Amazon.com
As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers. Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best. With Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger) brings Einstein's experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus. The book is the first biography to tackle Einstein's enormous volume of personal correspondence that heretofore had been sealed from the public, and it's hard to imagine another book that could do such a richly textured and complicated life as Einstein's the same thoughtful justice. Isaacson is a master of the form and this latest opus is at once arresting and wonderfully revelatory. --Anne Bartholomew
Read "The Light-Beam Rider," the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Five Questions for Walter Isaacson
Amazon.com: What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein's ideas?
Isaacson: I've always loved science, and I had a group of great physicists--such as Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, and Murray Gell-Mann--who tutored me, helped me learn the physics, and checked various versions of my book. I also learned the tensor calculus underlying general relativity, but tried to avoid spending too much time on it in the book. I wanted to capture the imaginative beauty of Einstein's scientific leaps, but I hope folks who want to delve more deeply into the science will read Einstein books by such scientists as Abraham Pais, Jeremy Bernstein, Brian Greene, and others.
Amazon.com: That Einstein was a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office when he revolutionized our understanding of the physical world has often been treated as ironic or even absurd. But you argue that in many ways his time there fostered his discoveries. Could you explain?
Isaacson: I think he was lucky to be at the patent office rather than serving as an acolyte in the academy trying to please senior professors and teach the conventional wisdom. As a patent examiner, he got to visualize the physical realities underlying scientific concepts. He had a boss who told him to question every premise and assumption. And as Peter Galison shows in Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, many of the patent applications involved synchronizing clocks using signals that traveled at the speed of light. So with his office-mate Michele Besso as a sounding board, he was primed to make the leap to special relativity.
Amazon.com: That time in the patent office makes him sound far more like a practical scientist and tinkerer than the usual image of the wild-haired professor, and more like your previous biographical subject, the multitalented but eminently earthly Benjamin Franklin. Did you see connections between them?
Isaacson: I like writing about creativity, and that's what Franklin and Einstein shared. They also had great curiosity and imagination. But Franklin was a more practical man who was not very theoretical, and Einstein was the opposite in that regard.
Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true?
Isaacson: The least true legend is that he failed math as a schoolboy. He was actually great in math, because he could visualize equations. He knew they were nature's brushstrokes for painting her wonders. For example, he could look at Maxwell's equations and marvel at what it would be like to ride alongside a light wave, and he could look at Max Planck's equations about radiation and realize that Planck's constant meant that light was a particle as well as a wave. The most true legend is how rebellious and defiant of authority he was. You see it in his politics, his personal life, and his science.
Amazon.com: At Time and CNN and the Aspen Institute, you've worked with many of the leading thinkers and leaders of the day. Now that you've had the chance to get to know Einstein so well, did he remind you of anyone from our day who shares at least some of his remarkable qualities?
Isaacson: There are many creative scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, who wrote the essay on Einstein as "Person of the Century" when I was editor of Time. In the world of technology, Steve Jobs has the same creative imagination and ability to think differently that distinguished Einstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity. I wish I knew politicians who had the creativity and human instincts of Einstein, or for that matter the wise feel for our common values of Benjamin Franklin.
More to Explore
Book Description
By the author of the acclaimed bestseller Benjamin Franklin, this is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available.
How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom.
Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk -- a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate -- became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.
These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.
Customer Reviews:
A well orchestrated mix of personal history and revolutionary scientific discovery.......2007-10-09
A story of amazing power of reason in Einstein's early years but in the later years a sad story of his reason being foiled by of all things, scientific observations ("spooky" ones to be sure). When he died Einstein was still struggling with the idea that..."The reasonable thing just doesn't work.".
Excellent!.......2007-10-09
Excellently written and researched book. Very fascinating and engaging.
Even the scientific discussions were easy to understand.
I highly recommend this book.
A Must Read.......2007-10-07
A wonderful book which gives full and equal weight to both the man and the ideas which made him great, as well as the lasting place of those ideas in the history of scientific thought, if not of human thought itself. And on that latter point, the reader's debt to Isaacson is undoubtedly primarily for his continuing emphasis on Einstein's modus operandi: thought experiments, by which through the exercise merely of pure thought and a perspective unhampered by received wisdoms, a man was able to change millennia-old views of how we viewed the universe, and by extension, changed the universe itself. Whose thinking could remain uninfluenced by such a display of the power of thought?
Absolutely Fantastic.......2007-10-03
This biography reads like a story, creating suspense and other emotions that you experince while reading fiction. Einstein provides great insight into Einstein's mind and life. Highly recommended.
Greatest Book Ever on Einstein.......2007-10-03
I am 75 years old and have read over a dozen books on Einstein and his work, including his own. This is the best book ever on the personal life and tribulations of a great scientist as he trys to get his work done. With all the flaws and worts of a human the scientist struggles on.
Average customer rating:
- It was a good deal too
- Theoretical background for Operations Management - setting a new standard
- written with the heart of a teacher
- Exceptional enlightened and insightful!
