Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:18
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Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?)
By Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
* Publisher: Da Capo Press
* Number Of Pages: 264
* Publication Date: 2009-07-13
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0306817586
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780306817588
Product Description:
The most accessible, entertaining, and enlightening explanation of the best-known physics equation in the world, as rendered by two of today’s leading scientists.
Professor Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw go on a journey to the frontier of 21st century science to consider the real meaning behind the iconic sequence of symbols that make up Einstein’s most famous equation, E=mc2. Breaking down the symbols themselves, they pose a series of questions: What is energy? What is mass? What has the speed of light got to do with energy and mass? In answering these questions, they take us to the site of one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted. Lying beneath the city of Geneva, straddling the Franco-Swiss boarder, is a 27 km particle accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider. Using this gigantic machine—which can recreate conditions in the early Universe fractions of a second after the Big Bang—Cox and Forshaw will describe the current theory behind the origin of mass.
Alongside questions of energy and mass, they will consider the third, and perhaps, most intriguing element of the equation: 'c' - or the speed of light. Why is it that the speed of light is the exchange rate? Answering this question is at the heart of the investigation as the authors demonstrate how, in order to truly understand why E=mc2, we first must understand why we must move forward in time and not backwards and how objects in our 3-dimensional world actually move in 4-dimensional space-time. In other words, how the very fabric of our world is constructed. A collaboration between two of the youngest professors in the UK, Why Does E=mc2? promises to be one of the most exciting and accessible explanations of the theory of relativity in recent years.
Summary: basic physics
Rating: 5
A very lucid and plain explanation of a relatively complex subject.
The book requires close attention ans at least two readings to fully capture the meaning of the text but the time is well worth the amount spent
Summary: Connects relativity to life in terms any lay reader can understand
Rating: 5
WHY DOES E=MC2 AND WHY SHOULD WE CARE comes from two physicists who offer basic ideas on relativity and its applicability to everyday life. Their survey of both the theory and its wider-ranging applications connects relativity to life in terms any lay reader can understand, from considering ideas of mass, energy and light to everyday examples illustrating theories. Any general lending library will find this a key acquisition.
Summary: A readable book on XXth century physics
Rating: 5
Francis Ford Coppola has said that happiness consists on learning new things every day. People like Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw help us to become happier. Scientists like these who devote part of their precious time to divulge scientific ideas are the real missionaries of the XXIst century helping to extend the gospel of science, which, contrary to other gospels, it is non dogmatic and subjected to possible disproval by experiment , a feature of science introduced by Muslim scientists (!) according to the book (page 40).
The book is not only, as it title suggests, an explanation of the famous Einstein formula but a very up-to-date and understandable review of XXth century physics, including cosmology, special and general relativity and the Standard Model with its awe inspiring master equation.
The book uses, sometimes, very simple mathematics, which the authors suggest the math averse reader to skip, if necessary, but with important results. For instance, making use of the very famous, old and simple Pythagorean theorem Cox and Forshaw prove that the half life of muons accelerated to 99.94% of the speed of light is extended, due to relativistic effects, 29 times, a fact that is verified experimentally.
There are also several examples of theoretical predictions confirmed experimentally which is one of the beauties of physics. Fred Hoyle's prediction of an energy level of the carbon nucleus which makes it crucially possible the synthesis of heavier elements in the stars, gravitational waves (whose existence has been indirectly confirmed studying a double pulsar) , the masses of the W and Z bosons (confirmed at CERN), the existence of the positron posited by Dirac or Chandrasehar's limit for the mass of white dwarves.
The story unfolds from Faraday's experiments and Maxwell's equations which lead to the constancy of the speed of light which, in turn, lead to the Special Theory of Relativity, to Minkowski's space time, the conservation of the energy-momentum vector and the famous E=mc2 formula (which is an approximation, by the way). The final chapters are devoted to General Relativity (and its clear effects on the GPS system), the Standard Model (with a good introduction to gauge symmetry) and the Higgs boson, the last particle, among the fundamental particles of the model, to be found experimentally (in the Large Hadron Collider hopefully when they get it working) .
There are also some curiosities such as that if the Earth was flat we would see a laser fired horizontally bending to its surface. To sum up: a very entertaining book that I hope will make you happier. It made me.
Summary: Mission impossible?
Rating: 3
I read this book carefully, at least carefully enough to note that there appeared to be lines missing on p196 (line 2 from the bottom) and p232 (line 10 from the top). After finishing, I'm not sure the book would succeed in convincing the non-math and physics literate that E = mc2, at least via its geometric and beginning algebra arguments. Even though I have degrees in math and am reasonably well-read in modern physics, the most compelling argument in the book for me was that the global positioning satellites have to take relatively into account in adjusting their clocks in order to give correct positions on earth. Also, using a distance formula with a negative sign between the "legs" seemed a bit ad hoc to me, though the book does give a geometric rationale for this. I did learn that everything is moving through spacetime at the speed of c (that's spacetime, not space).
The actual proof of E=mc2 is finished by chapter 5 (of 8). The rest of the book is mostly on the standard model, but much is omitted, such as that quarks have fractional charge. Anyway, somehow, when the standard model comes up, I always feel I'm still back at mu-mesons.
To me the book fell between two stools. Since higher math, such as limits is not explicitly used, the book frequently had to resort to just stating things as fact ("proof by authority")--the authors freely admit doing this. I would have preferred a book that did one or the other.
Summary: Just awful
Rating: 1
Just awful
Loved this guy on the science channel but this book is just full of meandering thoughts and tangential proofs. Come on Brian, you can do a whole lot better.
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