Subject Grouping: Praxis

By Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin
Cambridge University Press
Hardback: $20
E-book: $17

This is a book on natural philosophy, a field that the authors argue, and convincingly so, has not had much activity for a long time. It is definitely not a popularisation, although it is written clearly enough (and free of equations) that it should be accessible to most knowledgeable readers.

In many ways, this is two books: one of about 350 pages by Unger, a philosopher, and another of about 150 pages by Smolin, a physicist, each presenting overlapping but often dissenting views, together with a discussion of these differences. This means one can be quite comfortable reading it and agreeing or not, as each point is raised.

Perhaps the key idea is that history might play a role in determining why the universe is the way it is, in as fundamental a way as history determines much of biology. This takes on many of the fundamental assumptions that go into cosmology and physics, including the idea that the “laws” of physics are somehow hard-wired into the universe and that they could conceivably evolve. Indeed in biology, the laws that govern biology emerge as the space of living things evolves. This puts causal connections in the driving seat and is akin to taking the Darwinian viewpoint in biology over the creationist myth. A new view emerges on why things are the way they are – an alternative to some hypothetical “elegant(?)” future derivation of why, for example, masses and couplings are what they are.

The authors eschew some ideas that often occur today, including that of there being a multiverse with ourselves being in but one (the “singular” in the title means there is just one), and the idea that time is somehow not real and leading to a genuine history. They even argue that mathematics may not merit the (“prophetic”, as they put it) role that we often give it.

It’s a hard book to put down. Whether or not one agrees with the points that are raised, the book is nothing if not thought-provoking, and the ideas could well be revolutionary.

By Yorikiyo Nagashima
Wiley
Hardback: £105 €131.30
E-book: £94.99 €118.80
Also available at the CERN bookshop

This comprehensive presentation of modern particle physics provides a store of background knowledge of the big open questions that go beyond the Standard Model, concerning, for example, the existence of the Higgs boson or the nature of dark matter and dark energy. For each topic, the author introduces key ideas and derives basic formulas needed to understand the phenomenological outcomes. Experimental techniques used in detection are also explained. Finally, the most recent data and future prospects are reviewed. The book can be used to provide a quick look at specialized topics, both to high-energy and theoretical physicists and to astronomers and graduate students.

By Ashok Das and Susumo Okubo
World Scientific
Hardback: £63
E-book: £24

Ashok Das and Susumo Okubo, colleagues at the University of Rochester, are theoretical high-energy particle physicists from different generations. Okubo’s name is probably best known for the mass formula for mesons and baryons that he and Murray Gell-Mann derived independently through the application of the SU(3) Lie group in the quark model, while Das works on questions related to symmetry. Their book is intended for graduate students of theoretical physics (with a background in quantum mechanics) as well as researchers interested in applications of Lie group theory and Lie algebras in physics. The emphasis is on the inter-relations of representation theories of Lie groups and the corresponding Lie algebras.

By Belal E Baaquie et al. (eds)
World Scientific
Hardback: £57
Paperback: £29

As the title of this collection of essays on the work of Kenneth Wilson (1936–2013) indicates, his impact on physics was enormous, transforming both high-energy and condensed-matter physics. He also foresaw much of the modern impact of computers and networking, and I can feel that influence even as I type this review.

This is a long book, comprising 385 pages with 21 essays by many of today’s most influential physicists. It should be made clear that while it includes plenty of biographical material, this is, for the most part, a combination of personal reminiscences and highly technical articles. A non-physicist, or even a physicist without a fairly deep understanding of modern quantum field theory, would probably find much of it almost completely impenetrable, with equations and figures that are really only accessible to the cognoscenti.

That said, a reading of selected parts sheds interesting light on a variety of complex topics in ways that are perhaps not so easily found in modern textbooks. I would not hesitate to suggest such a strategy to a philosopher or historian of science, or an undergraduate or graduate student in physics. The chapters are all well written, and whatever fraction is understood will prove valuable.

