Time Loops and Space Twists
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:35 am
Fred Alan Wolf Heirophant Publishing USA ISBN 2010934672
Hardback A4.
Fairly hard surfaced paper, approaching gloss. Won't quite lay open which is annoying. Maybe when it gets old it will.
The print and layout it excellent. Very clear and black, large gutter, sufficient margin.
This book is a ripper. Great. As the Deepak Chopra dustjacket review snippet says: Quantum physics could be daunting to the layperson, but Fred Alan Wolf has simplified and made these abstract concepts very comprehensible.
Yes. He does. Puts it all in common language, uses metaphor and similar or whatever to make it comprehensible. Puts you in the picture.
But that's not all. He's not all superficialities, 'dumbed down science for the masses'. He actually gets into some real mathematical explanation if you can follow him there - in the 'endnotes' there's many a detailed explanation with mathematical formula full of those arcane symbols I don't know how to put in here: summation, square root etc, and the greek letters.
It is probably worth it for the glossary alone, which lists all the common nuclear physics standard model entities and concepts I think.
Don't get misled by the association with Deepak Chopra perhaps implied by his review I quoted. The book perhaps goes down Chopra's road but it only does it at the end after feeding us a lot of valuable stuff.
Here's an extract from page 231 when he's nearly at the end, from the chapter 'The Meaning Of It All':
In brief, what is the universe made from? Spin 1/2 and spin 1 light particles. What makes the lightshow a show at all is their continual interaction; first the spin 1/2 luxons interact with the Higgs field to acquire mass, and then they intereact with the spin 1 luxons to modify and shape the universe into its various forms of stars, galaxies, planets, people, cells and genetic structures.
unquote. So that's very factual.
But then he goes on to say:
The only mystery is the Higgs field itself. I have specualted that this field acts as a mind field - the mind of God, so to speak. I have further speculated that the field generates tachyons that interact with fermions through exchange of bosons and in so doing we see how a logical seemingly mind-like activity comes into existence throughout the whole universe.
and so on.
That's about as Chopra - like as he gets I think and it's excusable, permissible, acceptable. I think.
Haven't read it all.
It is on my list for revisiting again and again until I've devoured and retained it all. Probably the best doorway to an understanding of the basic nature of our reality that I'll find.
Hardback A4.
Fairly hard surfaced paper, approaching gloss. Won't quite lay open which is annoying. Maybe when it gets old it will.
The print and layout it excellent. Very clear and black, large gutter, sufficient margin.
This book is a ripper. Great. As the Deepak Chopra dustjacket review snippet says: Quantum physics could be daunting to the layperson, but Fred Alan Wolf has simplified and made these abstract concepts very comprehensible.
Yes. He does. Puts it all in common language, uses metaphor and similar or whatever to make it comprehensible. Puts you in the picture.
But that's not all. He's not all superficialities, 'dumbed down science for the masses'. He actually gets into some real mathematical explanation if you can follow him there - in the 'endnotes' there's many a detailed explanation with mathematical formula full of those arcane symbols I don't know how to put in here: summation, square root etc, and the greek letters.
It is probably worth it for the glossary alone, which lists all the common nuclear physics standard model entities and concepts I think.
Don't get misled by the association with Deepak Chopra perhaps implied by his review I quoted. The book perhaps goes down Chopra's road but it only does it at the end after feeding us a lot of valuable stuff.
Here's an extract from page 231 when he's nearly at the end, from the chapter 'The Meaning Of It All':
In brief, what is the universe made from? Spin 1/2 and spin 1 light particles. What makes the lightshow a show at all is their continual interaction; first the spin 1/2 luxons interact with the Higgs field to acquire mass, and then they intereact with the spin 1 luxons to modify and shape the universe into its various forms of stars, galaxies, planets, people, cells and genetic structures.
unquote. So that's very factual.
But then he goes on to say:
The only mystery is the Higgs field itself. I have specualted that this field acts as a mind field - the mind of God, so to speak. I have further speculated that the field generates tachyons that interact with fermions through exchange of bosons and in so doing we see how a logical seemingly mind-like activity comes into existence throughout the whole universe.
and so on.
That's about as Chopra - like as he gets I think and it's excusable, permissible, acceptable. I think.
Haven't read it all.
It is on my list for revisiting again and again until I've devoured and retained it all. Probably the best doorway to an understanding of the basic nature of our reality that I'll find.