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Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks
How does the physics we know today - a highly professionalised enterprise, inextricably linked to government and industry - link back to its origins as a liberal art in Ancient Greece? What is the path that leads from the old philosophy of nature and its concern with humankind's place in the universe to modern massive international projects that hunt down fundamental particles and industrial laboratories that manufacture marvels?John Heilbron's fascinating history of physics introduces us to Islamic astronomers and mathematicians, calculating the size of the earth whilst their caliphs conquered much of it; to medieval scholar-theologians investigating light; to Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, measuring, and trying to explain, the universe. We visit the 'House of Wisdom' in 9th-century Baghdad; Europe's first universities; the courts of the Renaissance; the Scientific Revolution and the academies of the 18thcentury; the increasingly specialised world of 20th and 21st century science.Highlighting the shifting relationship between physics, philosophy, mathematics, and technology — and the implications for humankind's self-understanding — Heilbron explores the changing place and purpose of physics in the cultures and societies that have nurtured it over the centuries.
245 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 9, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 9, 2020
At 200 pages, this is definitely a short history. The math and formulas are kept to a minimum, but even so - this book focused more on the theories and nuances of physics than I expected. The writing is solid and moves along, but it's not as accessible as Neil deGrass Tyson.
February 7, 2016
I gave it my best shot, but having only made it to page 45, I am either woefully ignorant and lacking in intellectual perseverance, or this short history is too long. I was excited to have discovered this seemingly approachable mashup of two favs- physics and history which could have been great if it had been written with an intelligent, educated lay person in mind. Unfortunately, for me, and presumably other non-rocket scientists, the style is unnecessarily formal and complex resulting in a pretentious tone that left me feeling rather dull. Maybe Heilbron, who is inarguably a great thinker and scientist, could team up with a smart writer/teacher who could translate and re-write a version that has greater mass understanding. I'm thinking of how Malcolm Gladwell brought sociology to the masses helping us think more deeply about how we think and interact with each other both individually and collectively.
April 11, 2021
A fascinating concept ill-treated. I found the writing style muddled and difficult to get through. The first sections of the book set in antiquity flip between cosmology and mathematical philosophy without making clear what constituted physical theory itself. Once the account passed into modernity, the overwhelming pace of advancement in the field overwhelms the greater structural narrative as we are rushed through accounts of discovery after discovery.
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April 11, 2018This book is short, but dense. Squeezing the whole history of physics from antiquity to the present in a few pages makes it a whirlwind tour. As an educated layperson, but not a scientist, some of the actual science was beyond me. I blipped over the formulas. But this is the short version of the short history.
Physics began when people began asking questions about the nature of the world around them. What are the stars? What is water? What is air? How do things work the way they do, and why? The first physicist were the Greek philosophers. In the academies they did more thinking than experimenting, but they contemplated the elements, the heavens, motion and what caused it. Aristotle in particular tried to systemize knowledge about the physical world into his own Theory of Everything, for which he would be revered by intellectuals for years to come.
The Romans sought out the Greeks as sources of information. After the fall of Rome, the center of intellectual life shifted to the Islamic world, and many texts of philosophy were translated into Arabic, where they were called falsafa. The Muslims made progress studying astronomy and mechanics, and the invention of the astrolabe was one of their crowning achievements.
Europe began to emerge from the Dark Ages, and founded universities, and the great philosophical and scientific texts were translated again, from Arabic to Latin. Progress was made in astronomy, leading to Galileo's famous conflict with the church. (Islamic scholars had sometimes had a similar problem with their own religious leaders, as the skeptical, questioning basis of science has sometimes been seen as an affront to those who believe in an obedient faith.) Other gains in Europe had to do with the needs of navigation, and growing business and industry.
The Enlightenment set science free to experiment. The famous names of Descartes and Newton appear. Scientific societies were formed, giving public lectures, and public displays of electricity, magnetism, and the properties of gases.
