Cutting-edge physics for the educated layperson.
The author of Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat returns with another examination of difficult scientific concepts.
Halpern, a Guggenheim fellow and professor of physics at Saint Joseph’s University, begins by introducing the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in late 2021, whose instruments reach “faint, distant galaxies from the nascent era of the universe” and send back “vivid photo evidence.” By definition, our universe includes everything, so an “alternative” universe makes no sense; no one will ever see one. Yet multiverse models offer enticing mathematical and theoretical ideas. Such concepts were no secret to 19th-century mathematicians, but they entered the mainstream in the 20th when the physics community reluctantly accepted a fourth dimension to make sense of Einstein’s relativity. Then, scientists confronted quantum theory, which works so brilliantly, at least theoretically, that the traditional view (propounded by quantum pioneer Niels Bohr) requires physicists to accept that quantum phenomena occur in a “black box.” Although this remains the standard interpretation, plenty of geniuses yearn to look inside the box. A dedicated teacher, Halpern explores half a dozen relevant topics including string theory, supergravity, and M-theory. Readers anxious to plunge ahead may want to reserve their decision until they sample the author’s explanation of a simple high school physics term: the vector. Halpern’s analysis is not for the innumerate, but dedicated readers will be rewarded by illuminating discussions of a host of complex concepts, a penultimate chapter on the physics of time travel, and a conclusion that describes alternate universes portrayed in movies and TV. Halpern’s 2021 book, Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate, is a delightful and accessible popular science book. This follow-up is an ingenious slog that may enlighten those with college courses in relativity and quantum theory under their belts.
Cutting-edge physics for the educated layperson.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781541602175
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward, carefully detailed presentation of how ``fruit comes from flowers,'' from winter's snow-covered buds through pollination and growth to ripening and harvest. Like the text, the illustrations are admirably clear and attractive, including the larger-than-life depiction of the parts of the flower at different stages. An excellent contribution to the solidly useful ``Let's-Read-and-Find-Out-Science'' series. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-020055-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
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