Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade (2010), Edition: 1St Edition, Hardcover, 336 pages
Description
Ananthaswamy weaves together stories about the people and places at the heart of today's research in physics, while beautifully explaining the problems that scientists are trying to solve. In so doing, he provides a unique portrait of the universe and our quest to understand it.
User reviews
LibraryThing member timtom
The Edge of Physics is an excellent foray in the complex field of cosmology, as it explains the various models of the universe through the experiments that aim to prove them right or wrong. By following the author's journey to the inhospitable places where these experiments are being run, the
There's one big thing missing: pictures. Almost all settings in the book are in fascinating edges of our planet: Antartica, the Andes, Hawaiian volcanoes, the shores of Lake Baikal and so on... and I really missed some pictures to put the experiments in their own context. True, one can always find some on the Internet, but I found myself hugely frustrated by the single black-and-white photo illustrating each chapter. Mr Anathaswamy, if you need a photographer to illustrate the second edition, take me with you! :-)
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reader gets to understand the beautiful complexity of the questions being tackled, along with their historical backgrounds. Ananthaswamy is a terrific writer, managing to explain very complex theories in easy-to-understand terms, resulting in a popsci book that reads like a thriller!There's one big thing missing: pictures. Almost all settings in the book are in fascinating edges of our planet: Antartica, the Andes, Hawaiian volcanoes, the shores of Lake Baikal and so on... and I really missed some pictures to put the experiments in their own context. True, one can always find some on the Internet, but I found myself hugely frustrated by the single black-and-white photo illustrating each chapter. Mr Anathaswamy, if you need a photographer to illustrate the second edition, take me with you! :-)
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LibraryThing member ReadThisNotThat
The Edge of Physics is a highly enjoyable non-fiction book that explores physics through geography and travel. Ananthaswamy travels to some of the most incredibly extreme places on Earth to visit the experiments and projects that are hoping to provide new insights in the field of particle physics.
The entire book has a nice colloquial tone to it which makes the hard science understandable to lay readers by combining the most scientific explanations with the author's personal experiences and thoughts. Each chapter features a visit to one unusual location, from California's Mt. Wilson to the Franco-Swiss border where CERN's Large Hadron Collider lays miles underground.
I thought this book was easier to read than Leon Lederman's The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. The Edge of Physics doesn't provide the same in-depth scientific explanations that Lederman's book offer, but both books are very interesting and informative reads. Ananthaswamy's descriptions and reflections on the places he visits outshine his explanations of the science he witnesses. The explanations of particle physics that Ananthaswamy provides should be understandable to any reader with a bachelor's degree but for readers who are wholly unfamiliar with science and physics the book offers two detailed appendices for reference.
The Edge of Physics is a unique science book as it examines the foundations of modern science, the potential impact on future science due to the current experiments and new scientific theories being developed, how the experiments are being done, and where all this amazing science is taking place both in the US and abroad. Because this book relies heavily on travel and location it also makes mention of climate change and global warming as these changes can adversely effect the experiements and projects he visited.
I would recommend this book to high schoolers thinking about majoring in science once they get to college, readers who enjoyed The God Particle, fans of extreme travel, and people who are curious about the Large Hadron Collider as fears about the LHC have been widely publicized in the media and the information provided in this book may help to allay some of those fears.
I checked this book out from the library and I'm glad I checked it out rather than purchasing it because it doesn't have a high re-read value for me, but I don't work in the scientific field and am not engaged in any scientific research. For researches, science majors and those working in the scientific industries I think this book is well worth purchasing.
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The entire book has a nice colloquial tone to it which makes the hard science understandable to lay readers by combining the most scientific explanations with the author's personal experiences and thoughts. Each chapter features a visit to one unusual location, from California's Mt. Wilson to the Franco-Swiss border where CERN's Large Hadron Collider lays miles underground.
I thought this book was easier to read than Leon Lederman's The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. The Edge of Physics doesn't provide the same in-depth scientific explanations that Lederman's book offer, but both books are very interesting and informative reads. Ananthaswamy's descriptions and reflections on the places he visits outshine his explanations of the science he witnesses. The explanations of particle physics that Ananthaswamy provides should be understandable to any reader with a bachelor's degree but for readers who are wholly unfamiliar with science and physics the book offers two detailed appendices for reference.
The Edge of Physics is a unique science book as it examines the foundations of modern science, the potential impact on future science due to the current experiments and new scientific theories being developed, how the experiments are being done, and where all this amazing science is taking place both in the US and abroad. Because this book relies heavily on travel and location it also makes mention of climate change and global warming as these changes can adversely effect the experiements and projects he visited.
I would recommend this book to high schoolers thinking about majoring in science once they get to college, readers who enjoyed The God Particle, fans of extreme travel, and people who are curious about the Large Hadron Collider as fears about the LHC have been widely publicized in the media and the information provided in this book may help to allay some of those fears.
I checked this book out from the library and I'm glad I checked it out rather than purchasing it because it doesn't have a high re-read value for me, but I don't work in the scientific field and am not engaged in any scientific research. For researches, science majors and those working in the scientific industries I think this book is well worth purchasing.
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LibraryThing member Jvstin
The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Anil Ananthaswamy is not quite what it seems.