In the 19th century, the famous names come faster and furiouser: Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Rutherford, the Curies, Bohr, with the discovery of the properties of atoms, and the periodic table.
In the 20th century, the US becomes the center of physics, especially as many European scientists sought refuge from the war, including Einstein. More knowledge of atomic particles followed, and the development of quantum theory. Computers, big telescopes, particle colliders, and other big machines
became the drivers of physics.
In the last chapter Heilbron takes us back to the philosophical beginning. What does everything mean? What is the humanity's place in the grand scheme of things? It doesn't look good, as the universe is huge, and indifferent, and our sun will burn itself out, and we will all die, but if we search and ask questions we will see what we can do.
Some have complained that the writing style of this book is too difficult. Heilbron does have an above-average vocabulary, with words like adumbrated, congeries, stultification, and vituperation. But I have an above-average vocabulary, too, so I didn't mind. And within that wordy frame, the style is surprisingly jaunty. Heilbron packs in the facts, but often with a light touch, even making little jokes sometimes (which, unfortunately I don't have any examples of).
Physics began when people began asking questions about the nature of the world around them. What are the stars? What is water? What is air? How do things work the way they do, and why? The first physicist were the Greek philosophers. In the academies they did more thinking than experimenting, but they contemplated the elements, the heavens, motion and what caused it. Aristotle in particular tried to systemize knowledge about the physical world into his own Theory of Everything, for which he would be revered by intellectuals for years to come.
The Romans sought out the Greeks as sources of information. After the fall of Rome, the center of intellectual life shifted to the Islamic world, and many texts of philosophy were translated into Arabic, where they were called falsafa. The Muslims made progress studying astronomy and mechanics, and the invention of the astrolabe was one of their crowning achievements.
Europe began to emerge from the Dark Ages, and founded universities, and the great philosophical and scientific texts were translated again, from Arabic to Latin. Progress was made in astronomy, leading to Galileo's famous conflict with the church. (Islamic scholars had sometimes had a similar problem with their own religious leaders, as the skeptical, questioning basis of science has sometimes been seen as an affront to those who believe in an obedient faith.) Other gains in Europe had to do with the needs of navigation, and growing business and industry.
The Enlightenment set science free to experiment. The famous names of Descartes and Newton appear. Scientific societies were formed, giving public lectures, and public displays of electricity, magnetism, and the properties of gases.
In the 19th century, the famous names come faster and furiouser: Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Rutherford, the Curies, Bohr, with the discovery of the properties of atoms, and the periodic table.
In the 20th century, the US becomes the center of physics, especially as many European scientists sought refuge from the war, including Einstein. More knowledge of atomic particles followed, and the development of quantum theory. Computers, big telescopes, particle colliders, and other big machines
became the drivers of physics.
In the last chapter Heilbron takes us back to the philosophical beginning. What does everything mean? What is the humanity's place in the grand scheme of things? It doesn't look good, as the universe is huge, and indifferent, and our sun will burn itself out, and we will all die, but if we search and ask questions we will see what we can do.
Some have complained that the writing style of this book is too difficult. Heilbron does have an above-average vocabulary, with words like adumbrated, congeries, stultification, and vituperation. But I have an above-average vocabulary, too, so I didn't mind. And within that wordy frame, the style is surprisingly jaunty. Heilbron packs in the facts, but often with a light touch, even making little jokes sometimes (which, unfortunately I don't have any examples of).