- Excellent and valuable book
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Factory Physics Second Edition
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Similar Items:
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Value Stream Management
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The Toyota Way
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Modeling and Analysis of Manufacturing Systems
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Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
ASIN: 0256247951 |
Book Description
Comprehensive Introduction to Manufacturing Management text covering the behavior laws at work in factories. Examines operating policies and strategic objectives. Hopp presents the concepts of manufacturing processes and controls within a "physics" or "laws of nature" analogy--a novel approach. There is enough quantitative material for an engineer's course, as well as narrative that a management major can understand and apply.
Customer Reviews:
It was a good deal too.......2007-08-16
The Book was in Excellent shape. It was a good deal too
thank you
Theoretical background for Operations Management - setting a new standard.......2006-10-03
This book provides you with the fundamental insights of manufacturing and assembly. Even though I do not like statistics to much, the book is written in a understandable manner and provides the fundamental knowledge to understand what is going on in manufacturing. Based on this knowledge, the flaw of MRP-systems are even explained as well as the basics of JIT/Lean. The book provides mainly the hardfacts of this science and for practical people, reading first Quick-Response-Manufacturing (from Rajan Suri) might be the easier way for many of us and gives you the motivation to take a deeper look later on - as provided by Factory Physics.
Factory Physics describes not only how to describe a single workstation and the interactions between many of them, than as well the great importance of variability reduction in a production line and how to analyse it. CONWIP-lines, as a mix of push-pull, are a central key in this book and a simple way to analyse the performance of any system is provided by the book. This book, together with Quick-Response-Manufacturing (this book includes important softfactores as well) have changed drastically my way of operational thinking and given me a sense, which system to apply (QRM or JIT/Lean) and why. The insight can even be used for services as well. One central point is the utilisation of a workstation and the knowledge, that the more you reduce variability in arrivals and processing, the higher the utilisation can be - still achieving low lead times. You will find as well important and simple laws helping you out in the daily business (Little's law and queueing theory).
As for JIT/Lean, lead time reduction can use the same japanese tools:
- SMED: setup-time reduction (lot sizes for reduction in lead time and WIP)
- TPM: productive maintenance (higher machine availability and decrease of variability)
- ZQC: fool-proof quality inspection for Zero defects (against capacity lost and to decrease variability)
All the books mentionned above, have a big advantage over traditional SCM-books: they provide you with a framework how to trim a single chain-element of the supply-chain and therefore how to built the whole supply chain. The operational strategy should be derived from the overall company strategy and with this new insights you can tailor a unique production system that fits your company's goals - or even give you an advantage over your competition. Anyway, it will not make obsolet the importance of having a sound and consistant overall business strategy (for your markets) first!
Enjoy reading, Best Regards
written with the heart of a teacher.......2006-03-13
Though the two authors are consultants, they are foremost - teachers. What is useful, and kind to a degree, is they put an effort to explain the numbers as pragmatic as possible. That idea made this book very accessible. To the industrial engineers or those who are involved (and passionate) in operations or in understanding systems - next to the Industrial Engineering Handboook, this should be in our library.
Exceptional enlightened and insightful!.......2006-02-18
I found this book to be very insightful. It helps to explain many of my own observations in my factory. The authors did an excellent job of explaining the key concepts using only average use of mathematics and in simple layman's terms. The readers will only need basic mathematics/beginner calculus, and basic statistics. Reading it was like discovering new ideas to implement in the factory to quickly realize efficiencies and cost savings. It was one of the best books I have laid eyes on in a very long time.
I highly recommend this book for every mfg and production engineers working in assembly or automation-driven factory. This book is not applicable to chemical processing, thus may not bring significant values to chemical or petroleum engineers.
Excellent and valuable book.......2005-12-23
This is the best course textbook I have had so far over about ten industrial engineering courses (and I have had some very good textbooks and courses). The book basically describes how to analyze and improve manufacturing operations through examining key areas that include: variability and its sources, push and pull systems, and supply chain management.
The authors approach is to present ideas in a very clear and relevant way. What I particularly like is that they do a great job putting things into perspective in a style that is highly readable. While there is some math involved if one wants to delve into the details that are in side notes, a basic understanding of calculus is more than sufficient. The authors are clearly very bright and, more importantly, are able to communicate very effectively and with a sense of humor.
This book can definitely be read on a stand-alone basis outside of a school environment. Many of the central ideas are very valuable.
Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that physics—the basis for all other science—has lost its way. The problem is string theory, an ambitious attempt to formulate "a theory of everything" that explains all the forces and particles of nature and how the universe came to be. With its exotic new particles and parallel universes, string theory has captured the public"s imagination and seduced many physicists. But as Smolin reveals, there"s a deep flaw in the theory: no part of it has been proven, and no one knows how to prove it. As a scientific theory, it has been a colossal failure. And because it has soaked up the lion's share of funding, attracted some of the best minds, and penalized young physicists for pursuing other avenues, it is dragging the rest of physics down with it. With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin charts the rise and fall of string theory and takes a fascinating look at what will replace it. A group of young theorists has begun to develop exciting new ideas that are, unlike string theory, testable. Smolin tells us who and what to watch for in the coming years and how we can find the next Einstein. This is a wake-up call, and Lee Smolin—a former string theorist himself— is the perfect person to deliver it.
