2024 the best picture in the universe review

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(as of Dec 09, 2024 03:30:08 UTC - Details)

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable.”—Wall Street Journal
“A porthole into another world.”—Scientific American
“Brings science dissemination to a new level.”—Science

The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality.
 
Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. 
 
No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.

From the Publisher

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dutton (September 20, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593186583
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593186589
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.76 x 1.05 x 8.53 inches
Reviewer: Drs Sturm & Black
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Contemporary Tome One Needs in One's Physics Library
Review: A Contemporary Tome One Needs in One's Physics LibraryProfessor Sean does a fine job of encapsulating contemporary physics for both the scholar and the layman.- Dr Don V

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wish this was available when I was in school
Review: In brief, it is a challenging but ultimately very rewarding read.This is an exceptionally lucid tour of what we know and don't know about physics. I was turned off of formal study by teachers who did not understand the subject well enough to know what we don't know and were of the shut up and calculate mindset. So I have a very limited background, yet have always wanted to understand the universe better.The author anticipates many impediments to understanding and explains why some classical frameworks seem to work ok but limit our comprehension and so limit further discoveries. There is some math, but it is not gratuitous and explained well enough for the curious reader to more deeply comprehend concepts and critically important relationships.

Reviewer: A. Menon
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Readable overview of some major ideas in classical mechanics and beyond
Review: Space Time and Motion is Sean Carroll's first book in his new series on the biggest ideas in physics. This one discusses mainly ideas the are the foundation of classical mechanics from Newton to Einstein. The book is minimal in equations and intended for the general audience and I believe it follows his podcasts which I have not listened to. Nonetheless the author does communicate the ideas quite effectively and clears up some concepts that are often glossed over in physics textbooks in the pursuit of trying to give an understanding of the foundations of physics rather than just present calculation tools. Overall the book is pretty good but I prefer Leonard Susskind's approach to this which uses more equations but gives the reader a deeper picture into the same material.The book covers 9 major topics some of which follow naturally from one another while others could deserve their own book. The author starts with discussing the ingredients of physics and begins with conservation. he highlights how physicists use terms and what their meaning is and the remarkable properties that enable us to make predictions . Starting with conservation the author describes conservation of momentum and energy. He also lays the foundation of abstraction by describing how physicists drop most assumptions and focus on bare essentials to find patterns using a spherical cow joke to make the point. From there the author moves on to dynamics and in particular change. Forces are introduced with gravitation and the author starts to weave in some basic math like how physicists describe dynamical change with functions of time and differential and integral calculus to capture continuous changes. Simple mathematical concepts like taylor series are introduced and the author also tackles ideas like Hamiltonian mechanics and phase space. The treatment of momentum as independent of position is well done and the author does a good job giving the abstraction intended for Hamiltonian mechanics rather than just the benefits it delivers in calculation. The author then moves on to space and eventually spacetime. Given the author's first published book was a general relativity textbook, this is an area of deep expertise for him. The chapters on geometry, differential and Riemannian are well written and interpretable, albeit condensed for anyone to really get that much out of. The move into general relativity proper with the metric tensor along with write ups on covariant derivatives are also well done. The author gives the fundamental ideas that provided Einstein with the tools to construct a theory of gravity and that is a definite accomplishment. He then ventures into Schwarzschild's solution, then Kerr and tackles black holes as the final chapter.Overall the book is readable but not that deep. It does give a reasonable picture of the big ideas in physics but given the length of the book and the breadth of topics it is inevitably superficial. As mentioned I believe Susskind's books to be more realistic in their attempt to give the bare minimum to understand the bare minimum of these topics and it requires three books of slightly longer length to cover this one book. Nonetheless it is better than many popular physics books and is not without any merit. I find the author's subsequent work much more disappointing and unable to deliver on its goals, but this slightly hits the target.

Reviewer: CAskew
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Pretty advanced but well written
Review: It’s over my head but I’m picking up the terms and I did have some moments of insight.

Reviewer: P. Peterson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Well-written, accessible, but deep, discussion of fundamental physical concepts
Review: Carroll takes a historical approach to how the ideas of space, time, and motion developed. It was eye-opening to realize how those concepts became more and more developed over time. In particular, he shows how the mathematical descriptions that are so powerful were only developed gradually, insight by insight. The book gave me a much deeper understanding of what the equations I learned in Physics courses really mean

