The Great Design: Particles, Fields, and Creation

by Robert K. Adair

Book Overview

Although modern physics surrounds us, its concepts constantly referred to in every newspaper, even educated nonscientists find the subject intimidating in the extreme. Most attempts to explain physics to general readers are either obscured by masses of mathematics or gross oversimplifications written by laymen. Here at last is a comprehensive--and comprehensible--account of particles, fields and cosmology written by a working physicist not burdened...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195043804
• ISBN13: 9780195043808
• Release Date: November 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The Great Overview of Physics

The Great Design: Particles, Fields, and Creation by Robert Kemp Adair is a great book of physics that explains concepts that are important such as Faraday's fields to nonphysicists and people who want to learn more. This book explained a lot and cleared up a fog of questions about physics. It describes, in short, the many concepts physicists use to try to find the universal unified field and the universal theory and equation. Major components of phsics like quantum mechanics and theories like the general and special theories of relativity are explained clearly and effectively. What I liked most about the book is the information Adair chooses to write and the way it is put together with enhancements. This way, it adds to the experience because it helped the reader clearly understand the point Adair tries to make in each chapter. This book was great in the sense that it is easy to understand once you grasp a little meaning of the concept. But I personally felt that the chapters were too long so that it was kind of repetitive, and that this book would be better if Adair spent more space telling of other subjects in physics than emphasizing minute details on individual ones. The Great Design was an overall good read and specially designed for people who thirst for the truth. All in all, I give it a good rating and I suggest people to read this book.

A Well Designed Book!

This book makes for a great introduction of particles & fields for the layman who is inclined to take on a book which surpasses the completely qualitative & popular (non-technical/historical) books that one can easily find at your local bookstore. I should clarify that this book might be seen as somewhat more than an easy introduction by the kind of reader who enjoys reading, for example, Paul Davies, John Gribbon, Steven Hawking, and Michio Kaku's popular expositions on science (physics & cosmology). From a popular science reader's perspective it could said that this book has a technical element to it in that the mathematics are present however I believe they are at an approachable level (i.e. there are no daunting calculus derivatives, integrals or other scary looking formulas). Here, let's have the author speak for himself from the preface:"In this book I have tried to present those basic concepts of particles and fields and of space and time, as illustrated by modern physics, very much as a professional physicist understands them. I believe that these concepts are accessible to the nonprofessional - that which I can't explain to an interested layman, I must not understand properly myself. Which is not to say the ideas are so trivial that they can be understood by physicists or layman with the "attentive mind"...The text is nonmathematical, though on occasion simple relations are expressed in algebraic forms that should be known to anyone with a high-school education. Some more complex relations that seem to be especially interesting are presented in the extensive set of footnotes. Though few of these require mathematical sophistication beyond that taught in the first few weeks of a high-school algebra course, mathematical simplicity does not translate into conceptual simplicity, and these presentations often require careful and time-consuming thought. Once written, a book has a life of it's own independent of the author's control; however I suggest that the mathematical footnotes be samples rather than consumed. There are those who can "read" mathematics like a novel, but for most of us so compact an information transfer cannot be assimilated easily and the time required to penetrate the arguments interrupts the narrative flow excessively."Some of the nice features of "The Great Design" include plenty of intuitive examples, illustrated figures (with some decent Feynman Diagrams), important graphs and tables. I always enjoy when an author includes famous quotes at the chapter headings as Dr. Adair does. I think that you can see into the author's mind just a little more. As promised in the authors preface I quoted above, there are a generous amount of end of chapter notes referenced throughout the main text by number. Many of these offer slightly more rigorous (and technical) mathematical elucidation of the subject or just a deeper peek at the heart of the matter. So, if you are a layman like myself, I would warn you that this book might

The best popular overview of physics yet.

This is the finest overview of physics for the layman or beginning physics student I have seen yet. This is not the usual history or biography based introduction but a good low-level mathematical expository on just about every current physics concept.

Understandable Overall Introduction

Perhaps the most lucid introduction to the quantum and touches of cosmology I have yet read. You can take it to many levels and go with the author and his sometimes clever, understated manner. Provides the MOST UNDERSTANDABLE explanation of the twin paradox of any of the (32) books I've read.