September 15, 2017
For the most part, this book is an excellent and somewhat high-level look at the larger patterns of the history of physics from ancient Greece to today. Yet there are a couple of aspects of this book that detract from its overall pleasure to me as a reader who sometimes enters the realm of reading about the history of science and mathematics [1]. For one, the author seems particularly anti-American, gloating over what he perceives as a growing internationalism in science, and an anti-American attitude is not something I tolerate particularly well in works of any nature. The second problem is a greater problem, and that is the way that the author's defective religious and cosmological worldview leads him into great despair: "If humankind accepts the responsibility and the concomitant loss of providential deities and sacred dicta, the human species might beat the odds against the survival of an electromagnetic civilization, preserve the Earth, and in the fullness of time, arrive at several satisfactory theories of Everything (200)." Unfortunately, without a proper attention to those sacred dicta and the providential hand of a beneficent Deity, it seems unlikely we will survive. The author makes a non sequitor by disastrously conflating moral decline and human survival, and this pessimism and lack of moral sense shows a great deal of what is wrong with the author's approach.
Thankfully, most of the content of this book avoids such disastrous logical and moral error. The author divides this 200-page text into seven chapters, the seventh and last one on the quintessential being a very short one. The other six chapters look at the beginning of science as we would view it in the Greek world, the preservation of science selectively in the Muslim world of the early Middle Ages, the domestication of science in Europe during the latter part of the Middle Ages, the second creation of science in the world of the Renaissance and the so-called enlightenment, "classical" physics in the post-Newton world and its cure in the early 1900's, and the move of science excellence from the Old World to the New World in the 20th century. Overall, the book's historical approach pays a great deal of attention to issues of the cultures and institutions in which scientists have worked and which has influenced their viewpoints and perspectives. The author seems to have a great deal of fondness for government largess as well as a broad-minded view of culture as a whole, so it is not as if the author is entirely lacking in praiseworthy qualities as he conducts a very thoughtful examination of the history of science.
Ultimately, though, this book is hindered by its worldview. The author simply cannot resist trying to score points by being critical of people in the history of science from the perspective of chronological snobbery. This book is full of witty comments, but some of them appear quite mean-spirited, and this author does not appear like someone one would want to eat dinner with and have a conversation with, which in a book like this that depends a great deal on the warmth and humanity of the author is a critical mistake. There is a great deal of interest to be found here, but this book fails on its first principles, and so it is of limited value to a reader who is looking for something more than an entertaining story about science in worlds gone by. The author's pessimism and his despair at the lack of other interstellar societies to communicate with lead him to a belief that our survival is in grave peril and that unless bigoted scientists like himself are given control of humanity than our potential for survival is hopeless. If this is the sort of thing many scientists believe, then we ought to have a good deal less faith in them than we seem to at present.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2010...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
Thankfully, most of the content of this book avoids such disastrous logical and moral error. The author divides this 200-page text into seven chapters, the seventh and last one on the quintessential being a very short one. The other six chapters look at the beginning of science as we would view it in the Greek world, the preservation of science selectively in the Muslim world of the early Middle Ages, the domestication of science in Europe during the latter part of the Middle Ages, the second creation of science in the world of the Renaissance and the so-called enlightenment, "classical" physics in the post-Newton world and its cure in the early 1900's, and the move of science excellence from the Old World to the New World in the 20th century. Overall, the book's historical approach pays a great deal of attention to issues of the cultures and institutions in which scientists have worked and which has influenced their viewpoints and perspectives. The author seems to have a great deal of fondness for government largess as well as a broad-minded view of culture as a whole, so it is not as if the author is entirely lacking in praiseworthy qualities as he conducts a very thoughtful examination of the history of science.
