Reviews for Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics: The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures

The average rating for Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics: The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-03-24 00:00:00 Shane Boyer While I am overtly fond of anything Feynman wrote, these two essays with Steven Weinberg, also a Nobel laureate, demonstrate Feynman's ability to make very complicated issues, especially that concerning quantum mechanics, seem very clear. Indeed, these are so incredibly lucid that for the first time one does not have to be a theoretical physicist to appreciate the difficulty under which physicists have labored for an entire century. With that said, anyone reading this should have a moderate background in Calculus and Physics. By this I mean the reader must realize that Schrodinger is not a character from a Peanuts comic strip. Feynman does bring out the math early. However, other than that, a layman can read both these lectures, although you will probably need to read it several times. Still, this essay seems to spark the imagination so that one wants to come back and read this, grasping at these very difficult concepts. While no one can make statistics seem like fun, Feynman talks about first, antiparticles and second the statistics related to quantum spin. However he does this in a way in which you actually not only stay awake but you actually pay attention. For some reason, he is able to create an image in the mind by which we can grasp the most complicated of issues. Still one finishes with his or her head spinning (pun intended) while considering that causality may have a very different notion in quantum mechanics. I am convinced that after reading this lecture, one could, knowing very little else about quantum physics, be able to hold a reasonable conversation about the subject with moderate experts in the field. As an aside, I still regard Feynman's books on college physics to be the best explanations of basic physical principles... and these books were written for people who were just satisfying a college science requirement! Feynman actually insisted on teaching this course to non- science majors! Still I have had professional scientists tell me that these books explained principles that, after reading them, they understood for the first time. Weinberg talks of the theory in order to merge the issue of quantum physics and Einsteinian concepts of gravity. I confess that while I found his essay interesting, I was much less enthralled by these possibilities than I was the Feynman essay. For the most part, Weinberg talks about a kind of unification which seems to have remarkable barriers to its completion and, because of this, it was difficult to understand how beneficial his theory really is. The math requirement is somewhat less stringent, but different: one should realize that Lagrange action principle plays a part, although I doubt one needs to take a course in differential equations to understand what Weinberg means. This lecture, which is deceptively elegant as a theory, is also a good introduction to the need for string theory.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-15 00:00:00 Andrew Koh Jealousy it the virus that I am never able to cure, only temper. Cooking under other insecurities, it tends to explode whenever it finds more greatness to leech from. When I read a book like this one, I am jealous of men who seem to have a direct line to God while I am simply too stupid to even get put on hold. The Way Things Work comes as naturally to them as breathing, so that when I read their words I get a glimpse of what it feels like to breathe as they do, only to have the sensation slip away afterwards, leaving just enough desperation as I pretend to myself that my lack of intelligence can be made up by just a couple of hours in the library. It never works. =/