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The Edge Of Physics: A Journey To Earth's Extremes To Unlock The Secrets Of The Universe (2010)

by Anil Ananthaswamy(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0618884688 (ISBN13: 9780618884681)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: Author does a great job of describing the extreme physics experiments,and would sit very well, if positioned as a travelogue. However, thephysics parts of the book remain shaky; the author contends wrongly that electron is associated with the electromagnetic field (it is the photon).But I strongly recommend the book as a collection of disparate chaptersdescribing humanity's quest to understand the creation, evolutionand desitny of universe in the framework of physics. You can probablyread about each experiment separately, but together they give you asense of the wonder, breadth and effort invested by us collectively,beyond language, race and region as a species.
review 2: I probably understood somewhere around 30% of the actual science of this book, which just ... morehappened to be enough to get the basic gist of what is going on today in physics. Of course most of the book 80% was a travelogue and history of each of the different sites where scientists are conducting experiments to uncover the problems plaguing physics today.I am sure that magazines or even the internet would or could be a better source for more up-to-date information regarding where physics actually is today. Though this book was published in January of 2011, most of the content of this book came from 2009 thus making the material already dated. In fact this book was barely anymore insightful than Stephen Hawking's book "The History of the Universe" or "The Universe in a nutshell". In fact I can basically sum up most of the book if a few sentencesThe physical Universe (or matter that we can interact with), makes up about 10% of the Universe, Dark Matter is believed to make up the next 20%, and finally the most mysterious of all Dark Energy seems to make up the final 70% of the Universe. That means that as of yet, 90% of the Universe is actual unknown to us. I of course find this the most striking aspect of the book. That despite all of the progress made by mankind that the majority of existence is still unknown. It is both humbling and awe inspiring. It is also interesting to note how physics is coming around to ideas once thought fantastical or only in the realm of science fiction. The Multiple-Universe theory is gaining more and more credibility as it helps make the different laws of physics, including string theory work. less

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