Reviews (32)

good reference for advanced, NOT A LOGICAL INTRO to GR

This book is known as the 'bible' of General Relativity or 'MTW'.

People with different preparation will perceive MTW in different ways:

The beginners in GR very often will feel that the book is a good reference and shows 'properties' of the defined objects instead of explaining the logical necessity of demanding such properties. My first course in GR was based on that book and although I learned some 'index gymnastics' from it, very often I had questions of the type 'where does this come from, why is it defined this way'. Often I would read about something like 'affine parameter' and I would not understand its importance at all.

For beginners I recommend the books from J.Hartle, B. Schutz, and S. Carroll in order of increasing abstraction. I am currently in the middle of course based on the Carroll's book and I understand things I have never ever been able to understand from the 'bible' like the fact that we may define different connections but only one of them is metric compatible and we CHOOSE to work with it, or that we CHOOSE to work with a torsion free connection, or that reparametrizing a geodesic may not give you back a geodesic (in relation to the affine parameter remark above) ... Such facts are either not clearly spelled in the 'bible' or they are digged in somewhere 300 pages away ...

Once you are past your first (or better second) course in GR, that book will be an invaluable reference for you with plenty of examples how to apply different computational and theoretical techniques in GR.

The reviewers that give it high rating are obviously either experienced in the field or are begginners that value a book only because of the well-known authours.

The book is really a titanic effort to compile all relevant pieces of info into one thick volume BUT PLEASE PLEASE think carefully before you recommend it for INTRODUCTION to General Relativity !!!

Gravity Defying
After reading this text, I became thoroughly competent in General Relativity as well as the requisite elegent mathematical tools needed to fully understand this truly beautiful subject.Moreover, I have since gone further in this field with my own self-discovery.In particular, in my search for a unified quantum field theory of gravity, I have discovered that a new field emerges out of the space-time energy manifold, which gives rise to a gravity-induced collpase of the wave function of a system.This emergent field is self-referential and emergent and is the basis of consciousness.Upon fully realizing the implications of this newly discovered theory, I knew that I should be able to locally vary the space-time energy manifold around me by mere thought alone.Indeed I did this on the night of November 14, 2004 and levitated a good meter off the ground for at least a full minute before my stupid girlfriend came into the room and shouted "Devil!You're a devil!" and fled in horror.My concentration was instantly broken and I fell to the ground, spraining my ankle in the process.Damn gravity!And come to think of it, this is all the fault of Wheeler, Misner, and that Californian hippie dude guy, Kip Thorn.Stupid gravity book!Yeah, it's brilliantly written and a fascinating subject.But now I have a sprained ankle and my girlfriend left me and won't talk to me.I just might sue all these authors for pain and suffering.All my girlfriend does now is send me some religious tracks and tells me that she and her prayer group partners are praying for me.I keep telling them this isn't supernatural and that it is all science, but they hold up and cross their fingers at me in the makeshift form of a crucifix and quote bible verses at me.Stupid bible-quoting prayer group groupies!I'm not sure but I think they are a cult maybe.So no girlfriend now.I just might sue for emotional damages too!Anyway, I give this book five-stars if you too want to learn all about gravity.But be warned!You might start levitating one night, your girlfriend might get all freaked out, and then you fall to the ground and crash, both literally and figuratively, and just end up lonely and angry and everything.But you'll still be a master of GR and hey who needs that no good, easily scared, verse quoting girlfriend anyway?!Oh, I didn't mean that.Really Karen, if you're reading this, please baby, come back.I promise no more "devil flying tricks."OK?Oh yeah, this is definitely a great book--and probably won't really ruin your life.

Reviews (80)

A thought-provoking book
Thorne is very clear and detailed.I would say for non-scientists like myself, if you're only going to read one book on the subject of Cosmology in your life, make it this one.

