Category Archives: Book Reviews

Multivers: Mondes Possible de l’Astrophysique, de la Philosophie, et de l’Imaginaire

Posted on April 3, 2011 by woit

While I was in Paris recently I picked up several French books that aren’t readily available in the US. One of these is entitled Multivers: Mondes Possible de l’Astrophysique, de la Philosophie, et de l’Imaginaire, and it takes the form … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 10 Comments

The 4% Universe

Posted on January 31, 2011 by woit

I’ve written a review of Richard Panek’s quite good new book The 4% Universe, which has appeared at the Wall Street Journal. The main topic of the book is the supernova searches that led to what seems to be a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 12 Comments

Massive

Posted on November 10, 2010 by woit

There’s a wonderful new book about particle physics that has just come out, Massive:The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science, by Ian Sample, who is a science correspondent for the Guardian. The topic is the huge open … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 29 Comments

Once Before Time

Posted on November 8, 2010 by woit

There’s a new popular book out this week entitled Once Before Time: a whole story of the universe, by Martin Bojowald, promoting his ideas about “Loop Quantum Cosmology”. It’s a translation of the original German edition, Zuruck vor den Urknall, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 25 Comments

The Shape of Inner Space

Posted on September 19, 2010 by woit

Besides the Hawking book, which was a disappointment in many ways, I recently also finished reading a much better and more interesting book which deals with some of the same topics, but in a dramatically more substantive and intelligent manner. … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 16 Comments

Hawking Gives Up

Posted on September 7, 2010 by woit

David Gross has in the past invoked the phrase “never, never, never give up”, attributed to Churchill, to describe his view about claims that one should give up on the traditional goals of fundamental physics in favor of anthropic arguments … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 83 Comments

A Tear at the Edge of Creation

Posted on April 6, 2010 by woit

There’s a new book out this week by Marcelo Gleiser, entitled A Tear at the Edge of Creation. Gleiser blogs at the NPR site 13.7, and that site also has a review of the book from his fellow blogger Adam … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 36 Comments

Solar

Posted on April 5, 2010 by woit

Ian McEwan’s new novel Solar is now out, with a plot featuring Michael Beard, an aging theoretical physicist. Beard won a Nobel prize early in his career for the “Beard-Einstein Conflation”, which supposedly involves some unexpected coherent behavior in QED, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 9 Comments

The Quants

Posted on February 25, 2010 by woit

The third book I recently read that has some math or physics content is Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson’s The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It. It’s a very lively … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 24 Comments

The Edge of Physics

Posted on February 22, 2010 by woit

The second book about physics or math that I finished reading recently is Anil Ananthaswamy’s The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. The author has a blog devoted to the topic of the book, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 2 Comments