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The New Physics (Paperback)

~ Paul Davies (Editor) "It is fashionable to suppose that science advances in revolutionary leaps..." (more)
Key Phrases: planar spin model, renormalisation group transformation, inertial mass density, Cambridge University Press, New York, Bell's Inequality (more...)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Price: $65.00 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

'The very people who are busy creating the new physics carry the reader out to the growing edge of modern science. It is an exciting trip. The New Physics is an ambitious attempt to make the frontiers of this science accessible to a wider audience. This book succeeds admirably in this goal. I know of no better one-volume guide to the edges of modern physics.' Nick Herbert, New Scientist

'This is an attractively presented book, but it is one to be read and thought about rather than merely looked at. Non-scientists will get a good sense of some of the new ideas, and scientists - physicists included - can learn how very far physics has extended its dominion.' J. H. Mulvey, Nature

' ... a first-class book, conveying a real sense of current research.' Observatory


Product Description

The New Physics is the first book to give a complete and comprehensive account of everything that is new and most exciting in modern physics. What does the concept of chaos mean? What occurred in the first billionth of a second after the Universe came into existence? What is at the edge of space? How are stars born and how do they die? How does a laser work? What are the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics? What are quarks and what does gauge theory mean? What happens to matter at very low temperatures? These and many more questions are answered in this book by some of the world's most famous living physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, Abdus Salam, A. Guth, Peter Knight, Malcom Longair and others. The New Physics is extensively illustrated with color photographs and clear explanatory diagrams, making this volume invaluable to both the general science reader who is curious about the physical makeup of the world, and the professional physicist who desires an authoritative summary of all the areas of modern physics.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 526 pages
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press (August 28, 1992)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0521438314
  • ISBN-13: 978-0521438315
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.6 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #360,935 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
It is fashionable to suppose that science advances in revolutionary leaps. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
planar spin model, renormalisation group transformation, inertial mass density, lowest possible energy density, charge quantisation, cosmic string picture, new inflationary model, objective indefiniteness, original inflationary model, inflationary universe model, pure general relativity, sublattice magnetisation, new astrophysics, configuration spectrum, new inflationary universe, maximal specification, optical waveband, critical point behaviour, algorithmic complexity theory, critical point phenomena, multiphoton ionisation, most massive galaxies, ultraviolet waveband, quadrupole formula, hot intergalactic gas
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cambridge University Press, New York, Bell's Inequality, The Nein Physics, Crab Nebula, Eightfold Way, Monte Carlo, Abdus Salam, Academic Press, Georgia Tech, Stephen Hawking, The Neu, Vincent Mallette, Hubble Space Telescope, Magellanic Clouds, Oxford University Press, San Francisco, Superposition Principle, The Beauty of Fractals, Theory of Everything, Basic Books, Big Crunch, Chris Isham, Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis, Courtesy of the Royal Observatory
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A superb tour of current physics, March 4, 1997
By A Customer
I thoght this was one of the best books on physics that I had ever read. As an educated layman (MS in Elec Eng) I have experienced some frustration with most "popular" tours of science. This book balanced sufficient (mathematical) detail to make me feel I had grasped some of the fundamentals with enough wonderfully clear conceptual explanation to ensure that I understood the whole. A must-read for anyone who has felt short-changed by "simple" explanations of the latest developments in our understanding of the universe
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not too light, not too heavy., April 3, 2000
For someone who doesn't have an MS in anything, this book served as a good introduction to the current thinking in physics at the time of its publishing, and provided enough of a foundation to be able to make better sense of later discoveries and theories. While not delving in to a detailed and highly technical discussion of every single aspect for modern physics, it still provides enough information to allow one to start on more technical works. For anyone who is looking to get involved in today's physics this will be a good peek at what you'd be getting yourself in to. Otherwise, it gives glimpses at a world we are just begining to understand but already challenges our basic perceptions of every aspect of the universe.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Good articles, December 13, 2004
By Jill Malter (jillmalter@aol.com) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
Now that 15 years have passed since this book came out, the physics it describes is not quite so new. But it is still a very nice introduction to some of the more interesting parts of physics. Not every exciting aspect of physics is covered. But everything that is covered is a stimulating area in which plenty of noteworthy things are happening.

There's a nice section by Clifford Will on the renaissance of general relativity. And he makes the point that cosmologists have long been plagued by having their predicted ages of the Universe come out just a teeny bit less than the ages of (pick one) the Earth or the Milky Way Galaxy. Alan Guth and Paul Steinhardt have a nice article on the inflationary universe. And Stephen Hawking has some nice words about the question of whether spacetime has a boundary. Chris Isham discusses quantum gravity. All these are subjects that get us in the proper mood for the chapter I liked best, by Malcolm Longair, on the new astrophysics. This 115-page article is a wonderful introduction to the field.

Now that we've looked at something big (the universe), we study some systems that appear self-organized. We start with an article by David Thouless on condensed matter in less than three dimensions. I liked this, he even discussed "third sound" in superfluid helium, something which as an "acoustics person" I find fascinating. And there's another good article on low temperature physics, by Anthony Leggett. The next chapter in the self-organization section is by Peter Knight, on quantum optics (lasers); he has a good discussion of the generation of ultrashort optical pulses. And there is a chapter about phase transitions and critical point phenomena by Alastair Bruce and David Wallace.

Those who have studied Biology have seen the incredible amount of order in living systems. But where does this order come from? What about the order in non-Biological systems, such as the planets going around the Sun? Or, better yet, snowflakes? What forces produce such self-organization? It's nonlinear dynamics and the presence of constraints maintaining a system far from equilibrium that turn out to be the basic mechanism. We have a nice chapter by Gregoire Nicolis that discusses it. And next is a chapter on chaos. By this, we mean systems that are deterministic but unpredictable. Joseph Ford discusses systems that can make use of inputs that arrive in a random manner.

The final portion of the book deals with the ultimate structure of matter. We start with an article by Abner Shimony, which discusses the importance of the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, showing that simple "hidden variable theories" are impossible. Frank Close explains the quark structure of matter and Abdus Salam supplies an overview of particle physics. H. M. Georgi tells us of the adventures people have had trying to use Lie Groups, especially SU(5), to come up with grand unified theories. But he explains that they predicted proton decay and never found it. And in his chapter on quantum field theories, he speculates that maybe we're making a mistake to try to guess the nature of reality for very small distances, rather than work our way down to it from what we can see at bigger distances. And there is a very readable chapter on gauge theories by John Taylor, who includes a discussion of quark confinement.

These simply aren't the topics we're used to seeing when we take high school or college physics, and it's wonderful to have them in one book so that one can see how many exciting topics there are in this field. Yes, there's been plenty of advances on all these topics since 1989, but this isn't a bad way to get started. If you are thinking of doing physics, this will show some of what many physicists have been doing for the past couple of decades. If you have a little technical training and simply want a book for the layman that has relatively little math, it's a good choice. We may need an updated version soon!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced sampling of what is going on in the World of Modern Physics
This edited volume by the illustrative Paul Davies, is a "sampling of" rather than a "summing up" of the state of physics at the end of the last decade. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Herbert L Calhoun

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviews worth reading
Still worth reading, even though it's been around for a while now. Some really fine reviews of late twentieth century physics.
Published on July 10, 2007 by R. G. W. Brown

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