A Gripping Read from Start to Finish
What can I say that hasn't been said several dozen times already?BHTW is an outstanding piece of popular science writing, packed with history, anecdotes, and rigorous scientific detail.I am surprised by those reviewers who criticize the historical and anecdotal aspects of BHTW.Far from superfluous, such details (for the most part) shed considerable light on the intellectual developments behind the physics and astrophysics of the last century.It is of no small significance, for instance, that certain theoretical breakthroughs were achieved by Soviet scientists under considerable personal duress, and that Soviet science was organized along entirely different lines from that of the U.S. and western Europe.If, on the other hand, some of Thorne's personal reflections are less germane to the science he discusses, or to intellectual history at large, who cares?At every turn, Thorne comes across as an excited student, observer, and participant in the developments in his field.His enthusiasm is infectious, and makes the book a delight to read.At its core BHTW is a terrific piece of science exposition.Thorne pulls no punches in laying out the reasoning behind some of the most abstruse physical and astrophysical notions ever conceived, and he is meticulous in distinguishing between what we know and what we don't, between theory and observation.BHTW opens with a sci-fi story (journey into a black hole).It's a gripping read, and a terrific introduction to the highly informative and exuberant chapters that follow.Here's hoping Thorne follows up someday with an updated edition of BHTW, or with popular books on other subjects (quantum gravity,...).

Do not miss this book!!!

Reviews (18)

Every Man A Galileo
This is an informative and at times whimsical work about outer space, specifically who is doing the observing and what is being observed. The material goes considerably beyond the title, as only one chapter actually treats of near earth objects [NEO's] at depth, and I am still confused over the author's distinction between "amateur" and "professional" astronomers. With those caveats in mind, "Seeing In The Dark" is a fine overview of astronomy for those of us who have been out of school awhile and think of Pluto as the edge of the meaningful universe.

As a boy I was intrigued by astronomy and at age 10 owned an off-the shelf hand telescope that, in my recollection, simply made the bright stars brighter. I once tried to observe the crescent of Venus through my mother's hand mirror and a magnifying glass. I did get to see the rings of Saturn, finally, through the 8" telescope at the Buffalo Museum of Science, and to this day I divide the world into those who have seen that spectacle firsthand and those who haven't. Popular astronomy in the 1950's was lunar and planetary: the supposed canal system of Mars, for example, was still an issue of debate.

I lost my interest in the 1960's when astronomy became less optical and more electronic. Real observations and photos of heavenly bodies are egalitarian. Spectroscopic charts, radio waves, radar exploration and the like required time, sophisticated education, and money. Every decade or so something would catch my fancy: Apollo 11, Viking, Pioneer, Hubble, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, Cassini. But why should an amateur like myself spend money and time at something already being done with more precision at Arecibo in Puerto Rico or Mt. Palomar in California, or from a satellite in space, for that matter?

Timothy Ferris argues in so many words that the modern astronomical-industrial complex, so to speak, is too big and too expensive to perform some of the most critical work of present day astronomy. The author provides a plethora of examples, such as planetary weather. Most planets have atmospheres with characteristics not entirely unlike the earth's own. The atmospheres of the large outer planets [and in at least one case, a planetary satellite] have predictable patterns of wind currents and even storms that produce lightning. Mars, we have come to realize, has significant dust storms and seasonal markers. To monitor these systems, however, requires daily observations over months and years. With the crush of competition for seat time for the monster telescopes and the costs involved, such meticulous and time consuming planetary observations are gradually falling into the hands of the dedicated [and exquisitely patient] amateur backyard astronomers. The older, smaller, and midrange telescopes have come into a new age of usefulness, where persistence is of equal value to optical power. And, as the author observes, the marriage of a modest telescope with digital photography, computer controls, and Internet access to professionals, has created a formidable network of information gatherers.

Nowhere is the amateur's value of more importance than in the discovery and tracking of NEO's, asteroids whose orbits regularly criss-cross the earth's. Observation of these dangerous bodies and forecast of collisions is extremely difficult for several reasons. NEO's are hard to see [in some instances, at the 29th magnitude], only small tracks of their orbits are currently known, and they are notoriously vulnerable to gravitational influences from the earth, the sun, and even Jupiter. Science has developed a public coding system for risk from each known object, and I would venture a guess that readers will find particular stimulation from Ferris's discussion of the "Torino Scale." [As I was reading this work, I checked the day's "Torino forecast" on NASA's web site, the very day that NASA used a "Torino 4" rating for the first time, for Asteroid 2004MN4. As this occurred the same day as the Asian tsunami, little or no press coverage was devoted to the event, though astronomers around the world focused on the potential risk of a 2029 collision. The odds for 2004MN4 were downgraded to Torino 1 a few days later.]

