The World According to Physics

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It’s not my area of specialism, so I just give my own perspective. I don’t know how successful I am, but I try as much as possible to be neutral or agnostic on the idea, while at the same time saying, ‘This is why this particular view is criticized. This is where the weaknesses are.’ Penjelasan soal tiga sokoguru (relaitivitas, mekanika kuantum, dan termodinamika) meski dianggap oleh penulisnya sebagai "semacam cara singkat" tapi tetap bikin mikir kok. Yang seru ya itu, ternyata dunia ini bahkan yang seolah sudah bisa dijelaskan dengan teori dan perhitungan fisika, masih saja bisa saling berkontradiksi antar satu sakaguru dengan yang lain. The book was originally written in French and it goes further than all that undergraduate stuff about atoms being in two places at once and it throws a lot of the laws of physics out of the window and says… Awal tahun 2023 diawali dgn membaca buku Dunia Menurut Fisika. Buku ini sebenarnya lebih seperti pengantar fisika, di mana penulisnya mengajak kita utk memahami fenomena-fenomena dunia melalui kacamata Ilmu Fisika. Broadcaster and quantum physicist Jim Al-Khalili is a superb guide to the fundamental principles of quantum theory, relativity and thermodynamics."— Mail on Sunday

If you’re worried about the brain-expanding implications of reading about the frontiers of science, don’t be. No prior knowledge is required, only curiosity and an ability to suspend disbelief in the more non-intuitive aspects of the universe. Physics is reassuringly unrolled at the level of a particularly intense fireside chat and Al-Khalili is an expert storyteller. If you’ve ever watched his television programmes, you may even hear his voice inside your head holding a private one-way conversation about all things physical, since the book’s tone and style of explanation are similar. I’ve written books specifically about quantum mechanics, cosmology, the history of science and quantum biology—so there have been topics that fired me up or that my own research has been involved in. But the opening sentence of The World According to Physics is, “This book is an ode to physics.” It’s my love affair with a subject that I’ve had a passion for since my early teens.I wouldn’t say disputes. There are other areas of science where people get much more competitive and aggressive in promoting and pushing their own theory or hypothesis, but there’s certainly different camps in physics. I'm glad I read it, though. It reminded me of the excitement of the whole human intellectual endeavour, and the particular excitement of the whole of physics which I can sometimes forget when I am deep down some hole studying just a tiny part of a tiny part of it. To be reminded of the beauty of the Universe and of the methods we have developed to think about it, all written with passion and eloquence, is affirming and exciting.

If I knew that then the King of Sweden would be calling me up with the Nobel. It’s counterintuitive and weird but we’ve learned to accept it. Quantum mechanics is hugely accurate – most of modern scientific development is based on it and on what it tells us about the subatomic world, but at its heart it says that an atom can be in two places at once. We’ve learned to live with that. Clearly written and inviting, even to readers who may not at first consider themselves scientific, The World According to Physics is a book that should be read and appreciated by many."—Jocelyn Bell Burnell, University of Oxford This book takes a different route to the one that almost every other popular science book seems to take these days. Instead of starting with the usual historical approach, from the ancient greeks to modern physics, it begins with an overview of the three pillars of physics: relativity, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. It then moves on to possible theories of unification and the future of physics, presenting the biggest challenges of present day physics. The last chapters highlight both the impact physics has on our daily lives and the role that the scientific method/thinking could have on our society if it was more widely used. So it’s not the easiest of reads, but it’s one of the books that made me fall in love with physics. It’s one of the books that persuaded me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life dedicated to thinking about some of these ideas. Along with lots of jabber about what Theory means in science (and "we will cover that in a later chapter"), Al-Khalili does go reasonably deeply into 3 key elements of modern physics: relativity, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. I did truly try to keep up, but I found it hard to follow. I still couldn't really say what a Higgs Boson particle is (and Al-K spent a lot of time on it), nor do I know why the Hadron collider was able to prove its existence. For only a single example.

If Kaluza-Klein theory piques your interest, you might have to wade through a Lisa Randall book to wrap your mind around tiny curled up dimensions. A quantum physicist and BBC host introduces modern physics by explaining its fundamental concepts of space, time, energy, and matter, then describing the field’s three pillars—quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics."— Publishers Weekly