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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.

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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

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THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
by Michio Kaku

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FUTURE OF THE MIND
by Michio Kaku

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Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2023

New York Times Bestseller

ELON MUSK

by Walter Isaacson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2023

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

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Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2023

New York Times Bestseller

A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.

To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023

ISBN: 9781982181284

Page Count: 688

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CODE BREAKER—YOUNG READERS EDITION
by Walter Isaacson with adapted by Sarah Durand

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by Walter Isaacson

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by Walter Isaacson

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Darren Aronofsky To Direct ‘Elon Musk’ Biopic

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THE RIGHT STUFF

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

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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.