Suffice to say that NEO's are the "high needs child" of space observation, and every verifiable observation by an amateur astronomer enables NASA and international tracking systems to add another fraction of certainty to a body's orbit. Ferris intersperses observational details of heavenly bodies with interviews of the men and women who do the observing. His use of the word "amateur" is stretched like taffy. Some of these unsalaried observers have spent six-figures in outfitting their equipment or, in some cases, pursuing doctorates to expedite their work. Some have walked away from lucrative professions and made wholesale disruptions in personal and family life on behalf of serious stargazing. In some cases "amateur" does not do justice to what is more appropriately an "obsession."

Ferris summarizes what we have come to know about planets, stars and galaxies in the past few generations of advanced study. Again, if one has not addressed astronomy systematically since school days, this work is an excellent primer on our current state of understanding the heavens. There is a thorough 25-page appendix that treats of basic stargazing information, including issues of light pollution, choice of equipment, and basic star charts, as well as a summary of periodicals and web sites. I regretted that there are no photos of any kind in the book, so we never get to see with our own eyes the quality of work produced by the amateurs in our communities. Perhaps the author was deliberately setting out to pique our curiosity, for yesterday I found myself investigating the features and price tag of a small telescope at the Brookstone's in my local mall. It's been a long time since I've done that.

A great book for those cloudy nights!
I received my copy of this book as an early Christmas present from one of my "stargazing friends". Even tho' I had glanced at this volume on bookstore shelves , I usually bypassed it for books on starhopping , star atlases , or other "hard data" type publocations. I now lament my earlier loss , and have truly enjoyed this very well written and extremely informative book.

The author , Timothy Ferris , takes us on a wonderful tour of the solar system and "near space" in the second section of the book ; he then moves on to the Milky Way and the wonders of gaseous nebulae , open star clusters ,globular clusters , and planetary nebulae within our own galaxy in section 3.

Finally , in the fourth section of the book , the author deals with the imensity of the universe (as we presently are capable of understanding it) by moving on to galaxies , and galaxy clusters.

But it isn't all about the wonders of the Heavens , for Ferris intersperses some entertaining anecdotal material as well. Starting with a personal tale of how he became a stargazer-astronomer to passages about Steven James O'Meara and his phenomonal visual observing feats while breathing oxygen at 14,000 feet on Mauna Kea. We are introduced to Barbara Wilson , a mother and former housewife who excells in actually "seeing" the faintest of astronomical objects.

This is a great book for amateur astronomers at almost any level ; the author manages to communicate his passion for the skies and the fine art of observational astronomy in a warm and entertaining manner. It is an ideal book for a frustrating evening when the clouds roll in as the sun sets , thus postponing the observing plans of the day.

I rated this book 5 stars and give it my highest recommendation. No real warts on this one!

A match made in Heaven
The match being that of science and poetry. The author writesabout the achievements of amateur astronomers, giving a wealth of information about astronomy, stargazing, and amateurs, all of which is written in a language so beautifully poetic. It is a masterpiece. The love of the author for his topic is evident on every page and it is contagious. This is a book that will fill you with wonder, and probably sweep you off your feet and onto the nearest dark ground with a starmap in hand!

Editorial Review

Reviews (3)

Once again, great book
Finding good introductions to supersymmetry can be difficult.Most introductions concentrate on N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions, and there the superfield forumlation can be useful.However, when you go to N=2 supersymmetry (e.g. when considering theories in five or more dimensions), component fields can be better.Many times it's a matter of taste.For those cases, you have to go to review articles.Anyway, Weinberg concentrates on N=1 4D supersymmetry and supergravity using the superfield formalism.However, he ventures into the N=2 strong-weak coupling results of Seiberg and Witten, which are now a fundamental part of (supersymmetric) field theory.The text is, as the previous volumes are, a fantastic resource for learning the subject, and as a reference (for things like gravity- and gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, as well as the minimal supersymmetric standard model, which are open areas of reserach).As for all modern areas of research, the body of knowledge is stacked higher every year; but the topics covered here stand as solid fundamentals of supersymmetry.For more advanced topics, one is forced to go to the recent literature.