Ultimately, though, this book is hindered by its worldview. The author simply cannot resist trying to score points by being critical of people in the history of science from the perspective of chronological snobbery. This book is full of witty comments, but some of them appear quite mean-spirited, and this author does not appear like someone one would want to eat dinner with and have a conversation with, which in a book like this that depends a great deal on the warmth and humanity of the author is a critical mistake. There is a great deal of interest to be found here, but this book fails on its first principles, and so it is of limited value to a reader who is looking for something more than an entertaining story about science in worlds gone by. The author's pessimism and his despair at the lack of other interstellar societies to communicate with lead him to a belief that our survival is in grave peril and that unless bigoted scientists like himself are given control of humanity than our potential for survival is hopeless. If this is the sort of thing many scientists believe, then we ought to have a good deal less faith in them than we seem to at present.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2010...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
December 18, 2015
Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks is a science book meant for both science geeks and layman who want to learn the origins of science. The author takes you back to the Greeks and then on to modern times exploring various great thinkers/scholars/mathematicians/scientists and how they came up with their ideas that changes the man's relationship the world but also how this knowledge changed the culture and society. It described how this knowledge was built up over time to what it is today. I am a science geek with no science back ground except being a nurse and I found it easy to follow. Parts sounded like a text book but when you are dealing with this much science, some of it has to sound like this, lol. For the most part, it flows well about people, society, discoveries, implications for man, and was well written for anyone. If this is the kind of book you like, you will love this! I reviewed this book for NetGalley.
May 25, 2020
This was hard going. It’s more of an undergrad text than a popular science book and assumes more physics knowledge than the average layperson would have. I’ve taken undergrad physics courses and this was really hard for me to read.
It’s dense and full of unexplained Latin phrases and equations. Occasionally there is a glimpse of the humour of the author but mainly this was a slog to read. Unusually for me I’m selling it, even tho it’s signed. It deserves an owner who’ll appreciate it.
884
It’s dense and full of unexplained Latin phrases and equations. Occasionally there is a glimpse of the humour of the author but mainly this was a slog to read. Unusually for me I’m selling it, even tho it’s signed. It deserves an owner who’ll appreciate it.
884
December 25, 2022
How much can you put in one book before it becomes too heavy?
John Heilbronn knows his stuff and writes well. However, this book is a quickie on Physics and related disciplines from history to today.
It is neat that Heilbronn mentions the Superconducting Super Collider. I sold a lot of copper wire to the project and later a dozen or so small computers. I was looking forward to getting a position there. Too bad the governor of Arkansas dissed it or we would have been making most of the physics discovery; it would also double as a low-frequency transmitter worldwide.
John Heilbronn shows in chapter 1, that we were doing a pretty good job of figuring out everything when the Christians threw in a Monkeywrench.
Chapter 2 shows that despite their there backward Christians, the Islamic world saved our bacon by translating Greek to Arabic, keeping physics alive, and expanding on it.
Chapter 3 we finally bake it back to the west; we get Galileo, Kepler, and Frances Bacon. Still, there is some Christian flack.
At this point in chapter three, John Heilbronn mentions Galileo’s book “Discourses on Two New Sciences” in 1638 as a dissertation on shipbuilding. Stephen Hawking thought it was about Copernicus, in reality, it is just a bunch of geometry and physics of motion presented in the form of a dialog.
By chapter 4 the titles in the book suffice for this review:
Revolution or integration:
…Sextus Empiricus (around 200 CE)
…Newton’s scheme
…Johannes Kepler
…Tycho measurements of the 1577 comet
Quite a few others are all packed into paragraphs.
The invention of physics:
…Isaac Newton and many of his contemporaries.
… Benjamin Franklin
…The Leyden jar and electricity
…Charles Augustin Coulomb and his two electrified pith balls
…Joseph Priestley
…Alessandro Volta
Chapter 5 takes us into the nineteenth century.
The name and inventions come fast and furious and once again are super packed so you will need to use this book as a starting point for further reading.
Chapter 6 From the Old World to the new.
Just as the title implies; we wiz through a couple of world wars and their effect on our study of physics. Then we are treated to a barrage of various technical names for all kinds of physics. Unfortunately, the book is not large enough to expand on any of the physics principles that we are slightly exposed to. We are treated as the reason that the US now and in the foreseeable future dominates in the research of physics because we contribute more of our GDP in that direction.
Chapter 7 The Quintessential
Gods place
Physics place
Niels Bohr
David Gross (Santa Barbara)
*** even the CERN Large Hadron Collider gets an upgrade
We get a few monochrome sketches and photos when needed. There are no footnotes or timelines. There are references and a list of further reading.
