A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty

Where theories and practice meet: This book is practical!

"The life of a physicist can be a lonely one." So begins the Introduction to this fascinating book. Physicist-authors, Goldberg and Blomquist, might have been lonely when they started this book, but all that is past when readers finish the book. I am sure that the two authors must now refuse social invitations to talk sense, just as they wrote sense in this book.

Composed in everyday language, this book will benefit lots of readers by applying theories from physics to questions that you have always wanted to ask a physicist. For example, you might have wondered: "Can you change reality just by looking at it?" [43]. While answering the question, the following sentence exemplifies the everyday language of the book: "Scientists had observed that if you shine a beam of ultraviolet light on metals, electrons will pop out" [44].

The book is divided into nine chapters with intriguing titles, such as Chapter 1, 'Special Relativity:' "What Happens if I'm traveling at the speed of light, and I try to look at myself in a mirror?" One of the many interesting features of the book is entertaining line-art figures. Acknowledged artists for "figures," which I assume to imply the line-art drawings in black and white, are Rich Gott and Akira Tonomura [vii]. Take, for example, a caricatured photon depicted on the cover to Chapter 1. The photon is seated at a table with a lamp, and the caption reads: "A photon is grilled to recall the events of the last hundred years." The photon's stunned response is, "I...I don't know! It all happened so fast!" ["fast" is emphasized, p. 7].

One of many delights in the book appears at the end of Chapter 8 [Chapter title --'Extraterrestrials:' "Is there life on other planets?"]. The subsection is entitled "What are the odds against our own existence?" [248-51]. This part of the book deals with the "anthropic principle," a term which Brandon Carter coined in 1974 to name the phenomenon that human beings do exist despite "the utter improbability of our existence" [249]. The authors introduce Carter's term in order to say that there must be some principle(s) supporting intelligent life, otherwise we wouldn't be here to talk about it. The big picture of this section's discussion is that principles of physics and probability statistics do not pair up on many issues, and the existence of intelligent life is but one of many issues.

Further reading suggestions [popular references], a reference list of technical sources, and an index of names and subjects conclude this 296-page book. Buy one for yourself and family, and discuss various sections over an evening meal with family and friends. Children from age 10 - 12 will be able to grasp these ideas, and you can make discussions fun by following suggestions for simple experiments. I suggest trying to draw pictures about what you read, because a picture is worth a thousand words. Besides, pictures make physics fun--as it should become for years to come, thanks to this exciting book.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am loving it even though I havent read it yet

I haven't read it yet but I have been looking at it by sampling chapters and l love it. The only reason I haven't read it yet is becuase I am reading another book about Physics right now:Black Holes & Baby Universes by Stephen Hawking {this review is by amelia}

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