A self-contained treatment of the subject
If the two first volumes of "The Quantum Theory of Fields" were considered masterpieces in a modern and original presentation of the basics of quantum field theory and its penetration in the recent development of particle physics, with the machinery of spontaneously broken gaugetheories, the new volume embraces the wide subject of supersymmetry inWeinberg's typical style, which always means a self-contained treatment ofthe subject, from its foundations and motivations, to its most recentapplication as a possible scenario for new physics beyond the StandardModel.

A complete review is published in CERN Courier, May2000

Reviews (14)

Mother
Steven Weinberg's book is the mother of all popular, but scientific, tales about the history of the universe.
He was the first to explain comprehensively in a layman's language the 'Big Bang' origin of the whole universe, when this theory was still not taken seriously by everybody (there are still doubters). Religious opposition was still rampant.

His tale is based on Einstein's theory of relativity and two discoveries: one by Hubble (the red shift - Doppler effect in the whole universe) and one by Wilson and Penzias (the radio-noise remains of the Big bang).
He poses the still unanswered question of the critical density of the matter in the universe and concomitantly its ultimate fate: heat crunch, cold death or continued stable expansion.
He exposes also pregnantly the real place of our tiny world and its inhabitants in the whole cosmos with its billions of Milky Ways.

Of course, since its publication new discoveries (black holes ...) and new complementary propositions (string theory ...) have been made, but this book is still highly recommendable for beginners.

A masterpiece in its own, this book's huge success inspired many followers and gave the start for a long list of more or less popular scientific works to the benefit of all.

Unique Subject,
There is an acute shortage of the accounts of the early universe for the layman.This book covers the first few minutes of the universe written by a Nobel prize winning physists, Steven Weinberg.All in all, this text is a very good expose' and really not outdated for the casual reader. It covers string theory, the pros and cons for an open and closed universe, and dark matter question.The meat of the book is based on the fact that as the original universe cooled, seconds after the big bang and sub-atomic particles were allowed to form. "If" the big "If" this primordial ball attained equilibrium then many assumptions can be made from present day evidence directly back to early primordial conditions.The cooling proto-universe had particle formation ratios and radiation emitting frequencies that can be evidenced today. As the universe cooled additional particles were allowed to form and various radiation frequencies were allowed to escape.
The author Steven Weinberg has a very natural style of writing, translating the extremes of physical theory into a step- by-step progression of the beginning universe.A very rewarding book.

Editorial Review

Reviews (9)

Very convincing
I am a skeptic. I have a mind of my own, and I like authors who treat the reader with respect. If I wanted religion, I would go to church. I want to be convinced.

In particular, I am very skeptical of the whole big bang idea. I've been exposed to some of the evidence, but it has always seemed relatively scant to me.

No longer. Seife has convinced me. The big bang, basically, probably, did in fact occur.

His deep respect for skeptical scientists, my heroes, runs through the whole book. Seife acknoledges that much of the old evidence was really not overwhelming. When he refers to very recent experiments which disprove moribund but reasonable ideas (some of which have occurred even to laymen like me) he does not criticize the scientists who had held out hope. Actually, he seems to admire the tenacity of the iconoclast.

The icing on the cake is the list of ongoing and future experiments. This section may soon be outdated, but for now it has the effect of including the reader in the scientific pursuit. I am now very excited to learn the results of some of these experiments, though they may be years away.

If you just want to admire the insights, go with Hawking. If you want to dream, try Brian Greene. If you want to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new cosmological era, read this book.

Why only 4 stars? The book becomes less convincing in the final chapters. But it is the best I've found.

Good introduction for non-science types
A fine and clear review of the development of cosmological theory from Ptolemy to the present, definitely written for the curious non-scientist.
Seife has a good feeling for how strange the universe is, and for how unsettling it can be to contemplate it. He takes your hand and leads you through the stories of discovery with respect, but assuming you know little to nothing about the subject.
I had trouble putting it down.

Trying to elucidate a difficult subject
Science writer Charles Seife, author of the award-wining Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000), begins with two chapters on pre-modern cosmology followed by a chapter on Hubble's discovery of the expansion of the universe using the new 100-inch telescope placed atop Mount Wilson in 1917.Seife sees Hubble's discovery as "The Second Cosmological Revolution."In Chapter Four we learn, thanks in part to the Hubble Space Telescope,that the Hubble constant is not so constant after all and is indeed larger today than it was in the past.Conclusion: the universe is not only expanding, but is accelerating in its expansion.Seife calls this "The Third Cosmological Revolution."The chapter is subtitled, "The Universe Amok."

