Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World

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Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World

3.62 of 5 stars 3.62 · rating details · 455 ratings · 74 reviews

From one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, a rousing defense of the role of science in our lives

The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven's Door is an exhilarating and accessible overvi...more

Hardcover, 464 pages

Published September 20th 2011 by Ecco (first published 2011)

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New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011

39th out of 100 books — 41 voters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Knocking on Heaven's Door by Lisa Randall

Popular Science Books Written By Women

5th out of 19 books — 13 voters

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Mar 10, 2013 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

What I don’t know about particle physics amounts to an enormous trove of data. Before reading this book, I had no idea just how much I didn’t know. Now, however, I have a much better idea about what the parameters of what I don’t know might be. I can’t visualize them, but through the process of examining what I do know, the conspicuous absences in the shadows of my knowledge subtly hint at vast deserts of unknowable terrain. Fluctuations of confusion, blackness, and chaos are sometimes the only...more

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Dec 12, 2012 John Maguire rated it 3 of 5 stars

Great start to this book. Really had me hooked on the finer points of arguing the differences between the scientific method and religion. Some great insights on the fundamental importance of understanding scale when thinking about...well anything.

But ultimately this book kind of lost its hold on me about half way through. It's like it couldn't totally decide whether it was a philosophical tome on science vs. religion, or a summary of current day research and what they might find, or a primer on...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Nathan Kibler rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don't give many books five stars before I read them in their entirety, but I am so impressed with Lisa Randall and her philosophical arguments in the first part of this very timely book. Namely she tackles the issue of religious thinking vs. scientific thinking head on.

While she is clearly prejudiced in favor of the latter, being an honored Theoretical Physicist and Professor, she covers many salient points that concern both and manages to assert her understandings of the arguments without be...more

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Jan 11, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Eminent theoretical physicist Lisa Randall regards her new book "Knocking on Heaven's Door" as a "prequel" to her earlier "Warped Passages". But it is much more than that, as a clearly written statement by a distinguished scientist explaining how science works to an interested, if substantially scientific illiterate, public. While there are other books, such as those written by her high school and college classmate, physicist Brian Greene, which emphasize the state-of-the-art thinking in theoret...more Eminent theoretical physicist Lisa Randall regards her new book "Knocking on Heaven's Door" as a "prequel" to her earlier "Warped Passages". But it is much more than that, as a clearly written statement by a distinguished scientist explaining how science works to an interested, if substantially scientific illiterate, public. While there are other books, such as those written by her high school and college classmate, physicist Brian Greene, which emphasize the state-of-the-art thinking in theoretical physics, Randall's is one that still deserves a wide readership, especially for its emphasis on how scientists conduct their scientific research, and in noting how the public often misinterprets it. These aspects of science, and the public's understanding of it, are the most important reasons why "Knocking of Heaven's Door" is an important contribution to popular scientific literature.

The notion of scaling - or rather, scale - is one of the most important concepts which Randall returns to again and again in "Knocking on Heaven's Door". She argues persuasively that, on a macroscopic scale, Newton's laws of motion are still relevant in explaining the motions of large objects such as planets and moons in the Solar System; it is only at atomic and subatomic scales that quantum mechanics does a much better job in explaining motions of subatomic particles. In other words, in plain English, Newtonian classical mechanics has become merely a subset of modern theoretical physics. A similar analogy exists for biology, with regards to the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, now subsumed within the Modern Synthesis Theory of Evolution; the latter also incorporates population genetics and some aspects of both developmental biology and paleobiology (As an aside, I also recommend her reminder that evolution denialism isn't a problem only for religious conservatives, by recounting at the end of Chapter Three, an airplane conversation she had with a Hollywood actor trained in molecular biology, an Obama supporter, who rejects the biological evolution of humans since it is contrary to his religious views.).

Probabilistic thought is something which Randall also stresses throughout much of "Knocking on Heaven's Door". While she does not explain probability theory at any great length, she does explain via probability, why science is by very nature, a very tentative process in which there are no clearly defined answers that can be answered in the affirmative or negative with utmost certainty. This very underlying theme is one which underscores her conversations with noted Hollywood screenwriters and New York City dance choreographers that she cites as notable examples of misconceptions about the nature of science widely shared by the public. A firm understanding of probability theory is required for determining risk, which is discussed at length late in "Knocking on Heaven's Door" (Chapter Eleven). In a similar vein, I found equally rewarding her discussion of uncertainty as it pertains to both risk and experimental design (Chapter Twelve).

