The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe (First Edition)

Clifford V. Johnson (author); Frank Wilczek (foreword)

ISBN 10: 0262037238 / ISBN 13: 9780262037235

Published by The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017

About this Item

First printing, with full number line. A fine copy, issued without a jacket. A clean, unmarked copy. Note: Lightly pushed foot of spine, on an otherwise beautiful copy. Foreword by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek. F-2824.

Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-2824

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe (First Edition)
• Publisher: The MIT Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262037238
• ISBN 13: 9780262037235
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Graphic Novels

About this title

Synopsis

A series of conversations about science in graphic form, on subjects that range from the science of cooking to the multiverse.

Physicist Clifford Johnson thinks that we should have more conversations about science. Science should be on our daily conversation menu, along with topics like politics, books, sports, or the latest prestige cable drama. Conversations about science, he tells us, shouldn't be left to the experts. In The Dialogues, Johnson invites us to eavesdrop on a series of nine conversations, in graphic-novel form—written and drawn by Johnson—about “the nature of the universe.” The conversations take place all over the world, in museums, on trains, in restaurants, in what may or may not be Freud's favorite coffeehouse. The conversationalists are men, women, children, experts, and amateur science buffs. The topics of their conversations range from the science of cooking to the multiverse and string theory. The graphic form is especially suited for physics; one drawing can show what it would take many words to explain.

In the first conversation, a couple meets at a costume party; they speculate about a scientist with superhero powers who doesn't use them to fight crime but to do more science, and they discuss what it means to have a “beautiful equation” in science. Their conversation spills into another chapter (“Hold on, you haven't told me about light yet”), and in a third chapter they exchange phone numbers. Another couple meets on a train and discusses immortality, time, black holes, and religion. A brother and sister experiment with a grain of rice. Two women sit in a sunny courtyard and discuss the multiverse, quantum gravity, and the anthropic principle. After reading these conversations, we are ready to start our own.

About the Author

Clifford V. Johnson, Professor of Physics at the University of Southern California, gives many public lectures about his research and appears often in television documentaries as an expert. He has been science advisor for several movies and television series, including Marvel's Thor: Ragnarok and the National Geographic Channel's Genius. He received the American Association of Physics Teachers 2018 Klopsteg Memorial Award for outstanding communication of the excitement of contemporary physics to the general public.