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Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics
Books: Text Books: Modern: Item 8
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Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physicsby Bruce A. Schumm
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138 of 140 people found the following review helpful: This Book is Released & Available for Purchase, October 27, 2004 Reviewer:Autodidact Andy "IndiAndy" (Golden State California) - I had the opportunity to read this book as a longstanding draft before it went into publication (then titled "Patterns and Paradigms"). Shortly afterwards, I opened what turned out to be enjoyable correspondence with the author. He surprised me with the news that this book was recently released and ready for purchase through the publishers. I since then bought the published edition and this review represents an analysis of the released hardback. The fact that the author took more than four years to write and polish this fine book for the general public shows in its tight, cogent and succinct style and content. Deep Down Things (the Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics) gets its title from a beautiful verse in Gerard Manley Hopkins fitting poem God's Grandeur "And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things" In the Preface the author explains that the title is meant to convey that "Deep down within the atomic nucleus, deeply within the paradoxical richness of empty space, deep inside the synapses of the great scientific thinkers of the 20th century - this is the territory of particle physics." This book peals back the layers of the atomic and sub-atomic world like an onion ready for investigation. Just for fun, look for the rest of the poem on the Internet. Schumm says in the Introduction that his book "...represents my attempts to elucidate the currently accepted theory of particle physics...for the interested public." He goes on to say that it's not "...a story about the history of particle physics or of the lives of its protagonists. Nor is it a book of anecdotes about the culture and society..." Deep Down is categorically non-mathematical and in the spirit of the "popular" vein but with an unusual twist. This is not a superficial pop-science "gee-wiz" book. At the risk of losing some less than serious lay readers, Schumm has wisely sprinkled some important formulas throughout the book and he effectively shows why they are significant. You don't have to be able to see or do the "proofs" in the equations, just the important concepts behind them. Chapter 1 serves as the Introduction and Chapter 2 is a quick account of the four fundamental forces of Nature as by described by the Standard Model. Chapter 3 covers Planck's constant and the revolutionary discovery of quantization, Einstein's Relativity, Wave-Particle Duality (ala de Broglie's matter waves), Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle, and finally Schrodinger's time-independent equation are all brought to light. The book has many diagrams to graphically illustrate various concepts and also a nice Notes section to elaborate on technical details. Chapter 4 "The marriage of Relativity & Quantum Theory" (one of my favorite chapters) is all about Relativistic QFT, Feynman diagrams of fundamental interactions, bosons, antimatter, spin, the virtually active vacuum (Casimir's effect) and ends with a nice treatment of QED. Chapter 5 is about the fundamental building blocks known as the Standard Model: Quarks, Leptons, Bosons, and Fermions & the "particle zoo". The remaining half of the book (chapters 6 though 10) is my favorite. Here Schumm takes me where I've always wanted to go - right into the heart & depth of the symmetries & abstractions that have only been hinted at in other books. Here, Schumm offers a serious & stimulating challenge for this physics lay-enthusiast. I'm happily compelled to re-read major sections of the book that are indeed deep & abstract - trying to get my mind wrapped around the concepts of SU(2) & SU(3) Lie Algebras, hypercharge, and internal symmetry spaces in gauge theories. I've seen this stuff before in many other popular books but they're usually dumbed down too far with vague or loose analogies (I can't help but feel like some authors are being forced to be less than forthcoming). Some of us don't flee in a blind/frightened panic over alien & abstract mathematical concepts of internal spaces so long as we're not hit with the double barrel of imposing mathematical rigor & proof. You see, I strongly suspect that the majority of popular physics readers are simply interested in sensationalized subjects like Superstring & Theory of Everything stuff - this is what sells in the minds of most publishers after all. So, I appreciate the (too) few authors & publishers that go out on a limb for those of us who're starving for real meat (less the Graduate level rigor however). Incidentally take a peek at Vincint Icke's book: The Force of Symmetry. You'll see a unique approach to fascinating and abstract world of fundamental physics there as well. One can't help but suspect that there's something to the exquisitely beautiful patterns in the abstract mathematical spaces and Lie groups the author is trying to teach us here. Correspondence between rotation groups in two real dimensions R(2) and those in the complex plane U(1) are presented accessibly. He brings us through Lie Algebras: R(3), U(1), SU(2), & SU(3) and Gauge Theories; spin projections, complex rotations (imaginary numbers) and symmetry transformation operations in Isospin space. I love this stuff and only wish I had cultivated a discipline of mathematical studies as a young man so that I could fully appreciate the beauty and utility of these methods of understanding the crown achievement of human intellect. In any event, I believe Deep Down Things is written with someone like me in mind (the author agrees) and I hope you find your interest in it as well.
New Scientist, January 15, 2005
Quantum field theory, group theory, Lie algebras [Schumm] does a remarkably good job with a style that is mercifully plain.
Product Review
"A fascinating journey into the bizarre, subatomic world of particle physics." -- PhysOrg.com
"Quantum field theory, group theory, Lie algebras, internal symmetry spaces and gauge theory. [Schumm] does a remarkably good job of explaining all this, with a style that is mercifully plain. " -- Peter de Groot, New Scientist
"Explores the world of particle physics in terms laymen can understand. " -- Santa Cruz Sentinel
"I expect that any physics undergraduate, bewildered by textbooks and lectures, would find this a delight." -- Stephen Battersby, New Scientist
"One of several recently published books attempting to provide for interested nonphysicists a relatively nonmathematical account of what has come to be called the standard model of particle physics Schumm's treatment is perhaps more detailed." -- Choice
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