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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.1
EAN: 9780385477819
Edition: Rev Upd Su
ISBN: 0385477813
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: September 01, 1995
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: September 01, 1995
Studio: Anchor
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Beyond Einstein takes readers on an exciting excursion into the discoveries that have led scientists to the brightest new prospect in theoretical physics today -- superstring theory. What is superstring theory and why is it important? This revolutionary breakthrough may well be the
fulfillment of Albert Einstein's lifelong dream of a Theory of Everything, uniting the laws of physics into a single description explaining all the known forces in the universe. Co-authored by one of the leading pioneers in superstrings, Michio Kaku, and completely revised and updated with the newest groundbreaking research, the book approaches scientific questions with the excitement of a detective story, offering a fascinating look at the new science that may make the impossible possible.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
this book is useful and informative, if a little stiff. he's writing to an audience that's already forgotten more about the subjuct than i'll ever know, but i still enjoyed it. i think he genuinely enjoys his work and the subject, and that really comes thru. i'd recommend this to someone with a good grasp of physics, which i never took, but still love.
Rating:  -
As a previous reader of Michio Kaku's work, I admit to coming in with quite high expectations. Mr. Kaku and his co-author, in this work, do not settle on a thesis or an overarching theme to the book and it suffers from a lack of direction. Often the book is fascinating in it's discussion, but the descriptions of physics processes is often weak and hard to connect and the use of much too many acronyms slows the reading by forcing the reader to check back much too often. My joy in reading this book was certainly dampened by the fact that I read it in too many sittings. Mr. Kaku's work, when read at it's optimum, is read in as few sittings as possible. If you have an afternoon to devote to this book you will wean a great deal of knowledge - and I certainly recommend it as an introduction to a study of the history of the search for deeper knowledge in particle physics. If you are, as I am, an avid reader and fan of all types of work on theoretical and particle physics, you may find this book too bogged down and somewhat lifeless.
Rating: -
If you are bored, this will be a fun read. I had no problem reading this book from the first half toward the middle, then it got extremely technical. I had to skip one chapter in the middle and proceed ahead to the rest of the book. Compared to other books on this topic, the content of this book is about average. The authors aimed more toward entertaining you rather than teaching you, which is fine. My favorite quote from this book: "You don't understand mathematics, you just get used to them", as said by John von Neumann.
Rating:  -
First off another reviewer said the book flips back and forth between theories "Rambling" but i like this kind of reading this keeps me interested, i do not want to feel as if i am studying for am exam.
But yes if you already know relativity and have an understanding of string theory then DUH you may only get some veggies because you already have the meat, still as with all his book i have enjoyed the read
Rating: -
I can only give this book a very lukewarm endorsement. My two complaints were that it is sketchy and somewhat out of date.
Sketchy --- By sketchy I mean that it does not explain anything in depth. This book just skims the surface of string theory and most of the subjects covered are discussed just superficially. This is not, in and of itself, a necessarily bad thing. In fact, for some audiences it is actually a desirable feature. High school students and those who just want a brief introduction to string theory and some aspects of modern physics may find this just what they want, but those who want a somewhat more in depth discussion will be disappointed. While superficial, the book does give an overviews of many subjects, namely: quantum mechanics, relativity theory, QED (and the difficulties with renormalization), the Standard Model (and its deficiencies) and cosmological features such as dark matter, dark energy, black holes and the big bang theory. There are also a lot of thumbnail biographies of people like Evariste Galois, Stephen Hawking and Vera Rubin scattered throughout the book.
The book is largely about superstring theory, but there is no clear distinction between this and string theory. (I think that the former refers to the fact that superstring theory incorporates supersymmetry into string theory, but this is never stated in this book.) There is a discussion of symmetry, but Noether's theorem (a major reason for considering symmetry) is never mentioned. In contrast to the obvious enthusiasm shown by the authors for superstring theory, it is not a theory ascribed to by the majority of physicists. While the authors do admit that there is no experimental verification for superstring theory, they neglect many other criticisms. For example, Lee Smolin (who is never referenced in this book) and others have pointed out that there are many, many, variations of string theory, but no way to determine which is the right one (or if any one of them is correct). The above-mentioned criticisms should not, however, be taken as a completely negative assessment of this book. As has been mentioned, a lot of material is covered, although in not as detailed or balanced a manner as I would have liked. You, however, may be looking for as less detailed treatment of and this would then be a good book for you. The style is breezy and informal and you can learn a lot from the time spent with this book.
Somewhat out of date --- The cover of the book states that it has been revised and updated, but it seems that it has only been updated to 1995. (There is another version of the book, with a slightly different sub-title which was published in 1998, so some of the following comments may not apply as much to this 1998 version.) Twelve years is a long time for a subject like string theory. The authors tout superstring theory as the most up to date idea, but it has now being supplanted by M theory. This need not be a problem if one is interested in superstring theory as of 1995 and if one takes some of the claims put forward by the authors with a grain if salt, but this is a problem if you want something more closely resembling the current view of particle physics. As a general rule I think that one should only spend time with modern physics books, prepared for a general audience, that were written within the last 5 years (at the outside). I wish that I had paid more attention to my own rule, but the revised and updated statement above the title of the book fooled me. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
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