The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics

Klein, Etienne

ISBN 10: 019512085X / ISBN 13: 9780195120851

Published by Oxford, UK, 1999

About this Item

An excellent copy, seemingly barely used with edges crisp and clear, a few very faint spots but no notable creases or wear. Covers firm and secure, and dust jacket complete with just some minor bumps at the outer corners from normal handling and shelving. Why on Amazon do most sellers not describe their actual book? Buy with confidence and support a genuine Independent Bricks & Mortar Real Bookshop. We are Maynard & Bradley CAMBO & PBFA(now lapsed) members here in Leicester City Centre. Size: 165 x 245 mm. 158. Item Type: Book. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Category: Science & Technology; Britain/UK; 1990s; ISBN: 019512085x. ISBN/EAN: 9780195120851. Inventory No: 47642.

Seller Inventory # 47642

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics
• Publisher: Oxford, UK
• Publication Date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 019512085X
• ISBN 13: 9780195120851
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1999.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science & Technology

About this title

Synopsis

What could quantum mechanics have in common with the philosophical musings of the ancient Greeks? In our age of multimillion-dollar supercolliders, it's hard to imagine that modern physics owes anything to thinkers who predate Descartes. But French physicists Etienne Klein and March Lachieze-Rey see an unbroken thread running from antiquity to the present--an ongoing search, throughout the history of science, for unity.
In The Search for Unity the authors reveal how the quest for the One has driven all the great breakthroughs in science. They show how the Greeks searched for the fundamental element in all things; how Galileo unified the earth with the heavens, by discovering valleys and mountains on the moon; and how Newton created a single theory to describe the motion of the celestial bodies. With unequaled clarity, they explore the work of the most famous unifier of all, Albert Einstein, who melded space and time into a combined space-time concept, and then embarked on an unsuccessful search for a single theory to explain all the physical laws of the universe. Throughout the book, the authors stress the esthetic motives of scientists, how they recognize truth through apprehension of mathematical beauty. And in tracing the quest for unity up to the present day, they illuminate the bizarre workings of quantum mechanics and the sticky definition of reality itself at the subatomic level.
A grand unification of all interactions still awaits discovery--but as Klein and Lachieze-Rey show, the search itself is as fascinating as the end result may ever be.

About the Author

Etienne Klein and Marc Lachieze-Rey are both scientists with the Atomic Energy Commission in Sacey, France. Axel Reisinger is a scientist at Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company, in Nashua, New Hampshire.