John Heilbronn knows his stuff and writes well. However, this book is a quickie on Physics and related disciplines from history to today.
It is neat that Heilbronn mentions the Superconducting Super Collider. I sold a lot of copper wire to the project and later a dozen or so small computers. I was looking forward to getting a position there. Too bad the governor of Arkansas dissed it or we would have been making most of the physics discovery; it would also double as a low-frequency transmitter worldwide.
John Heilbronn shows in chapter 1, that we were doing a pretty good job of figuring out everything when the Christians threw in a Monkeywrench.
Chapter 2 shows that despite their there backward Christians, the Islamic world saved our bacon by translating Greek to Arabic, keeping physics alive, and expanding on it.
Chapter 3 we finally bake it back to the west; we get Galileo, Kepler, and Frances Bacon. Still, there is some Christian flack.
At this point in chapter three, John Heilbronn mentions Galileo’s book “Discourses on Two New Sciences” in 1638 as a dissertation on shipbuilding. Stephen Hawking thought it was about Copernicus, in reality, it is just a bunch of geometry and physics of motion presented in the form of a dialog.
By chapter 4 the titles in the book suffice for this review:
Revolution or integration:
…Sextus Empiricus (around 200 CE)
…Newton’s scheme
…Johannes Kepler
…Tycho measurements of the 1577 comet
Quite a few others are all packed into paragraphs.
The invention of physics:
…Isaac Newton and many of his contemporaries.
… Benjamin Franklin
…The Leyden jar and electricity
…Charles Augustin Coulomb and his two electrified pith balls
…Joseph Priestley
…Alessandro Volta
Chapter 5 takes us into the nineteenth century.
The name and inventions come fast and furious and once again are super packed so you will need to use this book as a starting point for further reading.
Chapter 6 From the Old World to the new.
Just as the title implies; we wiz through a couple of world wars and their effect on our study of physics. Then we are treated to a barrage of various technical names for all kinds of physics. Unfortunately, the book is not large enough to expand on any of the physics principles that we are slightly exposed to. We are treated as the reason that the US now and in the foreseeable future dominates in the research of physics because we contribute more of our GDP in that direction.
Chapter 7 The Quintessential
Gods place
Physics place
Niels Bohr
David Gross (Santa Barbara)
*** even the CERN Large Hadron Collider gets an upgrade
We get a few monochrome sketches and photos when needed. There are no footnotes or timelines. There are references and a list of further reading.
September 20, 2024
Like a book-length breakout box, herein recounts the standard whiggish perspective of the philosophically inclined physicist. Heilbron is committed to extreme brevity. The obvious casualty is biography, leaving little more than names accompanying outlines of corresponding beliefs. We sometimes get brief sketches of key arguments, but even these are incomplete for brevity’s sake (though the details are within a short pursuit of thought). The extreme terseness is fortified by a dangerously confident style which hides the greater casualty, millennia of contradiction, detail, and complexity. Heilbron’s redeeming feature is that his narrative, despite suspect fidelity to real history, accurately explains how the modern physicist sees himself and his intellectual tradition.
If you have received a technical education and worry that your beliefs from that experience exist apart from your overall belief system, or if vulgar science is your only belief system but you desire something more expansive, a trail awaits: breaking the technicalities of modern science into humanistic claims and fitting those claims into a philosophical worldview. It is a long-term project that few if any ever complete, but ambitious projects must start somewhere, and you’ll be happy to know: this book makes a great quick and dirty fastener between technical knowledge and the philosophical tradition.
If you have received a technical education and worry that your beliefs from that experience exist apart from your overall belief system, or if vulgar science is your only belief system but you desire something more expansive, a trail awaits: breaking the technicalities of modern science into humanistic claims and fitting those claims into a philosophical worldview. It is a long-term project that few if any ever complete, but ambitious projects must start somewhere, and you’ll be happy to know: this book makes a great quick and dirty fastener between technical knowledge and the philosophical tradition.
