Skip to main content

Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries – Louis A. Del Monte **

As I have mentioned before, we are distinctly fussy about taking on self-published books, but made an exception in this case. ‘Unraveling’ combines an exploration of the currently accepted cosmology with some speculative alternative physics ideas and even a quick discussion of the existence of God.
Although I was prepared to set aside an aversion to self-publication, it does show through quite strongly in this book, and I ought in all fairness to mention the bad side of this first. Like almost all self-published books, the print layout on the page looks wrong – more like a Word document than a book. This isn’t insuperable, but mildly irritating. What’s worse is that it is very clear that the book hasn’t been professionally edited (or if it has, the author should get his money back). There are far too many errors. So, for instance, when talking about string theory, at one point it is sting theory, and at another spring theory. Professor Ronald Mallett, who is discussed at some length, quite often only had one ‘t’ in his name. And so it goes on.
Putting that aside, what we get here is a combination of a quite reasonable introduction to the big bang and string/M theory with some personal speculation from Mr Del Monte and an interesting exploration of some ‘mysteries that still baffle modern science.’ I ought to divide this into three: how well Del Monte does at explaining the basic science, how readable the book is, and what to think of Del Monte’s original theories.
Most of the basic science is good and some is reasonably well explained. The author is a lot better on cosmology than he is on quantum theory and relativity, which can be rather confusing in the way they are covered, but overall it’s a workmanlike job. What is slightly worrying is that the author doesn’t seem to understand special relativity, as he suggests that the ‘twins paradox’ is presented as only being an illusion, because the effect is symmetrical. This runs counter to even undergraduate level physics – in any special relativity textbook it is clearly explained why the twins paradox is real and not an illusion because the symmetry is broken – one twin is accelerated and the other isn’t. That’s worrying.
As for the readability, the book starts off pretty well in an approachable, quite chatty fashion, but it suffers from not having any clear structure, jumping episodically from chapter to chapter, and there is no evidence that the author has any great expertise in science communication. There’s nothing particularly new in the basic science here, and there are plenty of other books on cosmology and string/M-theory that do the job of getting them across better.
We are left with the author’s own theories. I have a problem here. I have no issue with a working scientist with academic standing presenting their own, speculative theories. However when someone without appropriate credentials does so, it is worrying. Del Monte has a masters in physics and then spent his working life as an engineer. Nothing wrong with this, but it does not make him a ‘physicist’ as he is described, and it does not give a great deal of weight to his theories. To be fair I am not saying that they are in the typical ‘Einstein was wrong, my new theory shows why’ fruit-loopery class. There is some interesting reasoning here – but I am not qualified to say if there is anything of interest, and neither, really is Del Monte.
Taking all this into account, this isn’t a bad book, but the combination of self published, poorly edited, not brilliantly written, and combining nothing that isn’t done better elsewhere on standard cosmology with some pet personal theories does not make it one I can recommend either.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more