bookshelf

THE GOD EQUATION

Name: THE GOD EQUATION
Author: Michio Kaku
ISBN: 978-0-385-54274-6

THE QUEST FOR A THEORY OF EVERYTHING

by Michio Kaku ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 6, 2021

An important work about an ongoing quest that may befuddle those without a solid grounding in its scientific concepts.

bookshelf

An expert account of the search for “the holy grail of physics." A veteran science writer, theoretical physicist, and lucid educator, Kaku wisely begins with ancient history, providing an illuminating minihistory of physics. Aristotle got science off on the wrong foot by proclaiming that everything in the universe has a purpose. Thus, objects fall because they yearn to unite with the Earth. Newton restored some order, mostly by taking metaphysics out of physics, and he contributed vital theories of gravity, motion, space, and light. Electromagnetism was a puzzle until the 19th century, when Faraday and Maxwell explained it. The 20th century began with Einstein’s theory of relativity, an unnerving but mathematically precise description of space, time, and gravity as it applies to the universe we experience. During the following decades, scientists fleshed out quantum theory, which illuminated the three other forms of energy besides gravity (electromagnetism, strong and weak force), and added a more unnerving but equally precise description of matter and forces at the subatomic level. The 1970s saw the first attempt at a theory of everything with the “standard model,” a dazzling achievement but still a flawed “patchwork.” Kaku shows why efforts to fix the standard model have failed so far and why the leading candidate is string theory. Saving the bad news till last, the author reaches strings in the final quarter of the book, and he communicates his enthusiasm more effectively than the mechanics of the theory, which propose that subatomic particles are not points but tiny loops whose vibrations produce all physical phenomena. Converting particles to strings was a good idea (physicists hate infinities), and string vibrations produce all forces, including gravity. Sadly, strings are infinitesimally (but not infinitely) small, and their vibrations, describable by complex math, don’t produce phenomena that scientists can test. Although a brilliant idea, no concrete evidence exists for the theory. An important work about an ongoing quest that may befuddle those without a solid grounding in its scientific concepts.

Pub Date: April 6, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-385-54274-6

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
QUANTUM SUPREMACY
by Michio Kaku

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
by Michio Kaku

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FUTURE OF THE MIND
by Michio Kaku

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

GET IT

GOD, THE SCIENCE, THE EVIDENCE

THE DAWN OF A REVOLUTION

by Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies ; translated by Rebecca M. West and Christine Elizabeth Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 2025

A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

GET IT

A duo of French mathematicians makes the scientific case for God in this nonfiction book.

Since its 2021 French-language publication in Paris, this work by Bolloré and Bonnassies has sold more than 400,000 copies. Now translated into English for the first time by West and Jones, the book offers a new introduction featuring endorsements from a range of scientists and religious leaders, including Nobel Prize-winning astronomers and Roman Catholic cardinals. This appeal to authority, both religious and scientific, distinguishes this volume from a genre of Christian apologetics that tends to reject, rather than embrace, scientific consensus. Central to the book’s argument is that contemporary scientific advancements have undone past emphases on materialist interpretations of the universe (and their parallel doubts of spirituality). According to the authors’ reasoned arguments, what now forms people’s present understanding of the universe—including quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Big Bang—puts “the question of the existence of a creator God back on the table,” given the underlying implications. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance, presupposes that if a cause exists behind the origin of the universe, then it must be atemporal, non-spatial, and immaterial. While the book’s contentions related to Christianity specifically, such as its belief in the “indisputable truths contained in the Bible,” may not be as convincing as its broader argument on how the idea of a creator God fits into contemporary scientific understanding, the volume nevertheless offers a refreshingly nuanced approach to the topic. From the work’s outset, the authors (academically trained in math and engineering) reject fundamentalist interpretations of creationism (such as claims that Earth is only 6,000 years old) as “fanciful beliefs” while challenging the philosophical underpinnings of a purely materialist understanding of the universe that may not fit into recent scientific paradigm shifts. Featuring over 500 pages and more than 600 research notes, this book strikes a balance between its academic foundations and an accessible writing style, complemented by dozens of photographs from various sources, diagrams, and charts.

A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.

Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025

ISBN: 9789998782402

Page Count: 562

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

bookshelf

THE RIGHT STUFF

by Tom Wolfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 1979

bookshelf

Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.

But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.

But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.