Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything

by peat

"Peat grapples with these amazingly recondite notions and succeeds brilliantly in making them clear." --Publishers Weekly

Genres: Physics, Science, Nonfiction, Popular Science

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Makennah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peat often repeats himself throughout this book, even repeating graphs, figures, and sentences or phrases. He could easily have just referred back to the first instance in which he mentioned a certain topic, but instead he decided to just re-explain the same topic again. This became irritating and made it difficult to concentrate on the overall content.

However, if you can get past the repetition and the fact that the book is slightly outdated, the subject is fascinating and I did manage to learn quite a bit about string theory.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good overview of the problem in physics between Relativity and Quantum mechanics, how string theory might be the solution, and how Superstrings has evolved as a possible contender for the Theory of Everything, tying all of physics together into one unified theory. As a non-physicist, some of this was over my head, or more details than I wanted to know, but the explanations were for the layman and easy to understand.

[kleeklaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

kinda heavy at times. only got about halfway through this one so far. i pick it up and read some every so often when i want to be good and confused for a couple days.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Old and boring. There are so many new pop physics books out, why would you read this one?

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but very hard to get through.

[Marman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too be perfectly honest most of the materials in this book went over my head. I'll have to sharpen my understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics before I try to read this book again.

[Brian Pinnock · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry.

[Ajay Ramesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It astounding how well the author brings all the intricacies of a such a complicated theory to his audience without putting down a single equation!

[Selva]

It is a general gist about Superstring and Twistor theory. It is not so technical, mostly it explains the notions associated with theories analogically using elementary mathematics. Since these fields are more abstract in nature, explaining them in analogical manner seems reasonable for general readers. However, author keeps reiterating certain things unnecessarily. If it has been made crisp, the entire book can be shrunk to half the pages.