Most readers will appreciate her extensive discussion on the building and ongoing operation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN's Swiss research facility. She eloquently ties that into current theoretical models in particle physics and cosmology, as well as to the two overarching themes of scale and probability that the reader encounters repeatedly throughout "Knocking on Heaven's Door". However, as compelling as that discussion is, the reader shouldn't forget that hers is a book which conveys to the general public, the very nature of science as seen through the eyes of this distinguished physicist.
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Nov 16, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World. (2011). Lisa Randall. ***.
I finished up my graduate work in Chemistry in 1964. As an undergraduate, I had to take Atomic Physics, and therer was a graduate course in Quantum Mechanics. I have to admit, however, that the advances in technology since then have surpassed my capabilities of understanding them. This book is an example. Although I can get, in a general way, most of what this a...more
KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World. (2011). Lisa Randall. ***.
I finished up my graduate work in Chemistry in 1964. As an undergraduate, I had to take Atomic Physics, and therer was a graduate course in Quantum Mechanics. I have to admit, however, that the advances in technology since then have surpassed my capabilities of understanding them. This book is an example. Although I can get, in a general way, most of what this author is trying to tell us, i would need a month to prepare for any test. The concepts in particle physics and cosmology are just that complicated. The author covers the concepts of the scientific method which we have all had drilled into us in a variety of ways, and even talked about the difference in the aims and end results of religion vs. science, but although she tries to talk at the reader’s level (even an old chemist’s) she ends up losing me. “The major element(s) of Knocking on Heaven’s Door (have) been the concepts – such as scale, uncertainty, creativity, and rational critical reasoning – that inform scientific thought. We can believe that science will make progress toward reaching answers and that complexity can emerge over time even before we have a fully fleshed-out explanation. The answers might be complicated, but that diesn’t justify abdicating faith in reason.” A large part of the book is taken up with the author’s explanation and huge hopes for the results that will come out of experiments performed on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), built on the border of Switzerland and France. This project has been contributed to by numerous nations, who have contributed both money and their best scientific minds. “The collisions we’ll study at the LHC are akin to those that took place in the first trillionth of a millisecond after the Big Bang. They will teach us about small distances and about the nature of matter and forces at this very early time. You might think of the Large Hadron Collider as a super-microscope that allows us to study particles and forces at incredibly small sizes – on the order of a tenth of a thousanth of a trillionth of a millimeter.” I’m sure that the author did her best to communicate her subject matter to the reader. I’m just not sure who her readership is. Two of the blurbs with advance praise for the book are by President Bill Clinton and Richard Dawkins. C’mon Bill!
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Oct 27, 2011 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: discarded

Once I had a guitar. I worked really, really hard on learning how to play, but never got the hang of it. I put it away. Ten years later I took it out of the closet, thinking to myself, I've been listening to a lot of music, and it's been ten years, I should be much better at this. That's right, I wasn't.

I'm interested in cosmology and physics in much the same way I'm interested in Buddhism, and a bit more than I was actually interested in the guitar. Let's take Buddhism first. I've read lots of...more Once I had a guitar. I worked really, really hard on learning how to play, but never got the hang of it. I put it away. Ten years later I took it out of the closet, thinking to myself, I've been listening to a lot of music, and it's been ten years, I should be much better at this. That's right, I wasn't.

I'm interested in cosmology and physics in much the same way I'm interested in Buddhism, and a bit more than I was actually interested in the guitar. Let's take Buddhism first. I've read lots of books on the subject, and can carry on a decent conversation, but it wasn't until I started actually practicing that I understood anything - really, any thing - about it. Cosmology and physics. Fascinating. I've read a bunch of books. I keep thinking if I just read one more book I'll get what the hell these people are talking about - I mean, really get it. So, I picked up "Knocking on Heaven's Door." I admit, being a Dylan nut, the title got me, and I thought that anyone who would use a Dylan lyric (apt by the way) as a title, and other song titles as chapters would be able to give it to me in a way I'd understand. Nope. And I'm not blaming anyone but me, that's why I've given this book five stars. I don't want anyone to turn away from its possibilities just because I'm a dolt.