Reviewer: Fascinated explorer
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The book starts with concepts: math, and drawings or graphs that help your understanding.
Review: Carrol is a well known physicist and generally an excellent communicator. The book starts with fairly straightforward concepts, math, and drawings or graphs that help your understanding. I was pleased at first that his explanations were similar to ones I developed for myself over the years. If you are comfortable with algebra, trig, matrix math and tensors this should be an excellent book. If not you will at least get an idea of how a top physicist thinks and solves problems. He does have a site with a number of short videos over various topics in the book where he explains concepts in different modes. This site is called the biggest ideas in the universe.Here are a few of the areas he covers. He suggests for general problem solving: first ignore as many complications as you can. Then get the answer to the simplified problem, next put the complications back in one at a time. Calculate the answer and compare the answer to the simplest form of the problem.Newton was lucky that he lived at a time when people of his ability could find time to use their unique minds. He also had available some excellent experimental data on the positions of the planets over periods of time. This allowed him to come up with his famous three laws of motion, and mathematical tools such as calculus using derivatives and integrals. Basically taking the derivative of a function is the same as taking the slope of that function. Getting the area under a function corresponds to integrating it. Derivatives can be thought of as a way of making sense of zero divided by zero, an integral can be thought of as a way of making sense of infinity times zero. Infinity is the number of skinny rectangles under the curve and zero is the area of each rectangle. The effect is taking a huge number of extremely small rectangles and adding the areas together.Einstein showed that the geometry of space is affected by energy and can change over time. Imagine a uniform mass that extends a gravitational field equally in all directions. Imagine this mass being encompassed by increasingly larger spheres, then the total surface area on successive spheres increases as the distance from the mass increases and is given by pi radius squared where you are measuring at the radius, r, of the imaginary sphere. Since the same amount of gravity is being spread over a larger surface area the amount of gravity decreases per unit area of the imaginary sphere.Electrical fields, magnet fields, and electromagnetic energy have the same relationship between intensity and the distance between the observer and the source as gravity. The strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force do not follow the same law for different reasons.These laws are based on Newtonian physics. We also have interpretations fr om Lagrangian mechanics which uses the principal of least action assuming the one with the least action is accurate. The third way is the Hamiltonian mechanics where we elevate momentum to a constant with an existence of its own which is independent of velocity. The Hamiltonian method is particularly useful in quantum mechanics.Einstein is frequently interpreted as not allowing instantaneous action at a distance. Quantum mechanics however allows a new kind of action at a distance which is shown experimentally from measurements of entangled quantum particles. No one has found a way to use this phenomena to have useful information travel faster than the speed of light.We have various ways of measuring time. For instance a pendulum clock acts like a simple harmonic oscillator. The time to do a full oscillation is independent of the displacement of a pendulum when you first start it. Our measurements and sense of time appears to only travel towards the future. Naturally occurring processes always cause an increase in entropy. A low entropy State has a small number of possibilities. A high entropy State corresponds to a large number of possibilities. Since there are more possibilities in a high entropy state , one of these is more likely to be picked. Therefore the natural tendency is having increased entropy for spontaneous events.General relativity shows that gravity is caused by the fact that the universe is dynamic and curved. Special relativity is based on the speed of light being constant when it is measured in a vacuum irregardless of the relative motion of the source and the observer. In three dimensional Space is a straight path describing the shortest distance between two points. In space-time a straight path gives the longest elapsed time between two events. This is the main difference. It turns out distances and times are both measures of displacement in space-time. . The Lorentz transformation is the relationship between two different coordinate frames that move at a constant velocity relative to each other. It is √(1−v2/c2). From the arithmetic this factor is only important when the velocity(v) involved is close to the speed of light (c) otherwise, it is like multiplying by one. It also gives Einstein's most famous equation E = mc2.In many circumstances gravity and acceleration of a mass have the same affect on the mass. If you want to accurately predict the change in distance traveled you have to take into account time and motion in three directions. So it is a four dimensional universe. This is sometimes summarized as ‘space-time tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to curve.‘ Einstein's final equation accurately predicts results in many areas that we did not even know existed during Einsteins’ time. Physicists today are still finding applications of Einstein's theory to current research.

Reviewer: bucefalot
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excelente libro.

Reviewer: Francisco Inacio Bastos
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Sean Carroll (não confundir com seu homõnimo, o excelente biólogo) lançou-se a uma empreitada ousada: explicar os fundamentos da física sem subtrair suas bases matemáticas ao leitor não especializado. Nas suas próprias palavras: trata-se de fazer com que o(a) leitor(a) não especializado(a) COMPREENDA os fundamentos conceituais e matemáticos da física, SEM que isso faça dele ou dela um(a) físico(a). A despeito da clareza com que o autor explica cada conceito e formulação matemática, trata-se de um livro de leitura árdua, especialmente na sua parte final.Na parte inicial, em que são apresentadas sucessivas interpretações e matematizações da mecânica clássica, um conhecimento básico de Cálculo (que felizmente possuo) habilita a leitura do livro sem maiores tropeços.A parte final, que apresenta a geometria de Riemann e suas implicações para a Teoria da Relatividade Geral não são nada simples, ainda que os leitores estejam em ótima companhia. O próprio Einstein estudou o tema em detalhe ao longo de anos, até dominar e, finalmente, encontrar as equações que melhor expressassem seus conceitos (o que ocorreu quase em paralelo com o tratamento das operações com a geometria de Riemann e com os Tensores, por parte de Hilbert, um dos maiores matemáticos da época). Esta não é uma seção nada simples para os não físicos, e de pouco valem conhecimentos básicos de Cálculo e de geometria clássica. Ambos fornecem subsídios, mas não elucidam um paradigma conceitual e matemático substancialmente diverso. Ainda assim, há de se reconhecer que o autor se esforça em ser sempre claro e lança mão de recursos gráficos, modelos simplificados etc...Não conheço outro livro escrito para não especialistas tão detalhado e preciso. O verdadeiro "tour de force" que exige a sua leitura, se mostra frutífero.

Reviewer: phrygian
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Nothing less than what you would expect from Sean. Ilucidating.

Reviewer: Marius
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Viele Themen werden hier völlig anders erklärt als in Lehrbüchern und öffnet einem so die Augen. Dass eine "Gerade" in der vierdimensionalen Raumzeit beispielsweise der Weg mit der größten Eigenzeit ist, macht Phänomene die sonst mit Zeitdilatation und Längenkontraktion beschrieben werden, viel einleuchtender.

Reviewer: TRJS
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Le livre est un livre extraordinaire qui vous enseignera toute la physique intéressante dont nous aimons entendre parler dans les vidéos et les podcasts, et qui vous plongera en profondeur sans être trop compliqué, il agit en quelque sorte comme le meilleur professeur que vous ayez jamais eu, en vous enseignant la physique de l'univers sans que vous le sachiez.