Customer Reviews:
Scientific progress is never cut and dried.......2007-10-08
Lee Smolin presents a harsh critique of the last 30 years in theoretical physics, written by one of its practitioners. He makes the excellent point that science is a human activity like anything else. Progress is always hard to predict; scientists can and do get caught up in dead ends. Smolin thinks string theory is one such dead end, and makes a good case for it.
I think that, if anything, Smolin is a little too gentle on the field. The development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs left a tremendous impression that big money put into physics would bring big results. In recent years that hasn't happened. There are so many unanswered questions out there in science, so many important fields where solutions are desperately needed. When I consider the construction and operation of particle accelerators and other high-tech equipment, I can't help but think of the huge cost. The same amount of cash invested elsewhere might have brought much more in the way of useful results.
I am the mother of a 10-year-old boy attending public school. His instruction sometimes seems to me like a mishmash of well-meaning educational reforms that have been implemented with little or no testing to see if they worked or not. I am frankly disgusted by the quality of most research in the area of education--sample sizes too small, no proper controls, subjects followed for too short a time, etc. The cost of operating a single particle accelerator for six weeks probably exceeds all the funding for educational research around the world for the entire year. Yet which has the most potential for making major progress? Maybe it's time to back off on funding big physics projects for a while.
I would also like to point out that the building and use of instrumentation for high-energy physics is highly dependent on cheap fossil fuels. The future supply of such fuels is by no means guaranteed. The peak oil problem appears to be largely ignored by high-energy physicists today, but has the potential to significantly affect their ability to conduct experiments.
I really enjoyed Smolin's chapters on looking for seers rather than technicians in science. I especially liked his description of how unconventional scientists have built a career without a university job. Smolin points out that a typical professor spends a majority of his week on teaching, grant proposals, administrative tasks, and the like, leaving a surprisingly small amount of time available for actual research. Having a day job outside the field is not as big a hurdle as it might seem.
I tend to agree with Smolin that the big advances of the future are likely to come from completely unexpected directions. I can't wait to see what they are.
physics from many angles.......2007-10-05
This book provided several discussions pf physics and quantum theory. its good because the author speaks of the history the the originators of physics theory and the current champions of thought.
A mixed bag.......2007-10-04
At the moment, string theory appears to have many (possibly an infinite number) of "metastable vacua", each of which would allow for a universe with its own laws of physics. (For a brief, comic, yet essentially correct summary of the history of this idea, see Peter Shor's review here. For those who don't know, Shor is a celebrated quantum-information theorist.) According to the (far from established) inflationary model of cosmology, there is a vast collection of universes (the "multiverse") with diverse laws of physics. Which universe we find ourselves in is a matter of random selection, but of course we must be in a "biofriendly" universe, one whose laws of physics allow for the appearance of intelligent life.
The core argument of this book is presented on page 164-165 (US hardcover edition), where Smolin writes, "when it comes to the biofriendliness of our universe, we have at least three possibilities:
"1. Ours is one of a vast collection of universes with random laws.
"2. There was an intelligent designer.
"3. There is a so-far-unknown mechanism that will both explain the biofriendliness of our universe and make testable predictions by which it can be confirmed or falsified.
"Given that the first two possibilities are untestable in principle, it is most rational to hold out for the third possibility. Indeed, that is the only possibility we should consider as scientists, because accepting either of the first two would mean the end of our field."
I find this to be an astonishing argument. First of all, I don't know what "most rational" is supposed to mean. More importantly, to reject a scientific hypothesis for purely personal reasons (it "would mean the end of our field") is at best novel, and at worst absurd.
Very few string theorists are happy that #1 seems, at this point, to be the most likely outcome of string theory, and many hope that #3 will somehow eventually emerge. But to throw out the whole framework, simply because we don't like the result, cannot be said to be a scientific attitude.
One thing you won't learn in this book (unless you read it very carefully, and between the lines) is that the other approaches to quantum gravity advocated by Smolin have not come any closer to predicting specific experimental results than string theory has. Smolin talks about possible violations of special relativity, but these are not (as he admits on page 237) a definite prediction of loop quantum gravity. He has said (on Peter Woit's blog) that any quantum field theory in any number of dimensions is compatible with loop quantum gravity. If true, this would make loop quantum gravity even less capable than string theory of picking out our particular laws of physics.
Smolin also discusses issues of sociology in physics. On page 335-336, he asserts that the all the truly negative characterizations of job candidates that he has ever heard have had a component of racism and/or sexism. I am on the faculty of the physics department of a research university, and I can only say that my experience has been entirely different. I have simply never heard a racist or sexist denigration of one scientist by another, nor have I ever felt that anyone was being evaluated by criteria other than merit. I think that there are definitely issues of culture and how we can construct scientific communities that have broader appeal, and that there are physicists who are not as sensitive to these issues as they might be, but I cannot accept Smolin's claim that the relatively small percentage of women and blacks in physics is due to "blatant prejudice".
