Siegfried (Author)

Book Description

Series: Science | Publication Date: September 15, 2002

Scientists studying the universe find strange things in two places - out in space and in their heads. This is the story of how the most imaginative physicists of our time perceive strange features of the universe in advance of the actual discoveries. It is almost a given that physics and cosmology present us with some of the grandest mysteries of all. What weightier questions to ponder than, "How does the universe work?" or "What is the universe made of?" There are any number of bizarre phenomena that could provide clues or even answers to these queries. The strangeness ranges from unusual forms of matter and realms of existence to wild ideas about how time and space are related to one another. Many of these proposals may well turn out to be wrong. But how many will be proven to be right?This book speaks for the scientific theorists who are bold enough to imagine and predict the impossible. New ideas are percolating in their heads every day. One physicist may dream of subatomic particles that could resolve a variety of cosmological conundrums while another may study the likes of "funny energy," which may explain how rapidly the universe is expanding. This is the stuff of "Strange Matters". In broad terms, this book is about a variety of discoveries that theorists of the past imagined before the observers and experimenters actually saw them. Moreover, it is about the things that today's are now imagining - but haven't yet been discovered or confirmed by the observers."Strange Matters" artfully mixes the present with the past and future, reporting from the frontiers of research where history is in the process of being made. Each chapter examines a different step along the twisted path we've walked to gain our rudimentary understanding of the universe, incorporating historical examples of successful "prediscoveries" with current stories that relate brand new ideas. We come to see the universe not only in terms of what has already been discovered, but also in terms of what has yet to be observed. "Strange Matters" is a guide to the discoveries of the twenty-first century, a series of visions dreamt by the most imaginative scientists of our time merged with the achievements of the past - to point the way towards even greater accomplishments of the future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The universe, as physicists have come to know it, is a very strange place, filled with particles known as quarks. Space itself, physicists have come to understand, is curved, and there may well be more than the three spatial and one temporal dimensions we have become accustomed to. Making sense of these fascinating but complex ideas for the general reader is a difficult task, one that science journalist Siegfried (The Bit and the Pendulum) accomplishes deftly, with wit and insight. Siegfried attempts to provide answers to the two basic questions that absorb physicists today: "What is the universe made of?" and "How does the universe work?" Although his answers, like those of the physicists he writes about, are tentative and contingent on the next major discovery, Siegfried brings clarity and a great deal of enthusiasm to the search for understanding. He does a superb job of explaining how mathematical advances have led to an amazing array of "prediscoveries," from the existence of antimatter to the concept of an expanding universe. He also looks to the future and outlines numerous weird possibilities, from minuscule superstrings to parallel universes. Along the way, he presents a thoroughly engaging, if just a bit eclectic, history of physics. Siegfried has turned a difficult subject into a book that is difficult to put down.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Siegfried's title is a pun of sorts, referring both to strange matter, i.e., matter composed of up, down, and strange quarks as opposed to normal matter, composed of only up and down quarks, and perhaps also to some of the most recent nonstandard proposals of theoretical physicists and cosmologists. These include supersymmetry, string theory, various suggestions concerning the nature of the dark matter that seems to permeate the universe (and is hypothesized to explain gravitational forces), and multiplicities of dimensions going beyond the familiar three for space and one for time. Siegfried is a science journalist who has obviously devoted much time and thoughtful attention to discussions with the leading researchers in these esoteric areas. Without using mathematics, he has produced a very readable study that should give intelligent lay readers a good idea of what theorists are up to and why they are venturing into this remarkably challenging terrain. Recommended for college and large public libraries. Jack W. Weigel, Ann Arbor, MI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press (September 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0309084075
• ISBN-13: 978-0309084079
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,564,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book!, November 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time (Hardcover)

This book is a wonderful adventure that takes you to the edge of forefront thinking and beyond, with all the historical background you need to make sense of it all. (I don't know what that negative reviewer was thinking: The New York Times was so inspired by this book it ran an entire essay based on this book in its "Arts and Ideas" section.) Siegfried is the best. Honest, clear, interesting, original. Everything you ever wanted to know about matters that are strange, and probably even true. Quark stars? Mirror matter? A universe shaped like a donut? How about multiple universes? Multiple dimensions? This isn't science fiction, folks. Just science writing at its best. The perfect holiday gift for everyone you know who's curious about the unreasonably fantastic universe we live in.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Passionless and paradoxical, March 5, 2005

By 

D. Vanderspek - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time (Paperback)

"Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time" Tom Siegfried


"Strange Matters" is a sweeping survey of some recent developments in theoretical physics. It is divided into three groups of chapters, entitled "Strange Matter," "Strange Frontiers," and "Strange Ideas." Each chapter connects a recent development with an earlier theoriest, for example "From Einstein's Greatest Mistake to the Universe's Accelerating Expansion."

This book is apparently intended for a general reader with no special training in physics. No math is used. That said, a reader who has already read a few books of this type will probably find the text both frustratingly generalized and annoying overinvested in a math that nevertheless does not appear. The truly general reader will likely find the text readable but dull.

That's an odd bunch of assertions, so let's take it from the top.