What I did learn, and this is important to me - it's all a matter of scale. Just because a neutrino can defy the laws of physics and move, at least momentarily, faster than light doesn't mean that anything bigger than said neutrino can do the same. So all you time travelers can unfasten your seat belts, you're still stuck. By the way, the jury is still out on whether said neutrino actually did break the speed limit. And, this book has nothing to do with said neutrino, I'm just using it as an example of how scale is important.

The other thing I got - scientists are still more connected to reality than theologians. Good science is willing to test and expand theory until it's no longer theory. Even the best theologians think the rock is solid, and god damn anyone who doesn't.

Anyway, Knocking on Heaven's Door, was ultimately too much for me - too much science that I plain couldn't get my pea brain around. That doesn't mean you shouldn't check it out.(less)

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Apr 05, 2013 David Rubin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lisa Randall's book is another attempt in a long line of books about contemporary physics which is aimed at the interested buy not scientifically educated public. It must be extremely difficult to explain highly sophisticated, highly-mathematically oriented concepts to the lay reader while maintaining his or her interest. We should thank these brilliant and gifted scientists for making the effort to help us understand these often non-intuitive concepts without the use of the difficult math which...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Peter Fortune rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Lisa Randall is a tenured Harvard physicist, no mean accomplishment. She has become a bit of a personality figure, partly because she is a woman in a man's profession, partly because she is an attractive woman in a man's profession, and partly because (rumor has it) she is a lesbian woman in a man's profession. Whatever!

The book is about the need for a new model of particles--the Standard Model ignores gravity and contains restrictions that make little sense. Randall reviews some basic aspects o...more

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Jan 16, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book introduces the reader to some of the recent research in the field of fundamental physics, with an emphasis on the now-constructed Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. The author's enthusiasm and excitement for this new system is apparent on every page. As she correctly describes the LHC as simultaneously the world's most advanced and sophisticated machine, and also its largest in physical extent. It is certainly the most remarkable scientific instrument ever created, a...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

This is an unremarkable book that glams together a bunch of topics in modern science poorly. The beginning discussion of scale is interesting as the author notes that in physics, laws are rarely overturned universally, but adjustments need to be made at particular scale points at either very big or very small sizes. This was an nice way of summarizing the places where physics needs to be updated but much beyond this the book does nothing particularly well.

*The technical detail on the LHC is abso...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Hom Sack rated it 3 of 5 stars

You would think a "non-believer" would pick a different title despite its attribution to a Bob Dylan song. Nonetheless, there is an element of faith (she call it "belief" p147) in this business of particle physics and astrophysics. Speaking of "nonetheless", that seems to be her favorite word. Perhaps she doesn't mixing other word like however, nevertheless, still, yet, notwithstanding, etc. So, it get annoying reading the word in the course of over 400 pages. However, Randall does an excellent...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Devin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, and I did enjoy at least some of it. The author's explanations of scale, the nature of science, and how it compares and contrasts with religion are quite good, but after that it all unravels. The book repeats itself countless times, seemingly to get the page count up and look like a more formidable book than it really is. I think that at least 100 pages could be edited out, and would make this much more readable. The common anecdotes about historical science ha...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Todd Martin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment-science

I’m not sure how this book came about, but it’s the kind of mish-mash that suggests the work of a committee. First, there’s the title Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, which bears no resemblance to the content of the book. Then, there’s the subject matter itself. The book begins with an overly involved discussion of scale, and how scientists select the scale of their observations depending on the type of phenomenon they a...more I’m not sure how this book came about, but it’s the kind of mish-mash that suggests the work of a committee. First, there’s the title Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, which bears no resemblance to the content of the book. Then, there’s the subject matter itself. The book begins with an overly involved discussion of scale, and how scientists select the scale of their observations depending on the type of phenomenon they are studying. That’s fine, but it’s a very simple point that is easy to understand. Does anyone think an auto mechanic is concerned about quantum effects when working on your car engine? Next there’s a short discussion of the compatibility of science and religion where words are chosen ever so carefully so as not to break any eggshells. Later there’s sort of an oddly apropos-of-nothing discussion of risk analysis using the notion that physics experiments could create black holes that would destroy the earth (they won’t) and a discussion of scientific vs artistic beauty that Steven Weinberg largely covered in Dreams of a Final Theory (and it wasn’t all that interesting the first time).