September 28, 2022
Je m'attendais pas à ce que ça soit si bien. Il arrive à faire beaucoup de connexions intéressantes entre différents périodes et j'ai aimé qu'il parle de l'état des institutions à certaines périodes, le rôle de Polytechnique en France, les instituts allemands ou la Big Science américaine et leur philosophie plus pragmatique en comparaison de celle des européens. J'ai surligné plein de choses que j'aimerais relire.
September 6, 2017
Interesting, but a very dense book. It covers thousands of years of history in philosophy and physics in a couple hundred years. This book requires a fair amount of knowledge about the subject - many things are glossed over or mentioned in passing, assuming the reader already knows it. The bibliography in the back was very helpful, too. The author really knows this subject!
July 17, 2018
In my opinion, this history was simply too short. I also think much of the history Heilbron described during the 20th century in the United States, was actually more accomplishments in engineering than in physics, but that's just my opinion.
January 5, 2020
Heilbron takes on the impossible task of providing an overview of the entirety of the history of physics. While expectedly jam packed, arbitrary emphasis on certain ideas and thinkers over others leaves one wanting more of a narrative arc.
May 22, 2020
Surprise, surprise - there are still things about physics I do not understand - haha- yet, I enjoyed the exposure given here. Physics seems like magic to me and I’m a bit envious of those who understand its powers.
March 25, 2018
The interesting titbits found in this book are obfuscated by the impenetrable flowery writing. Despite my being a PhD physicist, it was a real struggle to bring myself to finish this book - it has put me off reading popular science for the foreseeable future.
October 6, 2024
Çok daha iyi bir çeviriyi hak eden antik dönemden günümüze hızlandırılmış bilim tarihi kitabı.
October 10, 2024
Not exactly what I expected. The last chapter provides the whole essence though.
January 18, 2016
In Physics: A Short History from Quintessence to Quarks, John Heilbron sets himself an ambitious task: to cover some 2500 years of scientific development in a few hundred pages. Thinking about non-fiction in terms of pacing seems odd, but one of the things I thought about most while reading Physics was that it was moving too fast for me. Ironic? Maybe.
The book jumps rapidly through time, pausing occasionally to linger on critical moments in the history of the study of physics. In a way, that makes it an excellent book for the layperson/enthusiast, since it can point interested readers to periods of time that pique their curiosity in particular. For my part, I now want to read much more about the development of astronomy and mathematics in the age of Muslim intellectualism, the ancient Greek schools, and 19th and 20th century developments.
There are portions of Physics where Heilbron relies heavily on jargon and lightly-defined terminology. I consider this a point against the book, only if this is the reader's first foray into the casual study of physics. I thought I was familiar with a fair amount of concepts and terms in physics, but I found myself lost more than a few times when Heilbron tossed a term or equation into the mix, satisfied that it served as a solid enough basis for continuing his sprint through hundreds of years of inquiry.
Part of making that sprint possible is the careful selection of details to focus on; alternatively, that can be seen as the careful selection of details to omit. It was fascinating to get the occasional glimpse into the broader sociological conditions that aided or hindered the development of scientific thought, and I would have loved to dig a bit deeper into the broader settings in which some of the more monumental discoveries were made.
I suppose that's the crux of my experience reading Physics: it moved so fast that I wanted a longer history of physics. As it is, this is a very good book to whet the appetite of a dabbler in science literature—the perfect foray into other, more detailed accounts of the epochs Of scientific discovery. In a perfect world, Physics: A Short History would serve as a long-form index, and Heilbron would release several other books that take a closer look at some of the moments touched so briefly in this book.
Caveat Emptor. If you haven't read many books on physics, consider putting this one a few rungs down the list, after reading some simpler texts. If you're somewhat familiar with the content, dig in—this is a hearty and filling sampler that spans centuries of cerebral achievement.