For starters, the writing style is somewhat funky. The author is by trade a journalist (he writes for the Dallas Morning News), and the writing is permeated with the style of contemporary journalism: lots of sentence fragments and comma splices, and nary a semi-colon in sight. The tone is aloof and unemotional, yet returns perennially to its preoccupations. The effect is like watching a CNN report done as a 300 page newspaper article. Readily graspable, but not very elegant or imaginative (that was a sentence fragment). Maybe I'm just oversensitive because I'm a teacher.

More importantly, however, the author has an annoying overinvestment in math that clouds the presentation with shaky reasoning. For example, one theme of the text is the capacity of math to "prediscover" elements of physical reality. Thus, Murray Gell-Mann "prediscovered" quarks, Pauli "prediscovered" neutrinos, and Einstein "prediscovered" gravitational lensing. But this is a distortion of language in service of a personal ideology, as American journalists are so prone to doing. When I am half-way to work I have not "prearrived"; when a woman is 4 months pregnant the baby has not been "predelivered." You are not "prefinished" reading this review. Neither does math prediscover anything, which is an oxymoron. The author is merely dressing up the plain idea of prediction.

But there's more to it. The author's use of "prediscovery" is made possible by his belief that math forms the most basic level of reality in the universe. On virtually every page we read that nature totters after math like a toddler being led around on a leash by a calculator. If that judgement seems harsh or improbable, consider this quotation:

"So there is no mystery, [cognitive scientists] say. We impose our math on the world in order to describe it. That's why math works. Frankly, I am not impressed by this argument. Although it is surely true [...] that math is a human invention, it does not logically follow that the universe does not live by mathematical laws. The idea of math as a human invention may explain much of its success. But I do not see how it explains the way that math reveals unseen, even unimagined, features of reality. [...] But perhaps exploring the prediscoveries of the past and the potential prediscoveries of today can provide some clues to that mystery." (9-10).

I would call this a circular argument. First the author arbitrarily installs math at the centre of the universe, and then he invents the tool of "prediscovery" with which to authenticate that claim. My suspicion throughout this text was that the author is basically arguing from a Christian-creationist position, and this may not be wrong; we finally get to the bible in Chapter 8. Leaving this speculation aside, if you've read Spinoza or are familiar with Pythagoras, Plato, or de Chardin, there's nothing new here.

Anyway, if you do like math, as I do, you will also be disappointed. There are no equations to stare at and puzzle out. More pertinently, there is also no depth of detail in most of the chapters. When we encounter quantum entanglement or black holes, the author merely waves us by with a few fairly widely-known facts and more talk about the wonder of math. That's the journalistic writing style again.

Actually, I think its lack of wonder is my most serious complaint about this book. It's bad enough that it's a book about math with no math in it, but it's also a book about wonder with no wonder in it. There is little imaginative speculation, and even less marvelling at recent jaw-slackening developments in cosmology and theoretical physics.

If I had to sum up this book in a word, I would call it suburban. It is polite and accomplished, orderly and discrete. It is very organized and comfortable. You will not encounter anything shocking to middle-class sensibilities. You will not be asked to leave your driveway, though you *will* be asked to keep off the mathematical grass (it's just been sprayed!). But a suburb is also a limiting, troubled place, and throughout this book I was frequently reminded of the film "Pleasantville."

If you are looking for a book that's both more scientifically rigorous and less uptight, then I suggest either Brian Greene or Stephen Hawking. For a more personal account, try Janna Levin or George Gamow.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A strange and difficult book to review., December 29, 2008

By 

Metallurgist (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time (Paperback)

Tom Siegfried is a science journalist. At the time he wrote this book he was the Science Feature Editor of the Dallas Morning News (I do not know if he still holds this position) and the book reads like a very well written series of long feature articles. They are written in a breezy colloquial style, but without a detailed or systematic approach to any of the topics covered. This may be fine for someone who desires light science reading, but for someone desiring a systematic and in-depth approach this book is "cotton candy" physics. It is light, sweet, but full of empty calories. But then again, there are those who like cotton candy and consume it whenever they can.

I personally was expecting a book with more substance and one that was much better organized, using a much more detailed and systematic approach. Rather, each chapter focuses on a different type of strange matter, i.e., dark matter, super matter, mirror matter, superstrings, etc., but the treatment of each topic is not systematic and is covered only superficially. The book is mostly "gee wiz" physics, with much of the book devoted to technical meetings that the author attended and the people he knows and what they have taught him. All this being said, the reader would be justified in expecting this to be a one star, completely negative, review. Instead I have given it three stars because I found nuggets of superb explanation scattered throughout the book. For instance, there is a nice discussion of Emily Noether's work relating symmetry and conservation laws. This led to an interesting discussion of supersymmetry.

The book cleared up several things for me. For instance, I knew that the idea of a black hole was first broached in the 1700's and that Newton's laws predicted that light would be bent by gravity (although by not as much as predicted by Einstein), but these facts did not make much sense to me. Siegfried explained this, albeit in a very generally way, by reminding me that Newton viewed light as a particle and that this particle could be influenced by gravity. There is also a nice discussion that cleared up (at least for me) the distinction between Einstein's cosmological constant, dark energy and quintessence.

In summary - this book is OK if you want a well written, but superficial, discussion of "Strange Matters", but I think that it falls short if you are looking for a more in-depth treatment. If that is what you are looking for, I recommend Brian Greene's "Fabric of the Cosmos".