Eventually, the book seems to settle on a theme – and we learn that it happens to be about the large hadron collider located in France and Switzerland and operated by CERN! Well, that’s a nice surprise, I’m not sure why we were keeping it a secret. I’m guessing this is the topic Randall wanted to write about all along since this seems to be where her enthusiasm lies. The book describes some of the underlying physics of supercolliders and the types of things scientists hope to discover. She also goes into details of the construction of the unit and some of the problems encountered along the way that you may recall having heard about on the news.

Following a description of the collider we're treated to tedious details about particle physics and collision byproducts. Unfortunately it’s a confusing muddle because Randall fails to provide the background needed to understand the material. Hearing that two W bosons radiate off incoming quarks and then fuse to make a Higgs boson which subsequently decays to two tau leptons a stale bit of pizza crust and half a garden gnome (the bottom half), will leave most yawning and scratching their heads. Finally, she throws in some astrophysics, probably because someone was washing dishes and the kitchen sink wasn’t available.

You have to wonder who the book is geared for. In the first part of the book in the discussion of size and scale, the material is written for a 3rd grader, while the particle theory requires graduate level coursework in physics. This is an all-too common mistake that occurs when scientists with a poor understanding of their audience attempt to write popular books.
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Nov 19, 2011 Ron Arden rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lisa Randall brings the complex topics of particle physics and cosmology to life in this detailed book. So many things have happened in these fields since I was in school that I felt like I was back in the classroom. Aside from explaining what the Large Hadron Collider and similar instruments are trying to accomplish, she delves into discussions on the smallest and largest scales of things in the universe. I now have a better understanding of the tiniest elements that make up our world (quarks a...more Lisa Randall brings the complex topics of particle physics and cosmology to life in this detailed book. So many things have happened in these fields since I was in school that I felt like I was back in the classroom. Aside from explaining what the Large Hadron Collider and similar instruments are trying to accomplish, she delves into discussions on the smallest and largest scales of things in the universe. I now have a better understanding of the tiniest elements that make up our world (quarks and gluons) and some of the largest (galaxies).

Aside from the pure science, she also delves in the scientific method and how we as a society have steered away from it. This process is how we have and should think about things in a logical way. Whether you are a particle physicist or a citizen of the United States, you can approach things in your life in a logical way. She talks about defining and understanding risk and how if people really thought about how things affect them, we may all be a little saner.

One area that blew my mind was discussion of multiple dimensions to our universe. Many of these theories seem like the wild imaginations of crazy scientists until you understand the rigors in which they came about. Physicists look at problems and develop mathematical models to support their theories. In the case of multiple dimensions, Randall and a colleague used Einstein's relativity and gravity equations to formulate their theory. This agrees with prior experimental observations and with Einstein's equations. Since the scientific method ensures rigorous peer review and scrutiny, these theories have undergone tremendous debate. They are based on years of research, experiments and all the brilliant minds that have some before them.

One area that we should all take to heart is that persevering in any endeavor requires creative thinking to move beyond a roadblock. Whether you are a scientist, a musician or an accountant, you need to be open to new approaches to solving problems. If you are unwilling to look at facts and change your ideas based on them, you will have a difficult time moving forward in life.

This book gave me a new appreciation for science, which I've always loved, and how we as people need to embrace it and the rigorous thinking that it entails. Solving the major problems our of lives doesn't require sound bites and quick answers that fit on a postcard. They require intelligent thinking from everyone.

