Antimatter by Frank Close, Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 9780199550166, £9.99 ($19.95).
Is antimatter the stuff of angels and demons? Yes, and we learn in this marvellous little book that the angels are called Paul Dirac and Ernst Stueckelberg, but I will not name the demons. Though the author on occasion waxes a little over-lyrical, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It reads like a murder-mystery plot – but it's not the butler who did it.
While at CERN I myself had to answer questions about antimatter from the lay public, so I fully appreciate how difficult it is to debunk myths and expose reality instead. Explaining why there is "something" rather than "nothing" – i.e. why matter exceeded antimatter when the naive assumption is that after the Big Bang there were exactly equal amounts of each – is a difficult task, but I think that I have understood it now.
Frank Close does an excellent job of pulling all of the known pieces together into a coherent story; a story that shows how much antimatter has been present in the study of physics throughout the history of quantum mechanics. Fortunately, he does not shy away from including a little maths and a few diagrams, both of which are necessary because these physics concepts cannot be expressed by language alone.
The book is concise, clear and its small format is easy to handle. The artwork is exemplary, which is quite unusual for works in this category. In all, this is a good read for anyone who would like to know more than the Star Trek platitudes.
Robert Cailliau, Prévessin.
Books received
The Self-Evolving Cosmos: A Phenomenological Approach to Nature's Unity-in-Diversity, Series of Knots and Everything, Vol. 18 by Steven M Rosen, World Scientific. Hardback ISBN 9789812771735, £48 ($88). Paperback ISBN 979812835819, £26 ($48).
This book offers an original way of thinking about two of the most significant problems confronting modern theoretical physicists: the unification of the forces of nature and the evolution of the universe. In bringing out the inadequacies of the prevailing approach to these questions, the author demonstrates the need for more than just a new theory. The meanings of space and time must themselves be radically rethought, which requires a whole new philosophical foundation. To this end, the book turns to the phenomenological writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. Their insights into space and time bring the natural world to life in a manner well suited to the dynamic phenomena of contemporary physics. The author's pioneering work in topological phenomenology is applied to such topics as quantum gravity, cosmogony, symmetry, spin, vorticity, dimension theory, Kaluza-Klein and string theories, fermion–boson interrelatedness, hypernumbers and the mind–matter interface.
Topological Foundations of Electromagnetism by Terence W Barrett, World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics – Vol. 26. Hardback ISBN 9789812779960, £36 ($69).
This book seeks a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of electromagnetism. It marshals the evidence that in certain precisely defined topological conditions, electromagnetic theory (Maxwell's theory), must be extended or generalized in order to provide an explanation and understanding of, until now, unusual electromagnetic phenomena. The key to this generalization is an understanding of the circumstances under which the so-called "A potential" fields have physical effects. Basic to the approach taken is that the topological composition of electromagnetic fields is the fundamental conditioner of the dynamics of these fields. A major thread is the treatment of electromagnetism from, first, a topological perspective, continuing through group theory and gauge theory, to a differential calculus description. Suggestions for potential new technologies based on this understanding and approach to conditional electromagnetism are also given.