Maybe the universe is indeed running amok, or maybe it's the astrophysicists and cosmologists themselves who are possessed.Too much data too soon may have untoward consequences, especially when one is feeling about in the dark with limited instruments focused on an immensity perhaps beyond human comprehension.

First there is the problem of the so-called dark matter.With the curvature of the universe at one, meaning that it will expand forever and eventually after many an eon die a cold and lonely death, there will be no big crunch, no bounce, and no time reversal.This is okay.However, when cosmologists go looking for the correct amount of matter and energy to support this flat curvature they come up a little short.About ninety percent short, in fact.In other words nearly all that there is, is not only invisible to our perception, it is completely mysterious except that it does indeed influence gravitationally the rest of the stuff in the universe.As Seife explains, the stars in a galaxy as they rotate around the galactic center are not moving in concert with Newtonian (or Einsteinian) motion; instead the stars furthest from the center are moving at about the same speed as those near the center, an impossibility.

What to do about this?Cosmologists have postulated some "dark matter" surrounding galaxies like a halo.With just the right amount of dark matter (again approximately a whopping nine times that observed) the speed of the stars is nicely accounted for.There is another solution: reject Newtonian/Einsteinian dynamics.That (as radical an idea as one would like to entertain) has been tried and, as Seife notes, it has failed. (See p. 100)Furthermore, as Seife observes in "Darker Still" (Chapter 7), this invisible stuff cannot be all ordinary (baryonic) matter.It has to be of some "exotic" variety that we can't identify.

Okay, let's put the dark matter conundrum on hold and look at the next problem: something from nothing.It appears that, due to the uncertainty principle from quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as nothing.That is, matter is probabilistically jumping in and out of existence down near the Planck level in the "foam" regardless of how complete the vacuum.Indeed, some theorists have imagined whole universes popping randomly out of...what?It would appear that underneath, beneath, inside of--what?--there is, like an unfelt cauldron beneath our feet or inside the very fabric of space/time, something unimaginably immense and/or unimaginably tiny.

This "zero point energy" is now being postulated as the source of Einstein's cosmological constant (lambda) that is expanding the universe.Lambda was once thought to be an error; now "omega sub lambda" is thought to equal 65% of the matter/energy in the universe.Hello!

Seife's book suffers from that familiar plague on the house of popular science writers: trying to explain mathematical ideas without using mathematics, and trying to explain particle physics and quantum mechanics to people who haven't been trained in those sciences.One must rely on analogy and metaphor.Naturally using such devices things can make things even fuzzier than they already are.Also there is some inexactness in Seife's expression employed for what he calls "the sake of clarity."

Sometimes Seife's metaphors reduce to something close to meaningless, as in his ice cream-flavor-slurping hydrogen atoms from page 179.Such metaphors can send chills down the spine of some scientists, and they can mislead.A slightly different example is his statement that "the Heisenberg uncertainty principle forces nature to create and destroy...particles that appear out of nowhere...in the deepest vacuum." (p. 185)Not to disparage the uncertainty principle, but it is "nature" that is doing the forcing and not the other way around.Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a way of explaining to ourselves what is observed (or not observed, as the case may be).

At other times Seife leaps from the uncertainty of a strained metaphor to runaway dramatics, as on page 183 where we find this: "once scientists figure out what really is, they will have unraveled the deepest mystery in physics today...[they will] understand...[what] drove the big bang itself...They will see beyond even the era of the quark-gluon plasma...to a time when the quantum vacuum held the fate of the universe in its grasp."

As for Seife's several attempts at witticism, I will give him a Cheshire cat's smile and applause to extend for the entire half-life of a virtual particle in the foam of space.

Reviews (2)

Physics by two of the very best!
As usual, the best physics books are short and to the point, as is this one. The two Dirac lectures may serve as a perfectly good mini physics course all by themselves.I always enjoy a Feynman lecture, and this isno exception. He cuts to the chase without sacrificing the plot. But, Imust say, in this case the Wienberg lecture is the better of the two.Weinberg's style has a particular grace & beauty about it that gentlyexposes the aesthetic meaning of the search for a picture of nature.