Finally, Smolin discusses the issues of "seers" vs "craftspeople" in science, and argues that we should be supporting more "seers". Among the existing seers, he lists some (such as Roger Penrose and Gerard 't Hooft) who made their reputations primarily as craftspeople ('t Hooft received the Nobel Prize for his work on the renormalization of gauge theories, and Penrose did celebrated work on the singularity theorems of general relativity). Their record as seers has been less successful; none of their recent ideas on modifications of quantum mechanics have panned out as yet. Smolin laments the fact that more attention is not paid to these forays into alternatives to quantum mechanics. But 't Hooft and Penrose do not agree on what modifications are needed. Other seers identified by Smolin propose violations of special relativity, rather than (or in addition to) violations of quantum mechanics. Perhaps this is all deep thought, but there is little to decide, at this point, which if any of these avenues should be pursued. Most physicists have therefore sensibly adopted a "wait and see" attitude.
Even if we accept Smolin's argument that we need new seers, how are we to find them? Smolin writes (page 353) that in order to discover "the visionaries who ignore the mainstream and follow their own ambitious programs", we should "find at least one accomplished person in the candidate's field who is deeply excited about what the candidate is trying to do". So, the candidate's program had better not be *too* far off the mainstream; there has to be at least one "accomplished person" who is "deeply excited" about it. But if one deeply excited professional is good, wouldn't more be better? Wouldn't that up the odds that the program was, indeed, worthwhile? Oh wait, that would be just what we have now ... a system where there is constant debate, emergent consensus on the most promising approaches, and distribution of research funds primarily (but by no means exclusively!) to those approaches that appear, in the consensus view, to be most promising. To paraphrase Winston Churchill on democracy, this system for distributing funds for science may be the worst ever devised, except for all the others.
So, should you buy the book? I feel that it gives a distorted picture, by emphasizing the weak points of string theory while ignoring the (many more, in my view) weak points of the alternatives. It seems to me that the essence of the book's argument against string theory is captured by the excerpts above, and by Shor's review. Then there is a lot of discussion of groupthink in scientific culture. For me, it doesn't add up to an appealing package, but your mileage may vary.
The Endless Quest Continues .......2007-10-04
I like Lee Smolin and this is a good exposition of the current quandary in Physics. When the mathematicians "hijacked" physics in the 1920's, they created ever-so elegant formulas and abstraction upon abstraction upon abstraction. "Just give me a formula!" was their mantra, and what it all really "means" was not their concern. This is the essence of Bohr's position (no pun intended), and Einstein was not able to answer, even though he knew something was missing.
String theory has many intriguing ideas, and it's supporters should not be easily dismissed. Again and again, we come back to the basic question...particle or wave? Wavicle? Partiwave? String?
Outstanding piece of writing, A must-read for any science enthusiast........2007-09-22
I found this book to be superbly written and full of fascinating insights. I really loved reading it. Many of the longer reviews here do a great job of reviewing the content of the book, so I'll stick to offering my opinion.
I will no doubt read this book again in the future as much of the content was way over my head. However, as with any great book on any subject, this did not prevent me from thoroughly enjoying it and learning a lot. What makes it so great is that each time I read it I will learn more.
I want to thank Lee Smolin for putting the current state of his field in some perspective. I highly, highly recommend this book!
Book Description
The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.
—Werner Heisenberg
That God would choose to play dice with the world is something I cannot believe.
—Albert Einstein
Nothing exists until it is measured.
—Neils Bohr
The remarkable story of a startling scientific idea that ignited a battle among the greatest minds of the twentieth century and profoundly influenced intellectual inquiry in fields ranging from physics to literary criticism, anthropology and journalism
In 1927, the young German physicist Werner Heisenberg challenged centuries of scientific understanding when he introduced what came to be known as “the uncertainty principle.” Building on his own radical innovations in quantum theory, Heisenberg proved that in many physical measurements, you can obtain one bit of information only at the price of losing another. Heisenberg’s principle implied that scientific quantities/concepts do not have absolute, independent meaning, but acquire meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure them. This proposition, undermining the cherished belief that science could reveal the physical world with limitless detail and precision, placed Heisenberg in direct opposition to the revered Albert Einstein. The eminent scientist Niels Bohr, Heisenberg’s mentor and Einstein’s long-time friend, found himself caught between the two.
Uncertainty chronicles the birth and evolution of one of the most significant findings in the history of science, and portrays the clash of ideas and personalities it provoked. Einstein was emotionally as well as intellectually determined to prove the uncertainty principle false. Heisenberg represented a new generation of physicists who believed that quantum theory overthrew the old certainties; confident of his reasoning, Heisenberg dismissed Einstein’s objections. Bohr understood that Heisenberg was correct, but he also recognized the vital necessity of gaining Einstein’s support as the world faced the shocking implications of Heisenberg’s principle.
Customer Reviews:
Uncertainty.......2007-09-20
A good book. Makes a difficult topic - - quantum mechanics and some particle physics - - understandable for non-experts.
Elegant and exciting .......2007-09-01
I read two graduate texts on quantum mechanics recently. The first took an historical approach, beginning with Planck's work on black-body radiation, then Einstein's treatment of Brownian motion and light quanta, proceeding on to Bohr's atom, Compton scattering, the Zeeman effect, and so on. The second started out by saying (I paraphrase), "Here's Schroedinger's equation. The rest of the book goes through various solutions, with different potentials."
