Category Archives: Book Reviews

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

Theories of Everything

Posted on May 2, 2017 by woit

I’ve written a review for the latest issue of Physics World of a short new book by Frank Close, entitled Theories of Everything. You can read the review here. As I discuss in the review, Close explains a lot of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 26 Comments

Can the Laws of Physics be Unified?

Posted on March 7, 2017 by woit

There’s a new book out this week from Princeton University Press, Paul Langacker’s Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified? (surely this is a mistake, but there’s also an ISBN number for a 2020 volume with the same name by … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 25 Comments

A Big Bang in a Little Room

Posted on February 18, 2017 by woit

There’s a review in today’s Wall Street Journal by me of Zeeya Merali’s A Big Bang in a Little Room. If their version is behind a paywall you might find also find it elsewhere (for instance here). I’ll reproduce parts … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Fake Physics | 21 Comments

Anomaly!

Posted on December 6, 2016 by woit

Tommaso Dorigo’s new book Anomaly! Collider Physics and the Quest for New Phenomena at Fermilab has just become available. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in high energy physics who wants some insight into how collider experiments … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 5 Comments

Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy

Posted on September 12, 2016 by woit

Roger Penrose’s Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe is finally being published this week. This is a bit of a landmark event, since the book has a long history, going back to a series of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 34 Comments

Weapons of Math Destruction

Posted on September 6, 2016 by woit

Cathy O’Neil’s important new book Weapons of Math Destruction, is out today, and if you’re at all interested in the social significance of how mathematics is now being used, you should go out and get a copy. She has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 30 Comments

Summing It Up

Posted on May 29, 2016 by woit

There’s a new popular book out about number theory by the team of Avner Ash and Robert Gross, entitled Summing It Up: From one plus one to modern number theory. This is the third such book that they have written, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 13 Comments