One story in the book was very telling. It seems to be fashionable in some circles to be against science and intelligent thinking. Lisa Randall related a story of going to a party on the 11th floor of a building and had a conversation with a woman. The woman was talking on her cell phone and then mentioned to Lisa that she doesn't believe in science. Lisa asked her how she arrived on the 11th floor. She said by elevator. Lisa then mentioned that this woman must have been on a different elevator than she was, since the elevator required science to develop and work. The same for her cell phone. (less)

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Aug 12, 2012 Arvind Balasundaram rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this book, noted particle physicist and cosmologist Lisa Randall provides a survey of the most recent developments in physics. She succeeds, for most part, although the content frequently oscillates between easy to comprehend to highly advanced for the lay-reader. The book begins with a very comprehensive explanation of scales and why they matter, and why the human scale and our familiarity with it inhibits our understanding of quantum goings-on as well as that in the far reaches of the expan...more In this book, noted particle physicist and cosmologist Lisa Randall provides a survey of the most recent developments in physics. She succeeds, for most part, although the content frequently oscillates between easy to comprehend to highly advanced for the lay-reader. The book begins with a very comprehensive explanation of scales and why they matter, and why the human scale and our familiarity with it inhibits our understanding of quantum goings-on as well as that in the far reaches of the expanding universe. Randall then lays out the fundamentals of the Standard Model of particle physics, delineating the quarks from the leptons and the role of the gauge bosons. She explains the role of charge, mass, and spin, and how the various forces (strong nuclear force, weak force, and the electromagnetic force) are modulated via force carriers, namely the gluons, w and Z bosons, and photons. Before getting into the latest developments with this Model, notably the Higgs mechanism and the quest for the Higgs boson, Randall reviews the structure and history of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This review is particularly useful in illuminating how tracks of fundamental particles are recorded and why the choice of particles to collide is important for scientists and what tradeoffs in the experiment they must settle for as a result. Randall then digresses into a largely unnecessary review of uncertainty and probabilities, and feels compelled to extend this discussion to realms beyond physics, like the stock market. This chapter makes some gross omissions in the comparison, for example not accounting for the speculative nature of behavior by investors which is dissimilar to probabilities in the physical sciences. This chapter can safely be skipped with little loss of continuity.
Perhaps the best part of this book is a comprehensive review of the Higgs mechanism and the elusive quest for the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle". Randall reviews why the Higgs is critical for shedding light on the notorious hierarchy problem that has long haunted particle physicists. Simply stated, this problem concerns the question of why particle masses - and the Higgs mass in particular - take the values that they do. Randall intoduces the reader to the different mass scales: the weak mass scale that determines elementary particle masses and the Planck mass that determines gravitational interactions. The hierarchy problem simply stated asks why gravity, even though dependent on more enormous Planck mass, is so much weaker than the other elementary forces we know. Using the Higgs quest as context, Randall surveys where future ideas are heading in particle physics, introducing the reader to elements and the framework of supersymmetry, technicolor, extra dimensions, and string theory. These concepts, though fascinating, remain challenging for the reader to grasp. For example, the idea of every Standard Model particle being paired with a supersymmetric partner but of opposite quantum mechanical type, remains enigmatic conceptually but in need of more lucid explanation. The book concludes with an overview of topics currently being discussed in cosmology - dark matter and energy, inflationary expansion of the universe , and transparent matter.
This book is worth the read for anyone looking to go beyond what the press covered recently on the Higgs quest. It is a brave attempt by a leading scientist to take the time to explain very abstruse concepts in the fundamental sciences to laypeople, an endeavor for which she deserves enormous accolades.(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Bob Peake rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: physics-cosmology

I heard Lisa Randall speak a few years back at the Hayden Planetarium, and she is an impressive scientist. This latest book is divided between describing the history, construction and operation of the Large Hadron Collider, CERN's huge particle accelerator, and the physics of scale. The LHC is an impressive machine, to say the least!

Regarding scale, what we experience at the human scale is so far different than the operations of the quantum world which work at extremely small distances, that it...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Ed rated it 3 of 5 stars

While this book includes a lot of interesting material, for me it failed to really rigorously explain the fundamentals of the modern physics she is talking about. Too much of it is anecdotal, travelogue and trying to make it into a story. Not enough time and effort is taken to explain Higgs Bosons or whatever she is focused on. Needed a good editor to challenge each technical explanation to see if it really would give a lay person like myself the understanding they needed to grasp the modern Sta...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Rachael rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this very much. Actually I wouldn't highly recommend the first part if you are reading this to get the physics, but then again, I'm already convinced that doing physics is a good idea.