Reviews (2)

Best so far in the subject, good but not great.
Of the three main books on laser cooling and BEC that are on the market right now (Laser Cooling by Metcalf and Atom Optics by Meystre) this one is by far the best. There are a lot of details here, but unfortunately a lot more are still left out. Chapter 8, and sections 11.3, and 14.3 in particular should be rewritten. Too many equations are written down from nowhere without any derivation. Some sections, like 13.2, are clearer in the original papers. So while this book is a vast improvement over the current state of affairs, there is quite a ways to go for a truly good textbook in this subject. Still, while the quality of the exposition varies wildly from chapter to chapter, many of the chapters ARE well written, and so you can still learn a great deal from this book. Until a better book comes along, this is the book to buy in this subject.

Reviews (9)

I like this book
Yes, I think you can teach the theory of computation from this book.And you can learn it from this book.Some of the material isn't all that recent, but much of it doesn't need to be.

35 years ago, if one were teaching a course on the theory of computation, I'd have recommended Minsky's book (it came out in 1967).That was a great text.Nowadays, there are numerous choices.But one could still use books that originally came out well before Feynman's notes, such as Lewis & Papadimitriou or Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ullman.

The question boils down to the quality of what is in the book, as well as what material it has that other books do not, and what material it is missing that most other texts have.

This book is quite readable and preserves much of Feynman's teaching style.So let's look at what it is missing.First, it doesn't talk much about real neurons.Of course, even Minsky doesn't dwell much on that, and other computation books avoid that topic too.But now, there's a more serious omission.Feynman spends something like two pages on grammars! If you were using Lewis and Papadimitriou (first edition) there would be a chapter of over 70 pages on context-free languages alone.As a teacher or a student, would you really want to miss all that?

No, as a student, you would have to read up on all that material elsewhere.And as a teacher, you would have to use another book or write your own notes.That material is too much a part of most required curricula.

But that doesn't take away from the value of the book when it comes to the rest of the material.And the final four chapters, which discuss coding and information theory, reversible computation and the thermodynamics of computing, quantum mechanical computers, and some physical aspects of computation, are all useful material that you often won't see in other computation texts.

As a student, I'd read the book.As a teacher, I'd recommend it to my students.But as either, I wouldn't expect to use it as the only textbook.

Dissapointing is correct
We physicists want a readable book on computability, degrees of computational complexity, and the like. Feynman would have been the writer to provide us with that. We're fortunate to have anything at all of what Feynman thought about the subject, but this book (taken from Feynman's rough lecture notes) does not do the job. E.g., in the first chapter we're presented with a description of RPF's joy in discovery and corresponding philosophy of how to understand anything: don't read about it, just work it out by yourself in umpteen different ways (nothing new about Feynman there!), but the examples provided of how Feynman actullally worked it out can be compared with some of Arnol'd's presentations of how he worked out mechanics problems in his text on Classical Mechanics (state the problem, then state the final result). So we still need a SYSTEMATIC 'written-for physicists' text on computability. Neverthless, we can be grateful to Hey and Allen for putting together these stimulating Feynman fragments for us, especially since they stem from his last days of life as a physicist.

By the way, Feynman certainly would not have agreed with S. Weinberg's extreme reductionist philisophy that asserts that once we've understood quantum theory and quarks then we've understood physics/nature, that 'the rest is mere detail'. On the other hand, he surely would have horselaughed the holists who proclaim that reductionism is dead, that physics will become more like 'poetry'. The lie in the latter nonsense is exposed by the entire field of genetics and cell biology, which is where the 'real' complexity in nature is to be found. Every physics student should be required to take a good class in molecular biolgy these days, a subject that's a lot more important and a lot more interesting than string theory (which, as Feynman more or less said, has degenerated into mere philosophy in the absence of experiments to test the ideas) .

Editorial Review

Physics and computer science genius Stephen Wolfram, whose Mathematica computer language launched a multimillion-dollar company, now sets his sights on a more daunting goal: understanding the universe. Wolfram lets the world see his work in A New Kind of Science, a gorgeous, 1,280-page tome more than a decade in the making. With patience, insight, and self-confidence to spare, Wolfram outlines a fundamental new way of modeling complex systems.