I find it completely incredible that this little equation can have so many implications, none of them ever having been found to be wrong. Lindley's book is about the "meaning" of quantum mechanics, a project that most physicists consider irrelevant at best. I still remember listening to Feynman's Cal Tech lectures on quantum mechanics, where his urged his student not to try to figure what the equation "means." Rather, he urged them just to solve it and get an intuitive "feel" for how it works. Quantum mechanics doesn't "mean" anything. It just is.
This stance is not enough for many people, including virtually all of its creators, who worked in the dizzying years of discovery, 1900 to 1927. Bohr' model did fit some of the specroscopic data on hydrogen very well, but he spent most of his intellectual (as opposed to organizational) energy thereafter ruminating on the principle of complementarity and the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The next generation of physicist could not have cared less. When asked about Bohr's interpretation, Dirac replied that there were no equations, so there was nothing of interest there.
This may be the bast book ever written on the topic, despite its elementary nature. Lindley handle complex topics (e.g., Mach and Carnap) with ease and brevity, yet capturing the essence of the issues. His descriptions are what might be termed "stream of consciousness" physics, because he has the ability to enter and explore highly heterogeneous modalities of consciousness, without ever leaving the physics far out of the picture. After you have read this wonderful book, try Abraham Pais' biographies of Einstein and Bohr. They are more work, but more than worth the effort.
A great account of where the hell does quantum mechanics come from, centered around the main scientists involved. .......2007-08-26
If you've ever had a basic course in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics the names of the main characters in this book will sound familiar ; Robert Brown (yes, from the "Brownian motion of particles"), Charles Darwin, Boltzmann, Poincaré,Röntgen, Rutherford, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac, Pauli, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Geiger ...etcetera
It is actually a concise, lucid and very readable account with due attention to the "personal streaks" of the main characters. With a rare clarity the author manages to paint the transition from the classical Newtonian view of the world to the quantum mechanical view and all the pains suffered in the process.Especially, the confrontations between Einstein and Niels Bohr on this topic are exquisitely recounted. And all this, without mentioning ONE formula (excepting THE formula E=mc2).
In the end one can't but agree with Bohr's statement : "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
In short, this book manages to convey the essence of the new quantum view while it reads like a novel because of the pittoresque characters of the story.
Fascinating history, very well written.......2007-08-16
Lindley writes very well, indeed. I liked both his style and the story which he told. The early days of quantum mechanics presented physics with a set of dilemmas which were a shock to the way the world was thought to work. We are not over that shock yet, almost a century later! Recommended.
Wow! The history, concepts and personalities behind Quantum Physics.......2007-07-30
My Dad got his doctorate in Physics at Berlin Institute of Technology (The top technological school in the world at the time) starting in 1932 when Einstein was still there. He knew all the personalities. Heisenberg, Born, Schroedinger. It was a wild and wonderful read for me because the stories were the ones my Dad told me when I was a girl. The book is wonderful for lay persons. It lays out the time line from Brownian Motion to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in non-technical and brilliantly understandable ways. The personalities and all the arguments from Brown, to the Curies, Niels Bohr, Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Pauli, Max Born, Schroedinger are all beautifully researched and quoted from there own works and letters to each other. He finishes with a brilliant critique of how "uncertainty" was co-opted by other subjects, mostly in fascinatingly ignorant ways. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
Book Description
Stephen Hawking’s worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing. Its author’s engaging voice is one reason, and the compelling subjects he addresses is another: the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, the history and future of the universe. But it is also true that in the years since its publication, readers have repeatedly told Professor Hawking of their great difficulty in understanding some of the book’s most important concepts.
This is the origin of and the reason for A Briefer History of Time: its author’s wish to make its content more accessible to readers –as well as to bring it up-to-date with the latest scientific observations and findings.
Although this book is literally somewhat “briefer,” it actually expands on the great subjects of the original. Purely technical concepts, such as the mathematics of chaotic boundary conditions, are gone. Conversely, subjects of wide interest that were difficult to follow because they were interspersed throughout the book have now been given entire chapters of their own, including relativity, curved space, and quantum theory.
This reorganization has allowed the authors to expand areas of special interest and recent progress, from the latest developments in string theory to exciting developments in the search for a complete unified theory of all the forces of physics. Like prior editions of the book–but even more so–A Briefer History of Time will guide nonscientists everywhere in the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.
***
Stephen Hawking will be lecturing at the following locations:
11/7/05:
San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 408 Alamden Blvd., San Jose, CA, 95110, (408) 277-5277
11/10/05:
Paramount Theater of the Arts, 2025 Broadway, Oakland, CA, 94612, (510) 465-6400
11/16/05:
The Paramount Theater, 911 Pine Street, Seattle, WA, 98101, (206) 467-5510
Tickets for "The Origins of the Universe with Dr.Stephen Hawking" are available through Ticketmaster.
