The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics

by Marc Lachièze-Rey, E. Lachieze Klein, Marc Lachieze-Rey, et al.

Book Overview

What could quantum mechanics have in common with the philosophical musings of the ancient Greeks? In our age of multimillion-dollar supercolliders, it's hard to imagine that modern physics owes anything to thinkers who predate Descartes. But French physicists Etienne Klein and March Lachieze-Rey see an unbroken thread running from antiquity to the present--an ongoing search, throughout the history of science, for unity.
In The Search for Unity...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019512085X
• ISBN13: 9780195120851
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

a tour de force of physics with metaphysical twist

here is a whirlwind tour through physics down through the ages from antiquity all the way up to modern times. this is not a detailed work by any means, it really more or less hits the main thrust points of development in physics as breakthroughs and watershed moments were. this work also at times seems to spill over into metaphysic concerns as physics itself may almost seem to point beyond itself ?? at any rate, this is a packed read at under 200 pages, one will need to know some basic physics as well as some philosophy in order to pick up on what is being discussed and why. the authors seem to have an almost transcendent veiw of the subject, a stimulating read !

A Never-Ending Journey

In the Introduction, the authors quote Steven W. Hawkins: "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations...However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists....[We can then] take part in the discussion of of the questions of why it is that we and universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason reason -- for then we would know the mind of God." This book was written for the reasonably intelligent non-scientist who shares the authors' curiosity about matters such as these:* Over the centuries, why have so many great minds attempted to formulate a "unification theory" which accommodates the totality of what is known about the universe?* As a results of such efforts, what have been the major breakthroughs in understanding the universe? For example, what are the specific contributions of the ancient Greeks, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Einstein?The authors observe: "Our purpose here is to focus on the state of physics, for that is where the search for unity is currently being pursued the most actively and has been rewarded with the greatest achievements in the realms of both the infinitely large and the infinitesimally small." In all probability, this book will not be of great interest to everyone. I recommend it highly to the aforementioned "reasonably intelligent non-scientist" who is curious to learn more about the evolution of intellectual history, and especially the evolution of the history of science during which physics has played such an important part.