On the frontier of complexity science since he was a boy, Wolfram is achampion of cellular automata--256 "programs" governed by simplenonmathematical rules. He points out that even the most complexequations fail to accurately model biological systems, but the simplestcellular automata can produce results straight out of nature--treebranches, stream eddies, and leopard spots, for instance. The graphicsin A New Kind of Science show striking resemblance to thepatterns we see in nature every day.

Reviews (14)

The Mathematics of Relativity
I read several of the "popular" books on relativity before deciding to take the plunge and learn the mathematics behind this amazing theory.This book shows how based on Einstein's postulate on the universality of the speed of light, the mathematics forces us in certain directions and builds to create General Relativity.The key mathematical building block in this book is Tensor analysys. I had no idea of going into the book what that even was, but Schutz will guide your through it assuming you have a solid knowledge of vectors and calculus. Even with that knowledge, this book requires a decent amount of effort so be prepared to read and re-read chapters.I recommend this to anyone that knows the conceptual basics of relativity, but wants to spend the effort to learn the math.

Good, good, good for passing exams!
This is an introductory book for GR. I read this book two years ago for preparing an exam about GR, while I did never learn anything related to GR before but I passed the exam very well after reading this book. This book doesn't describe GR with the most modern math languages, but who cares if you just wanna learn the ideas of GR, actually this makes the understanding easier. No more preliminary knowledge than college physics is needed for reading this book, even the simple differental geometry has been self-contained very well in this small book. I consider this book a model for all good physics books.

Reviews (14)

A Great Summary of Natural Philosophy
Hawking's summary of some of the greatest works in Physics and Astronomy speaks to more than an audience of physicists and astronomers.Students of History, Mathematics, and other science buffs will benefit from and enjoy this writing.The Principia, for example, is tough reading; and it's especially so for younger audiences.This book highlights important historical facts and principles in enough depth to be beneficial but not too detailed ot be mundane.

Impressive but not what was promoted
This book contains writings of five of the greatest scientists who have ever lived.They changed the way we thought about nature and in so doing changed the way we thought about ourselves. Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the notion of a heliocentric universe. Galileo Galilei reiterated that with the added evidence of moons of other worlds. He introduced the discipline of physics into the discussion. Johannes Kepler used this new science to measure the orbits of the planets and discover HOW they spun in their orbits (he gave us the three planetary laws).

Newton used that information to explain the underlying reasons for motion, gravity, acceleration.He also built on Kepler's work in optics. Albert Einstien used the Newtonian universe as the starting point for introducing us to the relativistic nature of existence.

This is NOT a book for beginners - it contains some heavy mathematics, theorem, and the writing is at times, turgid. What I found lacking was the "commentary" by Stephen Hawking.I, like others, had presumed that it was going to be give and take...he would introduce the scientist, let us see some of their work, then offer commentary. Instead what we got were LONG tomes that, while being the essense of the genius, are hardly digestable as public reading.It is an impressive work but is not easily accessible by the layman.

Editorial Review

Reviews (16)

Superlative - The Finest of Physics Expositions in GR
Weinberg's writing is absolutely unbelievable.It is so direct, precise and inspiring as well as thorough.His approach is as a minimalist in basing GR on nothing but the absolute necessities while being comprehensive in the topics covered.Virtually every word in the book is necessary and sufficient for it to be explanatory and complete.

Most of us enjoy well written expositions and Weinberg's book has no peer in the field of GR.There are criticisms in some of the reviews that the presentation is based on old mathematics and is therefore outdated, which unfortunately are ill-focused on peripherals not essentials.His presentation of the underpinnings of Mach's principle and the connundrums that demanded GR were butterfly-type inspiration (although i don't agree his interpretation of one experiment that tested Mach's principle).MTW on the otherhand was well described in one review ner a single declaritive statement.They make the complex more complex.Weinberg does well at making the complex as simple as can be reasonably made.This is the mark of a great expositor.

