|
 |
View Cart | Help |
|
The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory
|
Home > Mathematics Books > Grand Unified Theory > Item 11
 |
|
 |
 |
The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory
|
by David Lindley
Sales Rank: 1588527
|
$0.44
At Amazon
on 12-6-2008
|
|
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books June 1993
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465015484
ISBN-13: 978-0465015481
Product Dimensions:
9.6 x 7 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Lindley, senior editor of Science magazine, writes about the 20th-century quest for a theory that will unify the fundamental forces of nature into one mathematics. Other such overviews, such as Brian Appleyard ' s Understanding the Present (Forecasts, Feb. 15), may be more thorough and incisive, but Lindley's study has rare expository grace and verve. The ambiguity of Lindley's title ( end as aim, or death; myth as illuminating metaphor, or unverifiable falsehood) captures the breadth and significance of the search for GUT. Readers with ambitions to actually understand Hawking, Weinberg, or other active physicists writing about the state of GUT will find this a good place to begin. Library of Science selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
When Lindley says ``myth,'' he means it not as a metaphor but literally: ``a story that makes sense within its own termsbut can be neither tested nor disproved.'' Such is the sorry pass he believes that particle physics has come to at the end of the 20th century. The quest for theories of everything--for the grand unification--has indeed becomes a ``holy grail'' that can cost time, money, and careers, all to no avail. That's the message brought by a messenger with credentials as a senior editor of Science as well as a Ph.D. in astronomy. Curiously, Lindley's apocalyptic vision has a parallel with one promulgated at the end of the last century, when physics was also thought to be coming to an end, but for different reasons: It was thought that the major discoveries had been made. This time, Lindley avers that it's the seduction of mathematical constructs unrelated to the real world that's doing physics in. To reach this conclusion, he summarizes all that the 20th century has wrought, from Einstein to Heisenberg to Fermilab, CERN, and the plan for the superconducting supercollider--a grand cathedral. (For an opposing view, see Steven Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory--Jan 1993.) Whether or not readers buy Lindley's judgment, they're well served by his first-rate exposition of the state of the science. The rub may lie in the eerie phenomenon by which the toys of mathematicians so often do turn out to be the tools that physicists use to construct--and demonstrate--the next paradigm. (Illustrations) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
|
The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory
Available from Amazon
Price: $0.44
Updated on 12-6-2008
|
|
|
|
|
NOTICE: All product prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
Copyright © 2008 Dominant Systems Corporation
info@bookdigger.com
Privacy Policy
Last Modified : 12-6-2008
|
|
|
|