Customer Reviews:
Half confused, half amazed.......2007-09-20
For as simple as Hawking was supposed to present the complicated theoretical physics concepts, at times I still found myself as confused as Adam on Mother's Day. Dr. Hawking's work is caught between a rock and a hard place in "A Brief History of Time" and the subsequent "The Universe in a Nutshell"; he provides neither the technical language to satisfy the experienced readers, nor the sufficiently simplified rhetoric to appeal to the uninitiated. Not to worry as the theories and supporting arguments in both books can still satisfy the curiosity of the inexperienced, and his celebrity status in the world of physics keeps the experienced audience engaged.
There is one update to this book not mentioned, and that is, Hawking eventually admits that he was wrong about his theory of loss of information in black holes. This idea of his had put him at odds with many theoretical physicists. Instead, he puts forth the unproven theory that information in a black hole is transferred to a parallel universe. Unfortunately, time may not permit Hawking to complete his work on the proof or supporting evidence of this important theory. His terminal illness appears to be finally catching up to him. I wish him well and thank him for his important contributions to the science of understanding the universe.
Despite its shortcomings, A Brief History of Time succeeds in shedding light on the mysteries of the creation of the universe at the point of singularity, what happened subsequently, and what may or may not transpire in the future. Hawking discusses in length Einstein's general theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and the attempt to combine these into a grand unified theory, a lofty goal that has eluded theoretical physicists to date.
Fascinating.......2007-09-17
Quite accessible for a book on the beginning of the universe. It doesn't explain how it got here, but begins at 1 second post big bang. It has a good explanation of the work of Isaac Newton and why it was important and also the work of Einstein. I understood the physics, at least I did when I was reading it. The explanations were good enough to let me wrap my mind around them. It is interesting that the idea of ether is coming back up for consideration again. Not sure I believe in string theory though. Why not just say everything is made of energy?
Hawking :a master writer.......2007-09-02
Hawking's new book "The Briefest History of Time" should be read by all intelligent Americans. Every book of this quality and with a similar contents may help to stop the tide of idiocy proposed by supporters of creationism in America.Only by spreading real science we will escape becoming the richest but also the most primitive intellectually nation in the world. We need a heavy counterweight to the evangelic snake oil peddlers who can gather tousands sing along automata and preach bible which offenses every educated and intelligent mind. Hawking's book can help to be such a counterbalance.
Great Renewed Introduction on our Time.......2007-08-21
This book explains the physical concepts in very understandable fashion. It can be understood by any person. You do not have to be a scientist or physicists to read the book. There are also wonderful examples explaining the scientific phenomenon underlying our universe and black hole or other galaxies.
customer.......2007-06-27
Book arrived in timely fashion, excellent condition, well packaged to protect it during shipment. I'd read it in the library and thought it excellent. I'm a logical person but not a physicist or a mathematician yet the material was understandable, well presented and the illustrations very helpful. The absence of long proofs/equations not only shortened the book but made the descriptions and illustrations easier to follow and not so intimidating. The large print version was especially helpful even though my eye sight is good. I'll read it a number of times and I'm sure my understanding will increase with each reading.
Amazon.com
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton
Book Description
A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the ensuing years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world--observations that have confirmed many of Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book.
Now a decade later, this edition updates the chapters throughout to document those advances, and also includes an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel and a new introduction. It make vividly clear why A Brief History of Time has transformed our view of the universe.
Customer Reviews:
This book is a fake!.......2007-10-01
As a physicist I am flabbergasted and slightly depressed by the success of this book. First of all this book presents as if they were equally certain some pieces of orthodox science together with some of the author's dubious speculations. The lay reader is not told which are which. Secondly, the author obviously has no knowledge of the actual history of physics and yet he shamelessly "describes" it to the reader.
Hawking seems to have gathered together all the bad cliches about various physical issues and has taken out all the valuable ideas. He explains nothing, he just asserts that "we physicists know that..., we physicists have demonstrated that...". I cannot see how anyone can actually learn anything about physics from this book, about why we know what we know. And yet, judging from the amount of praise this book receives, it seems that quite a lot of people have fallen under the spell that they have been allowed access to some secret. They haven't and I find this trickery immoral.
Quantum physics and astrophysics are really interesting. They don't deserve to be thrashed in this unashamed manner. If you want to learn something about physics, there are other books which do a much better job, for example Asimov's Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos.
Author - a true genius.......2007-09-22
Stephen Hawking is a true genius. Although I don't understand everything he writes, all-in-all this book gives one the understanding of how wonderfully made the universe is.
Fascinating.......2007-08-24
I found this book to be ingenious yet accessible to the average reader, which is what I believe Hawking set out to accomplish. Great food for thought in my opinion.
TERRIBLE digital transfer by "Phoenix Audio".......2007-08-10
It's a great book by Hawking, but this product is just a reproduction of something by Hawking/Jackson that we already know is great. So what sort of job does this product do of delivering one of my favorite audio books? Not a very good one.
The original recording sounds fine, but this production from 2005 sounds like it was converted to a low bit rate at some point during editing, and probably had a poor noise removal job done as well. For the benefit of removing possibly a little weak static in the background, we get to listen to a robotic Jackson for 5 hours. It sounds similar to an early digital cell phone with a choppy feel and many T's and S's muffled.
