Hitching a Ride on a Light Beam
Physics is the most fundamental of the sciences, undergirding astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and—absent some paradigm-shattering revelation—human thought and action. Its analytical methods and machines have plumbed the unknown and the inaccessible, from the submicroscopic confines of the atomic nucleus to the billowing expanse of the observable universe. Physics has superseded our biochemically mediated perceptions of the world, replacing qualitative impressions with highly precise quantitative models: We can’t dive into the sun to see what’s going on, yet we can accomplish as much with a physics-derived computer simulation.
Physics has burgeoned since the early 1600s, when Galileo asserted that to …show more content…
Tompkins in Wonderland.” Mr. Galfard’s jaunty, you-are-there narrative invites us to hitch a ride on a light beam, zoom through an atom and plant our disembodied consciousness within the hellfire of the Big Bang. A onetime Ph.D. student of Stephen Hawking’s, he is a loquacious tour guide with an arch sense of humor, as in his proposition that the extinction of the dinosaurs stemmed from their ignorance of theoretical …show more content…
As portioned out by Mr. Galfard, the information goes down easily; even a meaty morsel like this doesn’t offend: “Remember the catastrophic consequence on spacetime of an infinite number of particles appearing everywhere, all the time, in the vacuum of quantum field theory?”
The book is rich in apt analogies, as in Mr. Galfard’s description of electromagnetism as the exchange of virtual photons: “Pearls of light flash around you, exchanged between the magnet and the fridge, like a host of tiny angels dragging the two objects towards one another.” By the end, readers will have learned a great deal, although they might stumble explaining quantum field theory over cocktails. A second reading is recommended.
Mr. Rovelli and Mr. Galfard concur on the fundamental paradox that vexes our current grasp of the physical world: the disconnect between the general theory of relativity, in which space and time are continuous, and quantum theory, in which space is granular and the unidirectional arrow of time dissolves into a mishmash of contiguous instants. How gravity manifests itself in this latter quantum realm remains a mystery. Thus both authors convey us to the furthest outpost of our scientific knowledge, from which physicists are blazing trails into the benighted
Physics is the most fundamental of the sciences, undergirding astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and—absent some paradigm-shattering revelation—human thought and action. Its analytical methods and machines have plumbed the unknown and the inaccessible, from the submicroscopic confines of the atomic nucleus to the billowing expanse of the observable universe. Physics has superseded our biochemically mediated perceptions of the world, replacing qualitative impressions with highly precise quantitative models: We can’t dive into the sun to see what’s going on, yet we can accomplish as much with a physics-derived computer simulation.
Physics has burgeoned since the early 1600s, when Galileo asserted that to …show more content…
Tompkins in Wonderland.” Mr. Galfard’s jaunty, you-are-there narrative invites us to hitch a ride on a light beam, zoom through an atom and plant our disembodied consciousness within the hellfire of the Big Bang. A onetime Ph.D. student of Stephen Hawking’s, he is a loquacious tour guide with an arch sense of humor, as in his proposition that the extinction of the dinosaurs stemmed from their ignorance of theoretical …show more content…
As portioned out by Mr. Galfard, the information goes down easily; even a meaty morsel like this doesn’t offend: “Remember the catastrophic consequence on spacetime of an infinite number of particles appearing everywhere, all the time, in the vacuum of quantum field theory?”
The book is rich in apt analogies, as in Mr. Galfard’s description of electromagnetism as the exchange of virtual photons: “Pearls of light flash around you, exchanged between the magnet and the fridge, like a host of tiny angels dragging the two objects towards one another.” By the end, readers will have learned a great deal, although they might stumble explaining quantum field theory over cocktails. A second reading is recommended.
Mr. Rovelli and Mr. Galfard concur on the fundamental paradox that vexes our current grasp of the physical world: the disconnect between the general theory of relativity, in which space and time are continuous, and quantum theory, in which space is granular and the unidirectional arrow of time dissolves into a mishmash of contiguous instants. How gravity manifests itself in this latter quantum realm remains a mystery. Thus both authors convey us to the furthest outpost of our scientific knowledge, from which physicists are blazing trails into the benighted