What I really enjoyed though was her detailed descriptions of the set up of the LHC and ATLAS and CMS. I wish I would have been able to read something like that years ago when I had the privilege to contribute to the ATLAS project. She also does an admirable job of explaining difficult theoretical ideas t...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Roger added it

This was interesting and generally pretty clear in describing some physics that is just ridiculously complex. Randall is a serious theoretical physicist and brings a good first hand view of what such people actually do with the LHC and what they hope to do next. It's topical just now because of the Higgs and she goes into just what the Higgs is and what it means. At the time of writing the Higgs had not been announced, of course, but reading this helped me understand the announcement much better...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Don rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science

This book is almost like two books in one. The first part, which is probably just about a fifth of the book, gives a little bit of background just on the methods of inquiry of science, its status in modern culture, and its relationship and conflict with other thought systems, particular religion. During this part, I found Randall's writing very easy to follow, and informative.

The second part of the book Randall discusses more nuts and bolts physics, both from the large scale of items involves in...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

My rating has less to do with any recommendation for this book but more of my own personal reaction to it. In terms of recommendation, I recommend this book highly to those who want to know more about particle physics and the Higgs-Boson business and a thing or two about scientific thought. For my own purposes, I found Simon Singh's Big Bang theory much more enlightening in terms of how scientific thought progresses. Lisa Randall is much more contemporary with her content, of course, but this bo...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Todd rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lisa Randall's excellent Warped Passages put modern cosmological theories into an enjoyable and readable form. Her descriptions of added dimensions being the cause of gravity were really mind bending. With Knocking on Heaven's Door, Randall turns her attention to particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider (it's the collider that's large, not the hadrons), how the latter will (hopefully) expand on the former and, by extension, add to our understanding of modern cosmology. Essentially, the book's...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Ben Babcock rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, 2012-read, non-fiction, science

I love physics. I love that we know so much about physics, and that we still have so much left to learn! I love reading about how far we have come from Ptolemaic ideas of geocentricity to mapping the cosmic microwave background radiation itself. And don’t get me started about the Large Hadron Collider: 7 TeV? Really? Up to 14 TeV in the next few years? Various atrocious self-help books claim they’ll help you unlock “the secrets of the universe”. The scientists and engineers at CERN are quite lit...more

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Dec 14, 2012 Bob Stocker rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was a disappointment. I had hoped that Lisa Randall's Knocking on Heaven's Door would give me a bit deeper insight into things like the Standard Model, the Higgs boson, and dark matter. I suppose it did give me some additional insight, but not as much insight as I sought. Maybe it's just not possible to distill this stuff down to a point where physical descriptions don't involve intractable mathematics. Randall has removed so much mathematics that what's left sometimes seems more like...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Vanessa rated it 1 of 5 stars

I will admit defeat. As much as I love popular physics books I just cannot bear to finish this one. The author is obviously brilliant, knows her field well, and has an infectious enthusiasm for science. Unfortunately, she seems to have fallen into the trap that some brilliant people do: she assumes her intelligence and acumen in the field of physics means that her insights outside of that field are similarly brilliant. Alas, this is not so. Repeatedly, she discusses the financial world and does...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Elaine Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book contains a wealth of scientific information; however, the author does not seem gifted in communicating her subject in an interesting manner. It is often dull and dry where it should be very exciting.

One of the problems is the tendency toward repetition and the many divergences into secondary topics that take the reader's focus off the main road, so to speak. For instance, when expecting an exposition of particle physics or modern astronomy, one side road leads to a lengthy debate on th...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, non-fiction

I've had this on my to-read list for a while, so thought I ought to get to it. I have found Lisa Randell's communications on TV programs to be interesting and her views worth listening to.

The thrust of the book appears to be about the LHC, clearly something Randell is very enthusiastic about. While it is my fault for leaving it so long to read this book, the enthusiasm about 'what could be' discovered is a little out-dated (although this in itself is interesting, a lot on SuperSymmetry here whi...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Daniel R. rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book explores the significance of science and recent developments that may alter how we think about the world. The theme throughout the book is about scale from the smallest to the largest, the theories being explored at both ends of the spectrum, and experiments being performed now or with the help of the LHC that will help validate or disprove those theories. I found the chapters that focused on physics informative and well reasoned, while those that delved into philosophy and policy wanti...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lisa writes in a way that non-physicists can understand and structures most of the book in a logical fashion, taking us through nuclear structure, quarks and the Standard Model while continually explaining how and why certain experiments are being performed at CERN.

