The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg |  | Author: Robert P. Crease
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 83321
Media: Paperback
Pages: 315
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0393337936
Dewey Decimal Number: 509
EAN: 9780393337938
ASIN: 0393337936
Publication Date: January 18, 2010
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Product Description
“Any reader who aspires to be scientifically literate will find this a good starting place.”—Publishers Weekly While we may be familiar with some of science’s greatest equations, we may not know that each and every equation emerged not in “Eureka!” moments but in years of cultural developments and scientific knowledge. With vignettes full of humor, drama, and eccentricity, philosopher and science historian Robert P. Crease shares the stories behind ten of history’s greatest equations, from the “first equation,” 1 + 1 = 2, which promises a rational, well-ordered world, to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which reveals the limitations of human knowledge. For every equation, Crease provides a brief account of who discovered it, what dissatisfactions lay behind its discovery, and what the equation says about the nature of our world. 43 illustrations
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 The top ten ideas of all time March 8, 2010
Ronald Yu (Astoria, NY United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Great Equations summarizes what the author feels are the ten greatest equations in the history of human intelligence, and who could argue with him? During the time reading it, I thought about Planck's resolution of the Blackbody Radiation Paradox, Dirac's QED eq, leading to anti-matter (actually Dirac was trying to unify Quantum Mechanics with Special Relativity, but 'stumbled' onto anti-matter),or Hubble's expanding universe, but guess top 13 would be unlucky. Listed, not by import, but chronologically as follows:
1-Phythagoras's Theorem (~700 BC), which states that the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two sides whose vertex is a right angle, equals the square of the third side. This is not just some schoolchild postulate, but is the basis of ancient civilization. Structures and ideas were constructed on the basis of this deep insightful concept. But there is proof that in Asia, and South America, a similar theorem was proposed, evidenced by the level of their intellectual progress.
2-Newton's Second Law of Motion (1666), which states that any force produced by, or imposed upon a body, results from the product of its mass and its change in motion. This is the pillar upon which all explainations of motion and forces on any bodies, stand to this very day. Galileo was on the brink of this idea, but the concept of 'change in motion' was still too abstract then, plus he was having serious troubles with the Catholic Church. Sir Isaac was the first the understand this concept, and led him to discover differential calculus as an afterthought.
3-Newton's Universal Gravitation Law (1666). The main word here is Universal, implying that it is valid, not only on in merry ole England, or even the Earth, but anywhere in the heavenly skies. Remembering that we are not far removed from the medieval period, and to demonstrate this degree of dogmatic farsightness was nothing short of revolutionary.
4-Euler's Equation (1740's).(not Euler's eq for fluid dynamics, which is just a fluid version for #2) Here Euler combines the five most fundamental numbers in all of mathematics (base of the natural log, pi, square root of -1, one, and zero) into one simple arithmetic statement. I remember asking my math teacher if this was a coincidence, and he replied 'there are no coincidences in mathematics.', meaning that there is a deep interrelationship between the values of these numbers.
5-The Second Law of Thermodynamics (1840's - 1850's). Aka the Law of Entropy, it was the culmination of the work of many,and in the author's words, worthy of a 'Shakespearean drama'. This was the period of the Industrial Revolution, and the Steam engine was all the rage. It was left to the physicist to explain what is heat, and its effects on the environment. The plot and cast is as follows: Carnot examines heat engines; Joule and Kelvin quantify heat; Clasius introduces entropy; Boltzmann and Maxwell applies statistics to describe entropy, the first time probabalistic concepts entered science, and foretold much of what was to come. It also definitively defined the direction of time. Up until then, it was assumed that time traveled with the clock hand, sunrises or birthdays, but there was no proof.
6-Maxwell's Equations (1860's). From statistical thermodynamics, Maxwell moved on to electricity and magnetism. He was deeply influenced by Faraday's lines of force and proceeded to unite the seemingly unrelated laws of Gauss, Ampere and Faraday. Along the way, he proved that light was just another electromagnetic effect. He actually proposed 12, sometimes more equations, and it took the practical ingenuity of Heaviside in 1884 to give it the familiar, symmetric, iconic (and much simpler) form we know today.
7-E=mc^2 (1905). Who in this world has not seen this? It conjures up images of wild-eyed, eccentric, white-haired madness and the atomic mushroom. Einstein, during one of his famous thought experiments, imagined to be surfing on a light wave. What would happen to the laws of physics? He concludes that the speed of light is the same for all observers, and that it is time and the three physical dimensions (space-time) that are variant. This was earth shattering at that time, but he was not yet done.
8-General Theory of Relativity (1915), so called because #7 was only a 'special' case. This showed that "space-time tells matter how to move, and matter tells space-time how to curve"; that the universe is like a trampoline-it conforms to the objects that are on it. The extension of this theory includes time travel, black holes, multiple universes, and string theory.
9-Shrodinger's Equation (1926). In the early 1920's, the new quantum mechanics was the latest hot research topic. But who really understood it. There's an expression-'if you can't explain it, then you don't understand it.' Shrodinger was an 'old-time' physicist (in his late 30's), and was comfortable with the conservative approach. Everyone knows the wave equation, which he adapted to ever growing number of quantum observations. The scientific community applauded his effort, which enabled them to 'simply' solve the 'standard' equation which fit in nicely with experimental data.
10-Heisenberg's Uncertaincy Principle (1927). Although Heisenberg also shared the credit for #9, his approach was much too perplexing, utilizing obscure matrices, confounding many who tried to apply his method. But not to be forgotten, his uncertainty principle forever destroyed the notion of predictability of the universe. It was a century earlier, when Laplace declared, 'give me the mass and motions of every object in the universe, and I will predict the future.' We now know that there is a calculable probabilty, that you are not where you think you are right this second; that parallel universes can exist, that its possible for Scotty to 'beamed us up'.
A Great Equation Book June 10, 2010
Charles E. Brown Jr.
An excellent book on the history of physics and math. Inside of trying to be exhaustive, the author takes a clever approach: choose world-changing equations,then work backwards from them to discuss the personalities of the discoverers and the intellectual background that led to the discoveries. The one-line equations often took years of work to produce; in the most amusing case, Heisenberg unwittingly re-invented matrix mathematics because he hadn't learnt it in school. Toward the end the author gets vague because quantum theory requires a huge abmount of introduction, but other popular-science books have had the same problem, and I won't deduct stars for it. There are entertaining digressions: a section on how Aristotle's worldview differs from the modern one, and a discussion of why Orwell's 1984 keeps harping on "2 + 2 = 4". An entertaining and informative read.
Well received gift book January 8, 2010
Carolina Girl (north carolina)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Husband asked for this book for Christmas, he is a computer person but he enjoys reading this kind of thing. he enjoys it so much, he tries to explain some of it to me, and occasionally I even understand it a bit! I think that it must be written so intelligent people with an interest in the area can understand it. He has read things by Stephen Hawkings (A Brief History of Time) and a book called the Dancing Wu Li Masters, both of which are about physics, so this gives you some idea of the type of person who would appreciate it. I did look at the other reviews and can only say that these reviewers seem to know a lot about the areas covered in the book! Clearly the book covers more than physics!
The Great Equations March 18, 2010
G. Cornell (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The books was described as "new" and was exactly that. I'm very pleased.
Thanks.
Great service! March 7, 2009
Walter I. Jordan (Portsmouth VA)
2 out of 22 found this review helpful
All went smoothly. Got my book at a good price and delivered quickly and packged securely.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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