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The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings: Third Revised Edition Third Edition, Revised Edition

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Martin Gardner (Author)
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Martin Gardner (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 11 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0486442440
ISBN-10: 0486442446
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Dover Publications; Third Edition, Revised edition (July 26, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0486442446
  • ISBN-13: 978-0486442440
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,114,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsFrames superstrings and twistors
By Worldreels on April 28, 2000
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Every decade Gardner updates this book. The five new chapters in the 1990 edition, including material on twistors and superstrings, are well worth the price. What Gardner does best is frame the new theories within a historical perspective. For example, he says it is impossible not to compare string theory with Lord Kelvin's (W. Thompson) 1958 theory of vortex strings. Vortex string theory was fashionable for at least fifty years. Gardner shows the vortex string theory and the superstring theory to be kissing cousins: Lord Kelvin used perfect fluid to refer to the superstring quantum vacuum -- both referring to the same sub-space area. String theory speaks of vibrating frequencies of energy while vortex rings were also vibrating frequencies that gave the atoms different properties. Instead of quantum foam with jittering virtual particles, vortex theory had vortex sponges with billions of vortex motions whirling in all directions.
Gardner's account of Roger Penrose's twistor theory is short and excellent. Physicists have gotten tangled up trying to speak of deeper down events which are hidden from view due to their sub-Planck length size (10 to the minus 33rd power of a centimeter). Here it is pointed out that "on a sufficiently small scale the concept of a space-time point evaporates in the complex space of twistor theory." Twistor theory, like superstring theory, was merely trying to formulate how the submicroscopic particles come into being. Both theories consist of math and lack any experimental verification. To repeat, the author discusses these obtuse theories in a way that frames their overall direction of thought. Gardner appears to agree with Howard George who calls superstring theory a "recreational mathematical theology." The bottom line -- both twistor and string theory are philosophy -- not physics.
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5.0 out of 5 starsWonderful, but somewhat out-of-date (only at the end).
By Dale Wood on January 15, 2002
Format: Paperback
I think that THE NEW AMBIDEXTROUS UNIVERSE (1990) is a wonderful book on symmetry and asymmetry in the worlds of everyday life, chemistry, physics, and unification theories. Everything in this book is noteworthy, and also up-to-date except for the last few chapters.
It is a very good updating of the previous (1978) edition, which concluded with many open questions in elementary particle physics that were resolved (and new questions raised) in 1978 - 1989.
It is high time for this book to be updated if Mr. Gardner can manage it (he is rather elderly; born in 1914), and a publisher will take a new edition. Books like this are gueling to revise and update.
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4.0 out of 5 starsReview from a non-scientific perspective
By Sarah on January 13, 2002
Format: Paperback
I'm not going to say that I understand all of this. Most of it is way over my head, but after reading it, I can say that I understand more now than I did before. I'm planning on attacking it again in a couple years. Overall, however, Gardner does a good job of bring complicated scientific theory down to a plain English level by using diagrams and analogies.
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5.0 out of 5 starsYou have always wanted an answer to this question
By Neal Wakershauser on March 22, 2014
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
You've always wondered why your image, in a mirror, is asymmetrically reversed horizontally but not vertically, right? Martin Gardner will explain how that works in chapter 1. May provide hints for new pick-up lines to start interesting conversations also.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA classic
By Roger Sweeny on February 16, 2013
Format: Paperback
The first two thirds of this book is a lightly revised version of the first edition, written in the early 1960s. It is largely about mirror symmetry and handedness. I found it delightful, full of diagrams, analogies, and examples that aren't hard-core physics. It is geometrical and concrete, helping me to visualize the points he was making. Up until 1956, most all scientists felt that the universe was deeply symmetrical but a series of experiments showed that was not the case. Gardner wrote the book to try to explain what that meant.

Science moved on. It turned out that this lack of symmetry occurred in all interactions involving the "weak force." However, if you combined charge, parity (handedness), and time, and generalized the idea of symmetry to mean an invariance, this CPT combination was symmetric. Gardner revised the book twice and the last third is all new material. He is forced to become more abstract and the book loses some of its charm. Because there is T in CPT, he talks about time and time reversal. And anti-matter (which have reversed charges). And neutrinos, monopoles, entropy, twistor theory and string theory. He does as good a job as he can but this part of the book does not hang together nearly as well as the rest. It's also a little sad, because pretty much nothing useful has come of twistor theory or string theory in the 23 years since he wrote.

Don't be fooled. Though this book carries a 2005 publishing date, it has not been revised since 1990. It is, however, a wonderful introduction to symmetry and "chirality" (handedness). Most of the first part will never go out of date. Read it, and if you want to bring the story forward, try Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe, by Lederman and Hill (2008) for a different, more abstract treatment.
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4.0 out of 5 starsIS SUPERSTRING THEORY A RECREATIONAL MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY?
By Worldreels on March 29, 2000
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Every decade Gardner updates this book. The five new chapters in the 1990 edition, including material on twistors and superstrings, are well worth the price. What Gardner does best is frame the new theories within a historical perspective. For example, he says it is impossible not to compare string theory with Lord Kelvin's (W. Thompson) 1958 theory of vortex strings. Vortex string theory was fashionable for at least fifty years. Gardner shows the vortex string theory and the superstring theory to be kissing cousins: Lord Kelvin used perfect fluid to refer to the superstring quantum vacuum -- both referring to the same sub-space area. String theory speaks of vibrating frequencies of energy while vortex rings were also vibrating frequencies that gave the atoms different properties. Instead of quantum foam with jittering virtual particles, vortex theory had vortex sponges with billions of vortex motions whirling in all directions.
Gardner's account of Roger Penrose's twistor theory is short and excellent. Physicists have gotten tangled up trying to speak of deeper down events which are hidden from view due to their sub-Planck length size (10 to the minus 33rd power of a centimeter). Here it is pointed out that "on a sufficiently small scale the concept of a space-time point evaporates in the complex space of twistor theory." Twistor theory, like superstring theory, was merely trying to formulate how the submicroscopic particles come into being. Both theories consist of math and lack any experimental verification. To repeat, the author discusses these obtuse theories in a way that frames their overall direction of thought. Gardner appears to agree with Howard George who calls superstring theory a "recreational mathematical theology." The bottom line -- both twistor and string theory are philosophy -- not physics.
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