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4 out of 5 stars
By
J B Tipton
on
06-06-10
Strings snipped
This book is a consideration of some current topics in Physics and Cosmology. It is the author's contention that resources being devoted to string theory are disproportionate to any returns received or envisioned. While some points made were well over my head, the book is not at all difficult to follow. It is clearly acceptable today to be agnostic on the string theory/multiverse. Science seems to have gone a long way out on that limb. The book is clearly and expertly read by Walter Dixon.
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33 of 36 people found this review helpful
4 out of 5 stars
By
Amazon Customer
on
09-29-10
The Trouble with Physics
Previous reviewer said everything needed to be said about this book very concisely and very accurately. The below review, however, is a bit of a critique:
This is a great book about new developments in physics. It goes over the Super String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity sufficiently for the users to grasp their relative importance and their strengths and weaknesses (for standard model read Brian Greene’s excellent book "The Fabric of the Cosmos"). The second half of the book mostly deals with the politics of the academia, particularly, in physics departments. The author is disturbed by the internal politics of these so called institutions of science. He wants to change all that so it’s a more balanced atmosphere and helpful to the progress of physics as a science.
He’s observations are right on. The only issue is that he thinks he can, or worse, should do something about this. He is asking the prominent members of String Theory community who control most physics departments in distinguish universities to be more open to other post-doc researchers that are not working on String Theory. He believes String theory is in crisis, or perhaps, the entire science of physics is in crisis.
This is certainly overblown. Many times in the past in all fields of science, most notably medicine and physics, established scientists of the field have been protective of the accepted science of the day despite all the evidence to the contrary. The right science will ultimately prevail as it always has, but to expect that String theorist heavyweights such as Leonard Susskind embrace anything other than Super-String Theory is like to expect a father stop helping his own son get into college in favor of a stranger who appears to be smarter. This is their livelihoods after all. Yes, you may expect a few people do the right thing for a few years (assuming we can even say for sure what it is), but expecting everybody to act against their self-interest at all times is being naive at best.
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23 of 26 people found this review helpful