Category Archives: Book Reviews

Various and Sundry

Posted on September 28, 2018 by woit

First, news related in some way to Australia: This summer the Sydney Morning Herald published a nice profile of Geordie Williamson. By the way, the ICM plenary lectures are finally available on video, with Williamson’s among those worth watching. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Beyond Weird

Posted on September 5, 2018 by woit

Philip Ball’s Beyond Weird is the best popular survey I’ve seen of the contemporary state of discussions about the “interpretation” of quantum mechanics. It appeared earlier this year in a British edition (which I just read a copy of), with … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 14 Comments

Lost in Math

Posted on June 7, 2018 by woit

Sabine Hossenfelder’s new book Lost in Math should be starting to appear in bookstores around now. It’s very good and you should get a copy. I hope that the book will receive a lot of attention, but suspect that much … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 61 Comments

When Einstein Walked With Gödel

Posted on May 28, 2018 by woit

Jim Holt has a new book out, a collection of essays entitled When Einstein Walked with Gödel. I wrote enthusiastically about his last book (Why Does the World Exist?) here and, if you have any interest at all in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 3 Comments

Losing the Nobel Prize

Posted on April 19, 2018 by woit

There’s a fascinating new book just now appearing in book stores, Losing the Nobel Prize, by astronomer Brian Keating. An excerpt from the book is available at Nautilus, with the title How My Nobel Dream Bit the Dust. Some reviews … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 39 Comments

Raoul Bott: Collected Papers, volume 5

Posted on April 4, 2018 by woit

I noticed today that the final volume of Raoul Bott’s collected papers, which Loring Tu has been working on editing for quite a while, has finally appeared. The Springer webpage for the book is here, and its content is available … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 2 Comments

What is Real?

Posted on March 22, 2018 by woit

There’s a new popular book out this week about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, Adam Becker’s What is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. Ever since my high school days, the topic of quantum mechanics and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Quantum Mechanics | 74 Comments

The Quantum Spy

Posted on January 17, 2018 by woit

I don’t often read spy thrillers, but just finished one, The Quantum Spy, by David Ignatius. Ignatius is a well-known journalist at the Washington Post, specializing in international affairs and the intelligence community (and known to some as The Mainstream … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 10 Comments

Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory

Posted on September 22, 2017 by woit

For quite a while Leonard Susskind has been giving some wonderful courses on physics under the name “The Theoretical Minimum”, pitched at a level in between typical popularizations and standard advanced undergraduate courses. This is a great idea, since there … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 30 Comments

Cosmology for the Curious

Posted on August 8, 2017 by woit

There’s a new college-level textbook out, Cosmology for the Curious, targeted at physics courses designed to explain basics of cosmology to non-physics majors. The authors are Delia Perlov and Alex Vilenkin. Back in 2006 Vilenkin published a popular book promoting … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 26 Comments