In his celebrated book The First Three Minutes (Basic, 1977; 1988, reprint) Nobel laureate Weinberg wrote the ominous and oft-quoted remark ``The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.'' This book can be seen as his response to that remark after 15 years of reflection and scientific progress. Weinberg writes with great hope and clarity about the possibility that science can find a universal theory uniting the laws of nature into a single statement that is mathematically, philosophically, and aesthetically complete. His writing is technical in places, and some of the first-person narratives come off as less than humble, but overall Weinberg offers excellent insights on how such a theory could be realized and what it would mean. Especially engaging are his chapters, ``Beautiful Theories'' and ``What About God?'' Other books have been written on this subject (e.g., Paul Davies's Superforce , LJ 11/15/84; John Barrow's Theories of Everything , Oxford Univ. Pr., 1991; and Barry Parker's Search for a Supertheory , Plenum, 1987), but Weinberg's is likely to have the highest demand. Highly recommended.-- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Libs.
As a Nobel Prize winner (1979) and science writer ("The First Three Minutes", 1977), Weinberg brings both intellect and accessibility to the daunting subject of particle physics. He rests his argument for an eventual discovery of a unified physical theory on a history of the achievements of this century--a pattern of progress that Weinberg fears can be inhibited by "positivism," the scientific conviction that only that which can be measured can be known. Frankly, his discussion of complex physical concepts skirts the edge of even an educated layperson's grasp. Yet he succeeds brilliantly in delineating the notions that must be solved before science proclaims finality: integrating gravity into the theories; cancelling out "infinities" in calculations of properties such as mass and temperature; proving the "symmetry" of all fields, waves, and particles; and hanging them on "strings," thought to be the promising route to a final theory. Anticipating that event, Weinberg speculates about God in a world completely understood by humans. Despite its intrinsic difficulty, this is a premiere, uncondescending work--a magnitude of quality ahead of those by the science popularizers.
Weinberg, the 1979 Nobel Prize-winner in physics, imagines the shape of a final theory and the effect its discovery would have on the human spirit. He gives a defense of reductionism--the impulse to trace explanations of natural phenomena to deeper and deeper levels--and examines the curious relevance of beauty and symmetry in scientific theories. Weinberg gives a personal account of the search for the laws of nature, and shares glimpses scientists have had from time to time that there is a deeper truth foreshadowing a final theory. For another side of the discussion, see David Lindley's The End of Physics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Weinberg's career has gone from boy wonder to Nobel laureate (Physics, 1979) to sage among particle physicists, combining creative talents with a zeal to explain. In The First Three Minutes (1977), he popularized Big Bang cosmology, in particular the symmetry-breaking changes and events that can account for the matter-filled universe around us. Now, 15 years later, he summarizes how far theory has gone toward uniting gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces into a final theory. To accomplish this summary requires a masterful backing-and- filling of 20th-century physics, spelling out the role of Einstein in 1905 and 1917, Einstein's dispute with Bohr, the Copenhagen interpretation, the contributions of Heisenberg, Dirac, Schr"dinger, and Feynman, and so on down to the younger generation of string and superstring theorists. This would be enough for a popularization, but Weinberg has something else in mind. He discusses, from an insider's point of view, the style of science, specifying concepts like beauty and simplicity, and the context of science, describing the social milieu that creates waves of belief (or disbelief) at given times. Mirabile dictu, he also devotes a chapter to religion, seeing its role as a consolation in the face of deathsomething science cannot offer. But the underlying theme and not-at-all-hidden agenda emphasizes that if we are going to make any headway toward a final theory, it can come about only with the discovery of entities such as the Higgs particle, using equipment like the Super Collider. While Weinberg justifiably extols the explanatory power of 20th-century quantum mechanics, then, he leaves the reader with the frustratingsense that politics, the recession, science-infighting, or any combination thereof may thwart the logical next step. He makes an eloquent case.