There really isn't any reason I can see for this to not be a perfect reproduction of earlier digital versions. Old bootlegs floating about the internet sound better. Maybe "Phoenix Audio" should have just grabbed those to print, and left all of that tricky audio work to the more competent civilian sector.
A well written classic.......2007-08-01
I have a stack of these :The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe,Cosmic Code and In Search/big Bang: /, so I can compare and contrast.
There is material on black holes here that isn't covered as well in the others. I still would wish that all these authors would put in more of the real equations and less of the dumbing down. One point is that people not able to understand this kind of book, probably won't understand no matter how simple you make the text. Maybe one should make effective use of your time in writing and concentrate on those who will understand and use the results.
Book Description
An eminent teacher and writer explores an idea both simple and complex, both multidisciplinary and unifying--the story of symmetry.
At the heart of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, and much of modern cosmology lies one concept: symmetry.
In Why Beauty Is Truth, world-famous mathematician Ian Stewart narrates the history of the emergence of this remarkable area of study. Stewart introduces us to such characters as the Renaissance Italian genius, rogue, scholar, and gambler Girolamo Cardano, who stole the modern method of solving cubic equations and published it in the first important book on algebra, and the young revolutionary Evariste Galois, who refashioned the whole of mathematics and founded the field of group theory only to die in a pointless duel over a woman before his work was published.
Stewart also explores the strange numerology of real mathematics, in which particular numbers have unique and unpredictable properties related to symmetry. He shows how Wilhelm Killing discovered "Lie groups" with 14, 52, 78, 133, and 248 dimensions--groups whose very existence is a profound puzzle. Finally, Stewart describes the world beyond superstrings: the "octonionic" symmetries that may explain the very existence of the universe.
Customer Reviews:
A history of symmetry.......2007-08-07
This is an excellent book, although to fully understand it you need some good background in math and physics. It traces 4000 years of research in mathematics and physics, from Babylonic science (to whom we owe the sexagesimal system) to Ed Witten and superstrings. The thread of the story is symmetry, a concept that leads to group theory via the efforts to solve some the antiquity's problems (for example, the duplication of the cube) and the polynomial equations, specially the quintic. Although I am an avid reader of this kind of books I learnt quite a few things and others, although not new to me, I found were very well explained.
Among the first group, the cubic geometric solutions of Persian Omar in the 11th century, the name of Killing (the mathematician who classified simple Lie algebras in one of the most beautiful math papers, according to Stewart), the fact that Liouville rescued Galois papers from oblivion, the relation of octonions to string theory, Hamilton's carving of the fundamental relations of his quaternions in the Broome Bridge, the role of the exceptional Lie groups in physics, Witten's starting career as political journalist, etc.
Among the second: the description of gauge symmetries, the comparison between the unity of life and the unity of the fundamental forces, etc.
The reader will enjoy the well known story of how mathematicians were forced to use complex numbers in trying to apply the cubic formula and the fascinating life of Galois who so unhappily was killed in a duel at the age of 21, a duel that he had apparently exactly 50% chance of survival.
Stewart is critical of the anthropic principle, even in its weak form. According to him a sufficient condition should not be confused with a necessary condition and who knows in which exotic forms can complexity emerge. I think that we also should reflect on his suggestion that the search of a Theory of Everything is a residue of our monotheistic culture.
One of the main themes of the book is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (a famous article by Wigner has this title) and the ethernal dilemma: is mathematics invented or discovered? The exceptional Lie groups seem to be put there by a deity. These are fascinating subjects and no definitive answers can be given.
One little criticism: Stewart does not distinguish properly hadrons and leptons and leds the uneducated reader to believe that all particles are either made of quarks or are gluons.
Delightful book.......2007-07-19
This book made math and its history extremely readable. Its core idea was symmetry and how it acted as the driving force behind many mathematical inspirations. Ian Stewart is a master writer and he proves himself again in this book. He defines symmetry not untill p.118, where he sees symmetry as a kind of "transformation" which when applied to a mathematical object preserves its structure. Then he explains these individual aspects of symmetry in relation to Galois' groups. Near the end of the book, he brought physics into the discussion, and showed how deep abstract sense of beauty also played a crucial role in developing physical ideas. To some, it may appear bizarre, as most of the book talks about mathematicians and their 'beauties,' and suddenly physics creeps in. But in hindsight, the sense of beauty and truth is never complete without the taste of reality. Physics serves that purpose. And so he ends:
"In physics, beauty does not automatically ensure truth, but it helps.
In mathematics, beauty MUST be true - beacause anything false is ugly."
A true ending to a beautiful book.
A well-written book for the non-specialist.......2007-07-16
Some of the reviews of this book seem to feel it doesn't present enough group theory. I think they are looking for a more technical book than Stewart meant to write, and so they are downgrading the book for reasons that are not fair to the book.