Some of the most interesting parts are quotations from Wilson himself. A particularly striking example is from Paul Ginsparg’s essay: “I go to graduate school in physics, and I take the first course in quantum field theory, and I’m totally disgusted with the way it’s related. They’re discussing something called renormalization group, and it’s a set of recipes, and I’m supposed to accept that these recipes work – no way. I made a resolution, I would learn to do the problems that they assigned, I would learn how to turn in answers that they would expect, holding my nose all the time, and some day I was going to understand what was really going on.”

He did, and now thanks to him, we do too. This represents just a fraction of the impact that Wilson has had on our field. The book is long, and not an easy read, but well worth the effort and I highly recommend it.

By N N Bogolubov, Jr (ed.)
World Scientific
Hardback: £57
E-book: £43

Nicolai Bogolubov (1909–1992) was well known in the world of high-energy physics as one of the founders of JINR, Dubna, and the first director of the Laboratory Theoretical Physics, now named after him. He was also well known in the wider community for his many contributions to quantum field theory and to statistical mechanics. Part I of this book, which is edited by his son, contains some of the elder Bogolubov’s papers on quantum statistical mechanics, a field in which he obtained a number of fundamental results, in particular in relation to superfluidity and superconductivity. Superfluidity was discovered in Russia in 1938 by Kapitza, and in 1947 Bogolubov published his theory of the phenomenon based on the correlated interaction of pairs of particles. This later led him to a microscopic theory for superconductivity, which helped to set the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory on firm ground. Part II is devoted to methods for studying model Hamiltonians for problems in quantum statistical mechanics, and is based on seminars and lectures that Bogolubov gave at Moscow State University.

By A Zichichi and R Ragani (eds)
World Scientific
Hardback: £98
E-book: £74

The 46th Session of the International Seminars on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies, held in Erice, Sicily, gathered again, in 2013, more than 100 scientists from 43 countries. This is the latest output from an interdisciplinary effort that has been going on for the past 32 years, to examine and analyse planetary problems that are followed up, throughout the year, by the World Federation of Scientists’ Permanent Monitoring Panels.

By Sidney Yip
World Scientific
Hardback: £49

Based on a first-year graduate-level course that the author taught in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, this book differs from traditional nuclear-physics texts for a nuclear-engineering curriculum by emphasizing the understanding of nuclear radiations and their interactions with matter. In generating nuclear radiations and using them for beneficial purposes, scientists and engineers must understand the properties of the radiations and how they interact with their surroundings. Hence, radiation interaction is the essence of this book.

By Freeman J Dyson
World Scientific
Hardback: £38
Paperback: £18

Birds and Frogs is a wonderful collection of essays and papers by Freeman Dyson from 1990 to 2014, and a sequel to a volume of earlier papers. It consists of a short introductory section followed by four more: “Talks about Science”, “Memoirs”, “Politics and History” and “Technical Papers”.

The book takes its title from one of the “Talks about Science”, in which Dyson classifies mathematicians – and, I would add, physicists – as either “birds” or “frogs”. He writes: “Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in concepts that unify our thinking and bring together diverse problems from different parts of the landscape. Frogs live in the mud below and see only the flowers that grow nearby. They delight in the details of particular objects, and they solve problems one at a time. I happen to be a frog, but many of my best friends are birds.” This section contains a wealth of fascinating thoughts on, for example, the origins of life, resistance to new ideas in physics, and the nature of computation in the human brain.

Despite his claim to be a frog, much of the book is written with a bird’s-eye view. Dyson is perhaps uniquely placed among living scientists in having been privy to much that went on in the early days of quantum field theory, and to have met and be able to write about personal experiences with many of our modern-day heroes. In the “Memoirs” section, and elsewhere, he offers insights not only into their work, but also their lives and beliefs.

“Politics and History” ranges from science and religion to ethics, and education from the points of view of Tolstoy and Napoleon. His recollections and observations about the Second World War are as unique as they are fascinating. Ultimately, he shares spectacular and optimistic visions for our future as a species that can spread life throughout the universe.

It is the section on “Technical Papers” that shows Dyson the frog. Here, number theory, bounds on variation of the fine structure constant, detectability of gravitons and game theory all appear.

Whether you’re a frog or a bird or neither – Dyson has a penchant for classifying things into a small number of categories, often just two – you are certain to find much to delight you in this eclectic and yet somehow unified collection.