Old book that is hostile to the spirt of G.R.
There was a time when this book was probably very authoritative and useful (though I can't see myself preferring it over Hawking and Ellis, even then).Put it out of your mind: that time is gone.There are a slew of much better, much more modern books out there.Furthermore, this book is written from a perspective that attempts to filter a huge chunk of the geometry out of G.R., sullying a lot of the beauty of Einstein's central idea.If you are interested in cosmology, you can do a lot better looking at Hawking and Ellis, or one of the more recent books that will, due to their newness, emphasize the numerous advances in cosmology since the 70s.If you are interested in Relativity, PLEASE look at Schutze (beginner) or at Wald (graduate).Don't waste time and energy on this book.

That being said, there are some interesting advanced topics here, and a few things that I haven't seen elsewhere.This can be a useful reference for a researching relativist.

Reviews (6)

Is time-travel possible?
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This slim volume consists of six essays, based on talks presented at the Kipfest [note 1] on the occasion of Kip Thorne's sixtieth birthday. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Physics at Caltech is best known to the general public for his 1988 wormhole "time machine" proposal, and indeed much of the book is taken up exploring the question, "is time travel possible?"

Physicist Richard Price leads off with a concise refresher-essay, "Welcome to Spacetime." Danish physicist Igor Novikov explores classic time-travel paradoxes, with some cool diagrams and novel results: in essence, "closed timelike curves" [note 2] are theoretically possible, but paradoxes aren't allowed -- with a time-machine, you could visit your grandfather, but you couldn't kill him. The universe wouldn't permit it -- which in essence is Hawking's Chronology Protection conjecture. Hawking speculates that the unfortunate time-traveler would be incinerated by (literally) a bolt from the blue. Well, what he actually says is, "one would expect theenergy-momentum tensor to be infinite on the Cauchy horizon" [note 3], which (sigh) is a pretty typical Hawking attempt at "popular" science.

Fortunately, Thorne himself is a master popularizer, and he ends up explaining Hawking's ideas as well as his own. His essay amounts to an update chapter for his wonderful 1994 book, Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, which I enthusiastically recommend: . Thorne reluctantly concludes that things really don't look very good for wormholes, especially for time travel -- though he does leave a tiny ray of hope for some super-advanced future civilization to make wormholes for space travel [note 4]. Thorne notes that our grasp of basic physics is so crude that we can really only understand maybe 5% of the stuff that fills our universe -- the "normal" baryonic matter that makes up people, planets and stars. Thorne guesses that 35% of the universes's mass is in some unknown form of "cold dark matter", and the remaining 60% is some even more mysterious form of "dark energy" -- so there's certainly plenty of room left for discovery!

The book concludes with a nice explanation of why good popular-science books are needed, by noted pop-science writer Timothy Ferris, and with Alan Lightman's essay on "The Physicist as Novelist".Lightman, a former student of Thorne's, went on to write Einstein's Dreams and other well-regarded novels.

The Future of Spacetime is written for a general audience -- aside from Hawking's essay, everything should be understandable to any science-literate reader. I particularly recommend it to readers who've liked Thorne's earlier pop-science works.
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Note 1). a clever play on festschrift, the traditional name for such a tribute volume.

Note 2). As Hawking cheerfully points out, "closed timelike curve" is just physics-speak for time travel, because you can't admit you're studying that sci-fi stuff in a grant proposal...

Note 3). Arthur C. Clarke notes that "the most convincing argument against time travel is the remarkable scarcity of time travellers..."

Note 4). As you may know, a faster-than-light spaceship could also be used as a time-machine, another reason why most physicists think FTL travel is very unlikely. I'd love to see a theoretical treatment of FTL travel that wouldn't violate Hawking's "Chronology Protection Clause"... Note also that there's no theoretical barrier to wormhole spaceships travelling a bit *slower* than light.

Review first published at SF Site:
http://www.sfsite.com/11a/fs139.htm

Sorry, grandma, I won't be seeing you again anytime soon.
Time travel appears pretty impractical based on this book.Maybe it's mathematically possible to fold time and punch wormholes in it in theory, but I don't think NASA or Greyhound is going to be offering trips back and forth through our lives.However, it's always intriguing to read what really smart people come up with, because they make a lot of it seem so obvious, even though I could never come up with it on my own.

Garbage
It is incredible how they trust blindly in EVERY aspect of General Relativity. Space-time warpages and singularities happens ONLY in mathematics! There is no way out. It is funny how Scientific American gives credibility to such a kind of science-fiction. It is time to stop lying to the public!

Editorial Review