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Although modern physics surrounds us and its concepts are constantly
referred to in every newspaper, even educated nonscientists find the subject intimidating
in the extreme. Most attempts to explain physics to general readers are either
obscured by masses of mathematics or gross oversimplifications written by laymen.
Here at last is a comprehensive -- and comprehensible -- account of particles
and fields and cosmology written by a working physicist and not burdened by the
weight of ponderous scientific notation. Robert K. Adair gives us a feel for how
physicists think about problems: what assumptions must be made to simplify impossibly
complex relationships between objects, on what scale the problem needs to be treated,
how measurements are made, and what the interplay between theory and experiment
is. Adair gently guides the reader through the ideas
of particles, fields, relativity, and quantum mechanics. He explains the great
discoveries of this century, which have caused a revolution in how we view the
universe, in logical, simple terms not requiring anything beyond high school algebra
to comprehend. He has performed the difficult task of predigesting complex concepts
to permit the layman access to what appears to be an arcane discipline. He captures
the flavor of the joy of discovery at the heart of research. Robert
K. Adair is Associate Director for High Energy and Nuclear Physics at the Brookhaven
National Laboratory and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Yale University.
He is the author of Concepts in Physics and (with Earle C. Fowler) Strange
Particles. |
