Cracking Quantum Physics - Brian Clegg ****

This is a handsome little hardback (or a good value ebook) - significantly smaller than I thought it would be from the cover photo. In the grand scheme of things I am not a fan of picture books for grown-ups, which this kind of is. But, if you are going to do something like this, it is one of the better ones I've seen.

This is an introduction to quantum physics for beginners (I suppose that's what 'cracking it' is about). It's not something to go for if you've already absorbed the contents of a more substantial quantum title, such as the author's own The Quantum Age, but if the whole business currently leaves you mystified, this would be an excellent way to get started. It fills in a lot of the background, going right back to ancient Greek ideas on what matter is and taking you in around 300 pages to quantum gravity and M-theory.

The whole thing is divided into short sections, often just two pages, which tend to have a lot of illustration. Some of this works very well to explain a point, but in other parts it feels like it has been put in because the format needs a picture, but it doesn't add anything to the understanding. It is the kind of book that would work well as a read on your commute into work, easily broken up into manageable chunks.

So, don't expect to come out of reading it as an expert on quantum theory or particle physics (the book mixes the two). But if a teen or adult wants to get a handle on the basics and not be baffled when Schrodinger's cat or the Higgs boson is thrown into a conversation, then it's going to prove a very useful book. And that small format means it should fit nicely into a stocking too.

Hardback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Peter Spitz
Please note, this title is written by the editor of the Popular Science website. Our review is still an honest opinion – and we could hardly omit the book – but do want to make the connection clear.

Comments

The Infinite Book – John D. Barrow ****

Authors are often asked to review books on a topic they’ve written on themselves. The reasoning is sensible – they ought to know something about the subject – but there’s always that uneasy suspicion that there’s going to be a bit of bias creeping in. So I think it’s only fair to admit up front that I have written a book on infinity (of which more later). Infinity is a wonderful subject, because it’s intimately mind-bending (if the combination sounds paradoxical, that’s what infinity is all about) and gives you the chance to pull in all sorts of different concepts and assocations along the way, something Barrow does with great gusto. There’s a surprisingly large amount of coverage here for God, and for the universe, and the book jumps around from Aristotle to Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel (explained at great length), from the paradoxes of infinite sets to the paradoxes of time travel. Overall it’s an enjoyable journey that gives plenty of opportunity to be amazed and surprised. The...

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...

Search This Blog