Nonfiction Book Reviews

Okay, first off, I just wanted to say I have never read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.  I have heard that A Brief History of Time is supposed to be the more technical book out of the two, whereas the The Universe in a Nutshell is geared towards people who are not first and foremost scientists.

It is for that reason that I don’t envision myself ever reading A Brief History of Time, since I hardly understood The Universe in a Nutshell.  Here is an example of a mind-bending point that Hawking makes in Universe:

Yang-Mills theory is an extension of Maxwell theory that describes interactions in two other forces called the weak and strong nuclear forces.  However, ground state fluctuations have a much more serious effect in a quantum theory of gravity.  Again, each wavelength would have a ground state energy.  Since there is no limit to how short the wavelengths of the Maxwell field can be, there are an infinite number of different wavelengths in any region of spacetime and an infinite amount of ground state energy.  Because energy density is, like matter, a source of gravity, this infinite energy density ought to mean there is enough gravitational attraction in the universe to curl spacetime into a single point, which obviously hasn’t happened.
~The Universe in a Nutshell, page 46.

Obviously.

I should confess: My last science class was in the 10th grade, where I took biology.  I’m not exactly a science expert.  But if I understand right, I’m just the type of person Hawking was trying to target with this book - someone interested in science and wanting to learn more about the deeper principles and ideas being explored, but who doesn’t have a PhD in anything, let alone theoretical physics.  (I didn’t realize until I started adding links to that sentence, how many book reviews I’ve written on here about books on science, as compared to books about art [Art books reviewed: 0.]  You can tell what I am really interested in.)

In Hawking’s defense, these ideas are extraordinarily complicated, and that’s not exactly his fault.  I can’t imagine a harder task than trying to explain quantum physics to your average Joe, and that’s what Hawking was attempting to do.

I do give him kudos for sprinkling humor throughout the book.  He talks about bets that he’s made with other scientists on obscure scientific theories, added lots of drawings with little green men in them, and then topped it all off with dry humor comments that added spice to the book.  Here’s an example:

It would be possible to detect the radiation from much smaller and hotter black holes, but there don’t seem to be many of them around.  That is a pity.  If one were discovered, I would get a Nobel Prize.
~The Universe in a Nutshell, page 120.

Oh shucks.  If only there were more black holes in our general vicinity.

I read on Amazon that some people were upset with how much Hawking “dumbed down” the science, and wrote scathing remarks that if you knew anything about science, you could just skip this book because nothing in it would be new.  Apparently, I know less than nothing about science (no surprise there).

In the end, I give The Universe in a Nutshell 4 stars out of 5.  If you’re really into this kind of thing, and have the patience to try to unravel some of the theories that Hawking presents, then by all means, enjoy.  There is a lot of information to digest here, if you have the grits and determination to do it.  I liked learning what I could from it, but I doubt I’ll pick it up again.

Hava

PS If you are a fan of all things science like I am, make sure to check out a blogger in the Today.com network who also happens to be a rocket scientist.  Her blog rocks, and is not only informative, but very funny. Hi Stephanie!

Physics of the Impossible:A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel was written by Michio Kaku, a quantum physicist who co-wrote the string field theory (which I had never heard of before reading the back flap.  Luckily you don’t have to know anything about string field theory before reading, although Kaku does explain it some detail in the conclusion of the book.)

I picked this up on a whim (as I do most of my books) but quickly found myself engrossed in the text.  Kaku categorizes various futuristic ideas such as phasers and force fields into Class I, Class II, and Class III Impossibilities.  Here’s a quick rundown of the categories:

Class I Impossibilities are technologies that are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics.  They are ideas that might be possible to achieve either in this century or the next.

Class II Impossibilities are technologies are so advanced, either they’re completely impossible, or if they are achievable, it won’t happen for a millennia, or even a million years.

Class III Impossibilities are technologies that violate the known laws of physics, and are therefore impossible.  There are (surprisingly) only two ideas in this category, and Kaku says, “If they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics.” This is the sort of understatement that scientists like to engage in.

He starts out with the Class I items, and those actually take up a majority of the book.  It was also the most interesting (and understandable) section of the book.  In Class II items, he starts explaining some pretty wild quantum theories that went right over my head.

Luckily, he doesn’t do this the whole way through, or I would have put the book down long before the end.  I have studied science very little, and quantum physics not at all, so the fact that he only lost me a couple of times speaks volumes of his writing style.

The book flows pretty easily from one Class I impossibility to the next, and you feel that by the end, you’ve learned more about where science is at right now than you could have by sitting through 5 years of college lectures.  It’s a book that I found myself discussing with anyone who would sit still long enough (”Did you know that they are working on an invisibility cloak and have already been able to make minuscule items invisible in the red light spectrum?”  Some days I feel sorry for my coworkers…)

Any huge Star Trek or Star Wars fan would thoroughly enjoy this book, since he mentions different episodes/parts of the movies throughout the book.  Although it’s fun to imagine that things like teleporters exist, it’s even more fun - for me - to find out that scientists are actually working on making them into a reality, and X, Y, and Z are the things they are focusing on.

Also, any science geeks would love this book, since it’s easy enough for a regular person to understand, but definitely not dumbed down so much a science nerd couldn’t enjoy it.  Not to mention that his Notes section at the end of the book was quite extensive.

Having said all that, I loved this book, and I am neither a Star Trek, Star Wars, or science geek.  I enjoyed reading it because I love hearing about the latest and greatest that humanity has come up with, and I simply love to learn.  I felt like I really had learned something when I finished this book, instead of just wasting the last 5 hours of my life.

I give Physics of the Impossible 4.5 out of 5 stars.  There was a bit too much over-my-head information to rate it higher than that, but it was still one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time.

Now I’m going to have to hunt out some of the other books he’s written.  Beyond Einstein and Hyperspace both sound interesting…

Havs