The lightness of being : mass, ether, and the unification of forces
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The lightness of being : mass, ether, and the unification of forces
Basic Books, c2008
Available at 2 libraries
Note
Includes index
Summary: The 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics offers this readable and authoritative work for the general public. It explores basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of nature
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Contents of Works
- About the title
- Reader's guide
- pt. I. The origin of mass
- Getting to It
- Newton's zeroth law
- Einstein's second law
- What matters for matter
- The hydra within
- The bits within the its
- Symmetry incarnate
- The grid (persistence of ether)
- Computing matter
- The origin of mass
- The music of the grid : a poem in two equations
- Profound simplicity
- pt. II. The feebleness of gravity
- Is gravity feeble? : Yes (in practice)
- Is gravity feeble? : No (in theory)
- The right question
- A beautiful answer
- pt. III. Is beauty truth?
- Unification : the siren's song
- Unification : through a glass, darkly
- Truthification
- Unification [loves] SUSY
- Anticipating a new golden age
- Epilogue: A smooth pebble, a pretty shell
- Appendix A: Particles have mass, the world has energy
- Appendix B: The multilayered, multicolored cosmic superconductor
- Appendix C: From "not wrong" to (maybe) right
- Glossary
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Physicist understanding of the essential nature of reality changed radically over the past quarter century. Frank Wilczek has played a lead role in establishing the new paradigms. Transcending the clash and mismatch of older ideas about what matter is, and what space is, Wilczek presents here some brilliant and clear syntheses. Space is a dynamic material, the engine of reality; matter is a subtle pattern of disturbance in that material. Extraordinarily readable and authoritative, The Lightness of Being is the first book to unwrap these exciting new ideas for the general public. It explores their implications for basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of Nature. Along the way, Wilczek presents new perspectives on many strange aspects of our fantastic universe. Pointing toward new directions where the great discoveries in fundamental physics are likely to come, he envisions a new Golden Age in physics.
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