Tag: physics
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The Trouble with Physics, Smolin (2006)
If Lee Smolin is right, the first half ofThe Trouble with Physics is destined to be forgotten. A decade or two hence, string theory may feel like a fever dream—a kaleidoscopic rush of ideas, some brilliant, some absurd, but the whole ultimately incoherent. If that’s the case, then the details of string theory will become…
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The Second Creation, Crease and Mann
Crease and Mann write in the afterword of The Second Creation that they sought to tell the history of the Standard Model through the words of those most closely involved. This they do, admirably. Many of the scientists appear as deeply human, their flaws on clear display, and to flattering effect: humanness makes their subtle…
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From Eternity to Here, Carroll (2010)
From Eternity to Here is the best available single-book popular treatment of time and entropy as understood by present-day physics. These are not easy topics. The history of the philosophy of time is byzantine, burdened with both wishful thinking and self-absorbed pessimism; and if there’s one modern topic that’s been thoroughly obfuscated by misuse (by…