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This is a history of modern physics that focuses on individuals and the roles they played in developing the models that now dominate our thinking. Science is seldom taught in this way in the classroom, since history has been ‘outgrown’, ‘superseded’ and so on, but the institutional development of science (particularly in a field of science dependent on enormously expensive instrumentation) is a crucial part of the story and the human element—from the arrogance of a Schwinger to the playfulness and intuitive genius of a Feynman—is not just interesting, it is also determinative, though sometimes in unpredictable and indirect ways.
The story begins, more or less, with Galileo, then moves through Newton and the eighteenth century to Clerk Maxwell and beyond. Krauss has his own heroes here and I was delighted to see him enumerate them. It is fascinating to see the bases for the awarding of Nobel prizes and the personal dynamics between the recipients and the (unfairly) non-recipients.
The story is always a provisional one. As Plato put it in the Timaeus, scientific explanations are ‘likely stories’. As George Steiner has reminded us, science’s strength as well as its reality is that it can be superseded. As he puts it, both Aristotle’s view of Oedipus and Freud’s view of Oedipus have value, but there is only one second law of thermodynamics. On the other hand, while science ‘applies’ and is grounded in reality in a way that the humanities are not, its dimensions and ‘laws’ change. Newton was seen as a god in the early eighteenth century but before that century was out his notions were being challenged by Lagrange and Laplace. Thus, the story that Krauss tells is a provisional one, a fact that actually adds drama to its telling, particularly when key mathematical constructs are based on the existence of particles that have not yet been actually observed.
The bottom line is that the story is told very well, even though much of the material is extremely complex. One caveat with regard to the subtitle: potential readers should know that they are buying (or borrowing) a history of modern physics. This is a book about theoretical particle physics, quantum electrodynamics, and so on; it does not address the weighty question, ‘why are we here?’ How could it? In various asides Krauss makes it clear that he considers religion something that involves myth and superstition and that science has replaced metaphysics. He is certainly entitled to that position; it is a common one. On the other hand, as Hume reminded us, faith is not subject to rational critique, by definition. That is why they call it faith. Krauss uses biblical references as epigraphs (in a charming, not snarky way), but the notion that God works in mysterious ways is an important commonplace. It is also a questionable comment, given the fact that if there is a God it is highly unlikely that human observers are within any reasonable range of understanding His/Her ways, again, by definition. Meyer Abrams and others have commented on the right-angled nature of religious history. There is nothing; then there is everything. There is the fall; then there is the resurrection. God, as narrator/creator, likes to surprise us.
Bottom line: the question ‘why are we here?’ is not really addressed in Professor Krauss’s book; whether it even could be addressed—beyond the musings of theologians in what Wittgenstein would call their ‘language games’—is another question altogether.
- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Atria Books; First Edition2017 edition (March 21, 2017)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1476777616
- ISBN-13: 978-1476777610
- Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 203 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#151,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #929 in History & Philosophy of Science
- #79 in Relativity Physics (Books)
- #196 in Cosmology (Books)
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