I reviewed a book by Mario Livio called "The Equation that Couldn't Be Solved," and gave it 5 stars. After reading this book, I almost want to go back and lower my rating of Livio's book, but of course, I shouldn't do that just because a better book has come out since. Livio's book concentrates on a shorter timespan than this, but both feature the same things -- mathematicians' attempts to solve equations of higher and higher degrees, from quadratics to cubics to quartics, and failure to find a solution to the quintic, only to find (due to the work of Abel and Galois) that it couldn't be done; and Galois' invention of group theory to make his proof, followed by other mathematicians' revelation that group theory is just what the doctor ordered to explain symmetry.
Stewart's book goes further back in time than Livio's, and also devotes more space to the modern uses of symmetry in physics. So it puts everything in more context. And, simply put, Stewart is a captivating writer. I enjoyed Livio's book, but I could hardly put down Stewart's. This book gets a high 5-star rating from me.
But it IS a book for the non-specialist. It isn't a course in group theory, or the Galois theory of equations; it is an attempt to give a non-mathematician some idea of these subjects. It should not be rated on a set of criteria that ignore what Stewart was trying to do. The negative comments really are unjustified; but yes, I'll warn you away from this if you expect it to teach you all the group theory you'll need to do particle physics, or crystallography, or any of the subjects that depend on group theoretic concepts of symmetry these days.
Dissapointed.......2007-06-18
This book had a wonderful review in Scientific American.
I am a Chemist with a fair amount of math. The major reason I was dissapointed is basically I did not learn anything mathematical. There were some fascinating biographies of physicists and mathematicians. I am not saying I did not learn anything because I know it all already. When there was a subject introduced that it did not know, it was introduced using analogies that really stretched what was going on - like building a multistory building.
It was a good read for the personalites involved, but really not a place to learn anything.
I would suggest the classic "Chemical Applications of Group Theory" for those really wanting to learn something.
group theory.......2007-06-09
good book, but there is little original in his presentation that is not available from other recent sources. I agree with other viewers that what is needed is a good book written as well as this on the subject of group theory in relation to particle physics, nuts and bolts of applied symmetry. Nothing on the market that I know of. Any suggestions?
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent translation with helpful apparatus
- Is Newton come on!
- An Engrossing and Time Consuming Masterpiece of Science and Literature
- I can't believe people still believe this stuff
- Wonderful overview, somewhat overwhelming.
|
The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Isaac Newton
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Book Description
In his monumental 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known familiarly as the Principia, Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.
This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms.
Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.
The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent translation with helpful apparatus.......2007-06-11
I am writing my dissertation on Newton and have found this translation incredibly helpful and surprisingly readable.
The Principia is one of the most difficult and inaccessible books ever written -- so much so, in fact that even John Locke (himself a pretty smart guy) had to ask Christian Huygens to explain much of it to him. This difficulty was intentional, because Newton did not want people who only understood math a little to try and undermine his arguments. For this reason, he rewrote book three so that only those who had read and understood book 1 could understand its concepts.
People laugh when I tell then that I own a book with a three hundred page introduction, but it's a book that needs a three hundred page intro. In their intro, Cohen and whitman describe the history of the principia, its structure, an explanation of where prior translations have fallen short, and -- most importantly -- note which of the Principia's sections have been most significant during and after Newton's time. This is helpful so that when you get to each section, you are more likely to notice which elements may have seemed most controversial, where he is taking down Descartes' vortices, etc. I'm not saying I agree 100% with cohen and whitman on all of their points, but they have produced a work that does not simply translate the book; it also shares the writers' substantial knowledge about the principia.
This is an essential and monumental translation. If you are at all interested in early modern science, you must own it.
Is Newton come on!.......2006-08-10
What I have to say is Newton.... What else are you lookin for in a Physics book. Ohh yeah the only problem it has that its size is such a college book(huge), and it is not hard cover.
An Engrossing and Time Consuming Masterpiece of Science and Literature.......2005-09-22
Principia explains with great detail some elements of Eucledian geometry, Calculus, Fluid mechanics, Three laws of Gravity and The Method of the Universe. Newtons three hundred year old advice remains true today to read Book One and Three while skipping Book Two altogether. I can honestly say that subject is not too difficult but is guilty of being well conceived but poorly worded. The latter was Newtons own intention to make its reading very exclusive and making him less vunerable to his contemporary critiques. This version has the diagrams illustrated on multiple pages for each Scholium to avoid the constant turning of its pages. I advice a slow read of Book 1 and 3. The last Scholium of Book 3 is the best discussion as to the existance of God that I have read. Long live the spirits of Shakespeare, Newton, Vermeer and Beethoven.
I can't believe people still believe this stuff.......2005-09-20
The Principia is the basis for much of modern science. It is swallowed hook, line and sinker by mathematicians and people in physics as a 'holy grail.' It is a continuation of very old fashioned thinking, hooked on 'cause and effect' relationships, Aristotelian in nature. One would think that modern science could see through this veil of antiquity, but seemingly has not yet had the courage to do so.
It is essential reading, however, so see how far 'science' has not moved for nearly 400 years.
This particular translation is of interest in that half of the book tries to explain and support the original text. Bit too hard of a sell to justify Newton's arguments. Again, it is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the flaws of modern 'science.'
Wonderful overview, somewhat overwhelming........2004-09-07
This is a wonderful reference, but frankly, it was 
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