#Fundamentals:Ten_Keys_to_Reality - Frank Wilczek -Review

This is a book by a Nobel prize-winning Physicist offering ten keys to help in understanding the world in a manner consistent with development of physics in particular and science in general.

Professor Wilczek offers ten “fundamentals” upon which we can build a view of nature consistent with what we have been learning about the universe lately - which is quite a lot. 

Here is the list that makes an interesting topic, to begin with

1. Plenty of Space

2. Plenty of Time

3. Very few Ingredients

4. Very few Laws

5. Plenty of Matter and Energy

6. Cosmic History - Open Book

7. Complexity Emerges

8. Plenty more to see

9. Mysteries remain

10. Complementarity is mind-expanding

The first chapter begins with fundamentals like dealing with GPS, simple laws of nature, organised matter, and a hierarchy of structures like those of planets. The concept of space and matter is discussed, whilst space occupies most. This chapter also mentions how lenses work using the laws of diffraction.

The saying "Time is what prevents everything from happening at once", by Ray Cummings is mentioned (often quoted). Tiny errors in time multiplied by the speed of light can lead to noticeable errors in the distance is what Google Maps has to offer at times (particularly inside Indian towns). Here are some excerpts from the book that is good for most beginners who would want to explore questions in science. 

Only 'atoms and Voids', by Democritus is modified into 'Mass, charge and spin with voids'!

Einstein calling Bohr's (remember their debates) work as the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thoughts.

The Abundance of Cosmic energy reaching the Earth/day is measured as equivalent to a human's 2000 Calories/day energy - which approximately comes to a 100W bulb continuously burning for a year. And a new unit as AHUMEN is coined when 'Watts' becomes 'Joules'.

Three crucial ingredients are considered making life possible on Earth: Temperature, high and low, and intermediate Energy scale. (It is hard to agree when you have so many particles in Physics to counter)

Science often resembles the game of jeopardy where answers suggest what the right questions are!  Studying what happened in the past is like reconstructing the crime survey with the evidence from cases and look for corroborating evidence. 

A chapter devoted to 'Universe' says Cosmic Inflation is justified as the big bang assuming the space as Euclidean or flat - not required by relativity (a hint that relativity is of two types).

Finally, in the last chapter, the author talks about knowing the importance of Science. The chapter deals with the mention of the sensors in animals and humans. While humans have 6 million receptors to identify the incoming molecule in the nose, dogs have ~300 million receptors! Then there is talk about navigation in birds (Chromoprotein), the Strength of spider's net (nanomaterials), and Bee's sensitivity (receptors).

There is a good attempt to explain the recently discovered/confirmed 'Gravitational waves' - space-time tells matter how to move, matter tells space-time how to bend and so space-time is a form of matter! Similarly, Electricity and Magnetism that have complementary effects can be related to 'moving mass' radiating 'gravitational waves' - but there is a quantitative difference. 

Omar Khayyam's couplet on 'Hearts desires' finds a mention without the original quote.

Some mention about 'illusions' in the world is followed by a reference to a huge amount of work by Ramachandran's work on brain neurons (and illusions, thus).  A corollary to that effect is how we perceive gold bars which provoke our attention immediately but never are we bothered about the equal amount of gold atoms swimming in the ocean! Then a sleek mention about Noise Cancellation technology pops up and the cosmological constant finds mention with a few Einstein-Bohr debates (Quantum by Manjit Kumar is a leading book on that). 

Science is a fruitful way to understand optical delusion, a kind of prison and the Universe is a strange place and we are all in it together.

Arising curiosity around basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the idea that forms our understanding of the universe: time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He explores the history of fundamental science - what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. 

#The_God_Equation - Michio Kaku - Review

The book starts with the need for string theory with assumptions like, What happened before the Big Bang? What lies on the other side of a black hole? Are there other universes and dimensions? Is time travel possible? Why are we here? etc. The author tries to converge over these questions with an imaginary example "if we pluck a rubber band enough times and in different ways, we create all known sub-atomic particles", thus hinting an answer over the answers leading to String theory.

String theory is the theory that would give us the 'theory of everything'. Since he has been working on this over a long period he promises a 'balanced, objective analysis of string theory's breakthroughs and limitations' very soon - at one point we are told that the concern about string theory is the lack of evidence for the required 10 or 11 dimensions. Kaku points out that, if they exist, they should have a small impact on the force of gravity over small distances. He describes an experiment.... where the results are negative, rather than see this as more indication of the doubtful nature of the theory, 

The beginning part has so much repetition of information that can be found from his early writings and thus they make a boring read and you would want to do a 'speed-read, which I did, of course. The killing of Bruno when he expressed that life exists in other parts of the Universe has been mentioned again.

However, a few new things find mention, like "Faradays' cage" the concept of which has been applied to microwave ovens nowadays.  But then the repetition of the Wave spectrum like if the cells of our eyes were as big as a house, we might probably see the radio waves.

Maxwell is thumbed as a scientist who knew too much Mathematics. If Edison and he were asked to measure the volume of a light bulb the latter would use the Geometrical terms to calculate while the former would simply pour water into the bulb and measure the water to disclose the volume occupied.

The other frequent mention is that of the theory of relativity (for novices there is enough matter) and the distortion of space and time to keep the speed of light constant.  And the dent in the fabric of space is explained with a shotput ball over a mattress.

Here are some known facts that get rerun

# The Einstein-Chaplin discussion of celebrity status 

# The GPS has 31 satellites moving in different trajectories is well known (General Theory of relativity)

# The Gravity's pull if weaker results in faster time

# Schrodinger's Cat playing probability

# QED explanation with infinity (minus) infinity gets explained

# Feynmann's ingenuity gets mentioned with his famous story of cracking secrets of the atomic bomb

# Pauli's prediction of Neutrino

# Weinberg's theory and Nuclear forces get going

# Event Horizon telescope is mentioned (obviously owing to the topic)

# What a Dark Star is

# Hawking Radiation and Schwarzchild Radius and

# A lot about Dark Matter and Dark Energy

A slightly new twist is added to the concept of weightlessness in space, which is the actual thing rather than the no-gravity reality. If the rocket fall is the same as the object fall, then no gravity would be felt. (Remember the Newtown's Cannon Ball experiment)

Like a beginner's almanac of science that succinctly details the journey as well as the landmark discoveries and contributions physicists have made, or are making, as they continue their hunt for a theory of everything, the narration proceeds towards quantum reality. (Because, no, unfortunately, scientists haven't found a way to fuse relativity with quantum yet.)

As is typical with his work, Kaku manages to probe comprehensive cosmological concepts with all accessible narration, succinctness, and delicacy, which actually is the reason why one should complete this book. He makes explanations of gravity, quantum, and nuclear forces not only comprehensible to amateurs but compelling too. And he does so without once compromising the density of the subject matter.

Beginning with Newton and Einstein, veering into quantum mechanics, dipping into dark matter, energy, black holes, the book finishes with a perusal of string theory to show how far we've come in our understanding of the physics of the Universe and how far we still have to go. This is thus a very basic book about quantum theory, string theory, and historical physics. 

What is finally saturating is the mention of God, true to its title. Kaku warrants the proof of starting the Universe by a 'Starter', which is just the God - not the one that is mentioned in the Bible (only for the purpose of obeisance) or any other holy book, but the one which has Cosmological origin and mechanistic logistic propagation into infinite time.