The book jumps rapidly through time, pausing occasionally to linger on critical moments in the history of the study of physics. In a way, that makes it an excellent book for the layperson/enthusiast, since it can point interested readers to periods of time that pique their curiosity in particular. For my part, I now want to read much more about the development of astronomy and mathematics in the age of Muslim intellectualism, the ancient Greek schools, and 19th and 20th century developments.
There are portions of Physics where Heilbron relies heavily on jargon and lightly-defined terminology. I consider this a point against the book, only if this is the reader's first foray into the casual study of physics. I thought I was familiar with a fair amount of concepts and terms in physics, but I found myself lost more than a few times when Heilbron tossed a term or equation into the mix, satisfied that it served as a solid enough basis for continuing his sprint through hundreds of years of inquiry.
Part of making that sprint possible is the careful selection of details to focus on; alternatively, that can be seen as the careful selection of details to omit. It was fascinating to get the occasional glimpse into the broader sociological conditions that aided or hindered the development of scientific thought, and I would have loved to dig a bit deeper into the broader settings in which some of the more monumental discoveries were made.
I suppose that's the crux of my experience reading Physics: it moved so fast that I wanted a longer history of physics. As it is, this is a very good book to whet the appetite of a dabbler in science literature—the perfect foray into other, more detailed accounts of the epochs Of scientific discovery. In a perfect world, Physics: A Short History would serve as a long-form index, and Heilbron would release several other books that take a closer look at some of the moments touched so briefly in this book.
Caveat Emptor. If you haven't read many books on physics, consider putting this one a few rungs down the list, after reading some simpler texts. If you're somewhat familiar with the content, dig in—this is a hearty and filling sampler that spans centuries of cerebral achievement.
December 15, 2015
"Physics" is a brief history of metaphysics and physics in Europe, the Middle East, and the USA. It's not really about the ideas or how they built on each other, but rather what people thought of these ideas and how ideas competed with each other. The first third of the book mainly focused on what various people thought about Aristotle's physica & metaphysical writings. After that, mathematics were mentioned more often. The last half covered changing ideas through experimentation.
The author would name a person, when he lived, and give an extremely brief description of how they applied, preserved, debated, or modified previous people's ideas or what new idea they had. He assumed the reader had a level of knowledge about physics that I haven't retained from my high school physics course. He'd refer to a Rule, formula, or discovery and assume the reader knew what he was talking about, so he didn't explain further. For example, we're told Descartes wrote "on how to improve telescope lenses and how the lenses and muscles of the eye works" and that's all we get on that.
The author also used a formal tone and technical language, which didn't make for easy reading. For someone already familiar with these ideas, this book might help show how these ideas were debated over time. But since I was mostly unfamiliar with the ideas, I had a hard time grasping why these ideas even mattered since their impact on society wasn't usually explained.
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
The author would name a person, when he lived, and give an extremely brief description of how they applied, preserved, debated, or modified previous people's ideas or what new idea they had. He assumed the reader had a level of knowledge about physics that I haven't retained from my high school physics course. He'd refer to a Rule, formula, or discovery and assume the reader knew what he was talking about, so he didn't explain further. For example, we're told Descartes wrote "on how to improve telescope lenses and how the lenses and muscles of the eye works" and that's all we get on that.
The author also used a formal tone and technical language, which didn't make for easy reading. For someone already familiar with these ideas, this book might help show how these ideas were debated over time. But since I was mostly unfamiliar with the ideas, I had a hard time grasping why these ideas even mattered since their impact on society wasn't usually explained.
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
January 7, 2016
We often forget when considering scientific advancement that it did not occur in a bubble. Knowledge is something developed in relation to the world around it, moulded by cultures that are made up of people.
