A good read
September 13th, 2009
I don’t do many book reviews here* but this is a book not to be missed. I bought it in Borders on Saturday after a student recommended it to me – well, to be honest, she was asking me about some of the interesting concepts described in the book.
You can see a short video introduction to the book by the authors over at Amazon.
The flyleaf describes the book as the most accessible, entertaining, and enlightening explanation of the best-known physics equation in the world, as rendered by two of today’s leading scientists. The equation referred to is Einstein’s famous 
.
The subtitle and why should we care? frames the question asked by Cox’s wife, Gia Milinovich, who describes herself as a science groupie and professional dork. You need not be either of these to appreciate the answer to her question.
The language of the book is very easy-going and the mathematics is kept to an absolute minimum – nothing harder than Pythagoras (and the authors even explain that, in case you have forgotten it). For me, the hook comes in the preface. Don’t skip the preface: it contains some of the most fundamentally important principles of the study of science, for example:
By building a model of space and time, Einstein paved the way for an understanding of how stars shine…
Notice the word model. There’s the greater truth coming:
In science, there are no universal truths, just views of the world that have yet to be shown to be false.
I refer you back to the personal task I set you – and which I have not forgotten, by the way – about the nature of knowledge. The authors of this book are perfectly clear about what knowledge is and what it is not.
Finally, to pique your interest – not just in this brilliant little book, but in the study of physics – let your mind consider this excerpt from chapter 1:
Einstein’s universe is one in which moving clocks tick slowly, moving objects shrink, and we can journey billions of years into the future. It is a universe in which a human lifetime can be stretched almost indefinitely. We could watch the sun die, the earth’s oceans boil away, and our solar system be plunged into perpetual night. We could watch the birth of stars from swirling dust clouds, the formation of planets and maybe the origins of life on new, as yet unformed worlds. Einstein’s universe allows us to journey into the far future, while keeping the doors to the past firmly locked behind us.
I hope you get the chance to read this excellent little book.
*but I do a few here
Categories: Advanced Higher Physics, Higher Physics | Tags: Advanced Higher, books, Brian Cox, Higher Physics, Physics | Comments Off
