The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity Author: Prof. Pedro G. Ferreira | Language: English | ISBN:
0547554893 | Format: EPUB
The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity Description
How did one elegant theory incite a scientific revolution? Physicists have been exploring, debating, and questioning the general theory of relativity ever since Albert Einstein first presented it in 1915. Their work has uncovered a number of the universe’s more surprising secrets, and many believe further wonders remain hidden within the theory’s tangle of equations, waiting to be exposed. In this sweeping narrative of science and culture, astrophysicist Pedro Ferreira brings general relativity to life through the story of the brilliant physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers who have taken up its challenge. For these scientists, the theory has been both a treasure trove and an enigma, fueling a century of intellectual struggle and triumph.. Einstein’s theory, which explains the relationships among gravity, space, and time, is possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics, yet studying it has always been a controversial endeavor. Relativists were the target of persecution in Hitler’s Germany, hounded in Stalin’s Russia, and disdained in 1950s America. Even today, PhD students are warned that specializing in general relativity will make them unemployable. Despite these pitfalls, general relativity has flourished, delivering key insights into our understanding of the origin of time and the evolution of all the stars and galaxies in the cosmos. Its adherents have revealed what lies at the farthest reaches of the universe, shed light on the smallest scales of existence, and explained how the fabric of reality emerges. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and string theory are all progeny of Einstein’s theory. We are in the midst of a momentous transformation in modern physics. As scientists look farther and more clearly into space than ever before, The Perfect Theory reveals the greater relevance of general relativity, showing us where it started, where it has led, and where it can still take us.
- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (February 4, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0547554893
- ISBN-13: 978-0547554891
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
What a great read, and so informative too. It's rare that someone of Ferreira's technical caliber (he's a professor of astrophysics at the prestigious University of Oxford) can also write well. Note that, at the time of this review, he has over 360 published items (e.g., articles, books) and he is cited over 1300 times in other works. Nowhere does he use the title "Doctor," and I couldn't find any reference thereof. But in trying to find it, I was duly impressed with his credentials otherwise. Maybe that's why he's a professor at a major university even if (and that's not certain) he doesn't have a PhD (he might, I just can't verify that).
His writing is excellent, both in style and in technical merit (that is, his grammatical competence is high). Because of this, the book is quite accessible to the lay reader with an interest in something as mind-boggling as the Theory of General Relativity. Rather than trudging through dense text and trying to figure out what the author is saying, readers of this book can enjoy a nicely narrated explanation of what has gone on with the Theory of General Relativity from its inception to where it is today.
In this review, I won't explain anything about this very famous theory. I assume the reader of this review has not been on a deserted island since 1905 and thus has been amply exposed to it through at least some of the pop culture, thousands of articles, common mentions, and even movies that have explained, amplified, or even misrepresented it since that time. If you were stranded on a deserted island all this time, please accept my apologies; I did not mean to slight you.
This book isn't a tutorial on the Theory of General Relativity.
Pedro Ferreira's book "The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity" essentially tells us what other people did with Einstein's general theory of relativity after he developed it. While one chapter is devoted to Einstein's hard struggle with learning the non-Riemannian geometry and building the field equations that define the theory, the book really takes off after 1917 when a series of men and women discovered the awesome implications of these equations. The book is a fast read and it does a very good job portraying the colorful personalities and exciting discoveries unearthed by general relativity.
By 1919 the theory had been well-established as part of the scientific enterprise, especially after it retrodicted the correct value of the perihelion of mercury and predicted the bending of starlight observed by Arthur Eddington, a discovery that splashed Einstein's name on the front pages of the world's leading newspapers. Eddington was Einstein's heir, thoroughly learning the theory and grasping its implications for stellar structure. Ironically he did not dare to take these implications to their logical conclusion. That task was left to a young Indian astrophysicist named Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who paved the way toward the discovery of black holes by considering what happens when stars run out of fuel and collapse under gravitational contraction. Famously Eddington rebuked Chandrasekhar's findings and revealed himself to be much like Einstein, a revolutionary in young age and a reactionary in old age.
The story of black holes is one important thread that the book follows. Chandrasekhar's ideas were further developed by Lev Landau, Fritz Zwicky and Robert Oppenheimer in the 30s.
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