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Title: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
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Manufacturer: Mariner Books
List Price: $15.95
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| The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books Maybe a visit to the ornithologist | Richard Feynman is usually credited having said that "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." However, this book seems to indicate that, given what string theorists are doing with and for science, maybe some of them due a visit to the ornithologist...
| | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books Just a great read | I really enjoyed this book. Picked it up in the airport, and didn't put it down until the flight landed. Couldn't wait to get home to read more.
The author has a fantastic way of relating a technical story. | | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books Compelling reading, even if you disagree | This book is a MUST read for anyone who believes in the importance of science as a human endeavour.
I have read many popular books on the subjects of cosmology, particle phycics, quantum mechnanics, String theory, etc. Along the way I have read countless books that purport to be for the layman; most start strong covering the topics one would expect (wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principal, special relativity, etc.), but then quickly digress into overly technical explanations that lose most laymen. A great example is Hawking's much-touted A Brief History of Time -- I'm convinced that most people who own this book have never read the whole thing. I know I didn't.
Lee Smolin's book is a rare exception. Here is a brilliant and articulate scientist capable of describing exceptionally complex ideas in very simple terms. He understands exactly where his typical reader's limits of knowledge sit, and works carefully withing those limits. He is also sure to note when he is glossing important details that true practitioners in his field would want to elaborate on. For this alone, Smolin's book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the broad issues being explored in today's most advanced physics programs.
More importantly, though, this is a truly COURAGEOUS book.
Smolin states that, while it is a worthwhile endeavour, String theory has unfairly dominated major research programs for too long. For sociological and political reasons, Smolin argues that String theory has squeezed out healthy scientific debate about the "foundational" issues surrounding the unification of quantum mechanics and relativity. Smolin himself is an advocate of quantum gravity, an alternate approach to String theory. It's important to note that Smolin never claims that Loop Quantum Gravity (his favoured approach) is right; his primary point is that it is an axample of an alternate approach that it is worthy of exploration but that receives little attention.
What makes Smolin brave is that he tackles his own professional community. As anyone who has achieved some success in a field will tell you, this takes a lot of guts. And though he presents all of his arguments without malice, there is little doubt that the String theory establishment would not appreciate the way it is characterized in Smolin's book. I can only imagine the nasty response that Smolin has received (actually, there are many blogs that attack Smolin mercilessly -- when not dismissing him as a crack).
Smolin ends his books with a reflection on the general state of science in the US. He paints a bleak picture of a highly "professionalized" discipline which rewards those low-risk research programs most likely to garner large grants, and a culture where reliable technical skill is valued more than risky and innovative ideas.
Even if you disagree with Smolin's assertions (and I am sure that there are many who do), he is compelling writer with interesting things to say.
| | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books The Impending Crash of the "Kaluza-Klein Runaway Express" to nowhere |
Each decade since the 60s, the leading researchers in advance physics have stepped away from their work just long enough to give us a "quick-and-dirty" status report on the latest developments in their field.
George Gamow (One, Two, Three infinity) did it at the beginning of the 60s; Gary Zukav (Wu Li Masters) did it at the end of the 70s; Heinz Pagels (Perfect Symmetry) did it at the end of the 80s; Timonthy Ferris (The Whole Shebang) did it at the end of the 90s; and now Lee Smolin's (The trouble with Physics) is doing the same for the current decade.
Never was this ride more difficult, nor clearer nor more exhilarating than as is demonstrated in the present volume. Professor Smolin takes us on a wild but sober ride across the landscape of current research in particle physics. For those of us who are frustrated physicists but whose brains are too ossified, or who no longer can read and understand the dizzying math in the technical journals, this summary is a welcomed contribution. In this panoramic view just slightly above the heads of what a layman can understand, Smolin invites us into his lab to meet his colleagues and his, and their theories.
Being a born maverick, skeptic and purest, all rolled into one, the view we get is not the normal ride of a "true believer" trying to peddle the latest "new theoretical fad," but that of a skeptic: grazing, browsing, and sampling, but in search of the "finest wares in the physics shop." Professor Smolin makes no bones about, nor does he mind us knowing, that he is from the "old school," where theories are forced to intersect with, and then be confronted by experimental results or else they are not accepted or respected as theories at all. As a "born-again" traditionalist, he is perfectly suited to give us an enjoyable guided tour.
The tour is a panoramic view of the quest for the unification of Quantum and Relativity theories into a general theory of everything (GUT), a quest, like that preceding both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics at the turn of the last Century, has again been described as the final frontier of physics: the integration of all the forces in nature to be brought together into one nice tidy theoretical coda. This quest has become the Holy Grail of the physical sciences and of Cosmology.
Exhibit 1 of this pursuit is the heavily touted "String Theory," and its progeny Super symmetry and Super string Theory, which all hit the stage with a bang, but since, as Professor Smolin so carefully demonstrates, have all run into heavy weather indeed, and which have, for the most part, now been forced to "cool their heels" and take a seat on the sidelines of traditional experimental developments.
A major part of "the trouble with physics" is what can only be called the "Kaluza-Klein cu de sac," or better yet the "Kaluza-Klein runaway train to nowhere."
Without giving away the plot of the book, the Kaluza-Klein formula proved to be a mathematically easier way to reinvent Relativity, by expanding the physics to several new dimensions. "On paper" the Kaluza-Klein derivations looked as good as Einstein's original formulation, provided of course that one is willing to overlook a few of its not so minor "fatal side effects," such as having to "roll-up' or "curl" the unwanted and untidy extra dimensions, and being willing to forego confrontations with normal experimental results.
I agreed with Professor Smolin even before I read his book: "Curling up" (or hiding) unwanted dimensions, is no way to do good physics. Yet, this unholy technique became the template that catapulted a whole generation of physicists into prominence in the world of 21st Century physics. Smolin himself admits having rode that train part way down the track until, that is, he saw the train wreck just over the horizon about to happen. When he saw it, he ever-so-discretely dismounted, leaving his "research budget fat and tenured colleagues" to endure the impending crash all by themselves. Now that he is on the safe side of the shore, where respectable experimental physics is still being done, the train is slowing down, even as it nears impact.
There does not seem to be any possibility of rescue in sight. Five stars! | | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books I recommend this book | Excellent review of pertinent physics and the problems with academia.
We wish more academians would open up a little more. On the other hand,
we don't want them to expose their little minds, we might cut off their funding.
Bligh | | The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Mariner Books Product Description | | In this illuminating book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics -- the search for the laws of nature -- losing its way. Ambitious ideas about extra dimensions, exotic particles, multiple universes, and strings have captured the public's imagination -- and the imagination of experts. But these ideas have not been tested experimentally, and some, like string theory, seem to offer no possibility of being tested. Yet these speculations dominate the field, attracting the best talent and much of the funding and creating a climate in which emerging physicists are often penalized for pursuing other avenues. As Smolin points out, the situation threatens to impede the very progress of science. With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin offers an unblinking assessment of the troubles that face modern physics -- and an encouraging view of where the search for the next big idea may lead. |
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