While the title promises a look at the bleeding edge of physics and cosmology, this book in actuality has a broader canvas. Anathaswamy, a journalist at the New
High energy physics requires special conditions to have their detectors work. If you want to detect WIMPs, look for primordial antimatter, and try and find Higgs Bosons, you need special equipment, which just can't be built anywhere. In this book, Ananthaswamy chronicles his journeys to these often remote locations and talks with the people there. In the midst of this, the book is filled out (some might say padded) with a large number of digressions. In detailing his trip to Antarctica, for example, Ananthaswamy feels compelled to discuss the race to reach the South Pole first by Shackleton and Scott. It really has little to do with the physics experiments going on at Antarctica, and while its a fascinating bit of history, it is out of place as far as the title of the book is concerned.
This portion, and almost all of the other portions of the book read like travelogue, as Ananthaswamy details the effort he has to take in order to get to some of the more remote locations where the physics experiments are taking place, such as Lake Baikal, the Chilean Desert, South Africa, and the Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota. Those far more interested in the physics are going to be annoyed by these portions of the book. For myself, I liked these digressions, and accepted them as part of the matrix of the book. I was fascinated by, for example, his journey to Lake Baikal. I didn't know much about the lake, and in reading this book I learned as much, if not more about the lake than about the neutrino detector submerged there.
It's a relatively conversational tone of a book, with no equations and not a lot of hard science. It's well edited and a very easy read. I think that the target audience for this book are those who have taken physics in high school, maybe some general science in College, but do not generally have a strong science background. My mother is has no special science background. and no post-secondary education I think she would be able to understand and enjoy this book.
Conversely, those who have physics degrees, and have a stake in the "cage match" that is going on between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity should stay far away from this book.Ananthaswamy does not "discuss the controversy", to coin a phrase. While the information on the experiments might be interesting to physics experts, the non physics portions of the book will probably not be to their taste.
If you are looking for a book on the level of Lee Smolin or Brian Greene, no matter which camp you support, then this book is definitely not your cup of tea and you probably will be frankly bored by large portions of this slim volume. If your interest is more broad, and your commitment to controversies in the field are not intense, then this relatively painless look at the field, and more especially, the people and places associated with high energy physics is entertaining and informative, even if (and for me especially because) it does contain a wide ranging view of the people and the places the physics takes place.
While the title promises a look at the bleeding edge of physics and cosmology, this book in actuality has a broader canvas. Anathaswamy, a journalist at the New
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Scientist, focuses on the places he goes and the people he meets on his journey to understand the experiments, equipment and the people associated with them. High energy physics requires special conditions to have their detectors work. If you want to detect WIMPs, look for primordial antimatter, and try and find Higgs Bosons, you need special equipment, which just can't be built anywhere. In this book, Ananthaswamy chronicles his journeys to these often remote locations and talks with the people there. In the midst of this, the book is filled out (some might say padded) with a large number of digressions. In detailing his trip to Antarctica, for example, Ananthaswamy feels compelled to discuss the race to reach the South Pole first by Shackleton and Scott. It really has little to do with the physics experiments going on at Antarctica, and while its a fascinating bit of history, it is out of place as far as the title of the book is concerned.
This portion, and almost all of the other portions of the book read like travelogue, as Ananthaswamy details the effort he has to take in order to get to some of the more remote locations where the physics experiments are taking place, such as Lake Baikal, the Chilean Desert, South Africa, and the Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota. Those far more interested in the physics are going to be annoyed by these portions of the book. For myself, I liked these digressions, and accepted them as part of the matrix of the book. I was fascinated by, for example, his journey to Lake Baikal. I didn't know much about the lake, and in reading this book I learned as much, if not more about the lake than about the neutrino detector submerged there.
It's a relatively conversational tone of a book, with no equations and not a lot of hard science. It's well edited and a very easy read. I think that the target audience for this book are those who have taken physics in high school, maybe some general science in College, but do not generally have a strong science background. My mother is has no special science background. and no post-secondary education I think she would be able to understand and enjoy this book.
Conversely, those who have physics degrees, and have a stake in the "cage match" that is going on between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity should stay far away from this book.Ananthaswamy does not "discuss the controversy", to coin a phrase. While the information on the experiments might be interesting to physics experts, the non physics portions of the book will probably not be to their taste.
If you are looking for a book on the level of Lee Smolin or Brian Greene, no matter which camp you support, then this book is definitely not your cup of tea and you probably will be frankly bored by large portions of this slim volume. If your interest is more broad, and your commitment to controversies in the field are not intense, then this relatively painless look at the field, and more especially, the people and places associated with high energy physics is entertaining and informative, even if (and for me especially because) it does contain a wide ranging view of the people and the places the physics takes place.
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LibraryThing member fpagan
Visits by the author to high-profile observational/experimental sites: Mt Wilson, Calif (expanding-universe discovery); Soudan Mine, Minn (search for dark matter); Lake Baikal, Siberia (neutrino telescope); Cerro Paranal, Chile (the Very Large Telescope -- dark energy, etc); Mauna Kea, Hawaii (Keck
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telescopes -- again dark energy, etc); Karoo region, South Africa (proposed Square Kilometer Array radiotelescope); McMurdo Station, Antarctica (balloon-borne searches for cosmic antimatter); the South Pole (IceCube neutrino telescope -- quantum gravity research); Geneva (Large Hadron Collider). Also: the multiverse concept. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
A travel book around places where cosmology is done with some well explained cosmology to round it off. Hasn't dated badly. I enjoyed it a lot and it would have got a full four stars if the section on the Large Hadron Colider has been less long. And just after reading that section there was a TV
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program which included some of the places he had been and up to date video and reports of the LHC and Atlas which gave an extra thrill. Show Less
Awards
Stanford Travel Book of the Year (Longlist — 2011)
Physics World Book of the Year (Shortlist — 2010)
Physical description
336 p.; 9.2 inches
ISBN
0618884688 / 9780618884681
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