‘Physics a Short History’ is an interesting progression from the ancient world to modern day. Now we might scoff at the beliefs the ancients had in the gods to explain why things happened in the everyday tangible world, but this book takes us back to those times and makes us really think how radical thinkers like Aristotle, Plato and Lucretius really were. Radical, considering that they often went again the received wisdom of the authorities causing themselves great personal peril. Even as late as the seventeenth-century, Galileo was forced to recant his views on heliocentrism.
We are also reminded of the many cultures that have come and gone, contributing to the knowledge we possess today and that we are indeed ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.
But this is not just a book for scientists or the curious. It is a very useful source book for fiction writers wanting to gain some historical orientation with regards to the rich blending of philosophy, physics and maths with cultures. This makes it particularly useful to those writing alternative histories or contemplating an imaginary world with a certain level technologies and how their citizens might be interacting with them or developing them and in what context.
J.L. Helibron’s writing provides good depth to the subject and a clear read in what is a very brief book.
‘Physics a Short History’ is an interesting progression from the ancient world to modern day. Now we might scoff at the beliefs the ancients had in the gods to explain why things happened in the everyday tangible world, but this book takes us back to those times and makes us really think how radical thinkers like Aristotle, Plato and Lucretius really were. Radical, considering that they often went again the received wisdom of the authorities causing themselves great personal peril. Even as late as the seventeenth-century, Galileo was forced to recant his views on heliocentrism.
We are also reminded of the many cultures that have come and gone, contributing to the knowledge we possess today and that we are indeed ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.
But this is not just a book for scientists or the curious. It is a very useful source book for fiction writers wanting to gain some historical orientation with regards to the rich blending of philosophy, physics and maths with cultures. This makes it particularly useful to those writing alternative histories or contemplating an imaginary world with a certain level technologies and how their citizens might be interacting with them or developing them and in what context.
J.L. Helibron’s writing provides good depth to the subject and a clear read in what is a very brief book.
May 10, 2016
J. L. Heilbron's Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks is a wonderful telling of how the science of physics we know today as heavily advanced mathematics developed from antiquity's liberal arts. Written for the layperson who has an interest in both history and science, this book travels quickly through time touching down at key moments that helped transform physics.
There is not a lot of terminology or concepts that should require much looking up elsewhere for clarification, though many places will benefit from either refreshing one's knowledge or gaining a better knowledge of a person, era or principle. I think the book stands well without doing so and such additional research can be saved for sections the reader finds particularly interesting.
This should appeal to most readers of history, particularly history of science, as well as those interested in science who wonder how we have gotten to where we are.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
There is not a lot of terminology or concepts that should require much looking up elsewhere for clarification, though many places will benefit from either refreshing one's knowledge or gaining a better knowledge of a person, era or principle. I think the book stands well without doing so and such additional research can be saved for sections the reader finds particularly interesting.
This should appeal to most readers of history, particularly history of science, as well as those interested in science who wonder how we have gotten to where we are.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
November 20, 2015
Not knowing that much about this branch of the sciences, I was eager to learn about how the Ancient Greeks and Persians, to name but a few, found out about the world.
This is a well written, easily understandable book and one that I shall be happy to quote from when my physics teacher son brings up the subject!
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review
This is a well written, easily understandable book and one that I shall be happy to quote from when my physics teacher son brings up the subject!
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review
November 30, 2015
Una presentazione diversa della storia della Fisica. Merita di essere letto, anche per il sapore "erudito" del linguaggio. Proprio per questo ha messo a prova il mio misero inglese.
April 23, 2017
The book talks about the history of physics from Europe to Islam to the Renaissance. It also talks about the people who impacted Physics's history such as Galileo, Newton, Bohr and many others. Even though physics is taught at school it has real word impact, as people learn physics to become " courteous, just and honest." The ancient aqueducts were created using physics. In Islam, the House of Wisdom boasted a library and an a observatory. This structure was used to check the empire's size from the estimates from Ptolemy and Eratosthenes.
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