Read more on my book blog.

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Oct 06, 2011 Gendou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: physics, quantum-physics, string-theory, non-fiction

This "prequel" to Randall's other book, Warped Passages, is quite good.
Her writing style is (thankfully) much improved.
She talks a lot about scale and model dependent realism.

She tactfully tackles the topic of religion vs. science.
Her thesis is that these activities involve incompatible brain processes.
It's a neat insight, but she avoids stomping on religion's plethora of poor predictions.

My wife and I played a drinking game where we took a shot every time the book uses the word "phenomena".
We g...more

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About Lisa Randall

LISA RANDALL is Professor of Physics at Harvard University. She began her physics career at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She was a finalist, and tied for first place, in the National Westinghouse Science Talent Search. She went on to Harvard where she earned the BS (1983) and PhD (1987) in physics. She was a President's Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a postdoctoral...more LISA RANDALL is Professor of Physics at Harvard University. She began her physics career at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She was a finalist, and tied for first place, in the National Westinghouse Science Talent Search. She went on to Harvard where she earned the BS (1983) and PhD (1987) in physics. She was a President's Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and a junior fellow at Harvard University. She joined the MIT faculty in 1991 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 1995 and received tenure in 1997. Between 1998 and 2001 she had a joint appointment at Princeton and MIT as a full professor. She moved to Harvard as a full professor in 2001.

She was the 1st tenured woman in physics at Princeton; the 1st tenured woman theorist in science at Harvard and at MIT. She's the most cited theoretical physicist in the world in the last five years as of last autumn — a total of about 10,000 citations. In this regard, she is most known for two papers: "A Large mass Hierarchy From a Small Extra Dimension" (2500 citations); and and "An Alternative to Compactification" (about 2500 citations). Both concern "Warped Geometry/Spacetime" and show that infinite extra dimension and weakness of gravity can be explained with an extra dimension.

Lisa Randall’s research in theoretical high energy physics is primarily related to the question of what is the physics underlying the standard model of particle physics. This has involved studies of strongly interacting theories, supersymmetry, and most recently, extra dimensions of space. In this latter work, she investigates “warped” geometries. The focus of this work has been a particular class of theories based on five-dimensional AdS space which has the remarkable property that the graviton is localized and the space need not be compactified. Related work demonstrates that this theory yields a very natural resolution to the hierarchy problem of particle physics (the large ratio of the Planck and electroweak scales) and furthermore, is compatible with unification of gauge couplings. This latter class of theories suggests interesting experimental tests. The study of further implications of this work has involved string theory, holography, and cosmology. Lisa Randall also continues to work on supersymmetry and other beyond-the-standard-model physics.

Within a year of her work on extra dimensions, it was featured on the front page of the Science Times section of The New York Times. It has also been featured in the Economist, the New Scientist, Science,Nature, The Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Daily News, a BBC Horizons television program, BBC radio, and other news sources. She has also been also been interviewed because Science Watch and the ISI Essential Science Indicators have indicated her research as some of the best cited in all of science.

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Books by Lisa Randall

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions

Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space

Knocking On Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate our Universe

Wāpusuru Uchū: 5jigen Jikū No Nazo O Toku

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“Despite my resistance to hyperbole, the LHC belongs to a world that can only be described with superlatives. It is not merely large: the LHC is the biggest machine ever built. It is not merely cold: the 1.9 kelvin (1.9 degrees Celsius above absolute zero) temperature necessary for the LHC’s supercomputing magnets to operate is the coldest extended region that we know of in the universe—even colder than outer space. The magnetic field is not merely big: the superconducting dipole magnets generating a magnetic field more than 100,000 times stronger than the Earth’s are the strongest magnets in industrial production ever made.

And the extremes don’t end there. The vacuum inside the proton-containing tubes, a 10 trillionth of an atmosphere, is the most complete vacuum over the largest region ever produced. The energy of the collisions are the highest ever generated on Earth, allowing us to study the interactions that occurred in the early universe the furthest back in time.” — 2 people liked it

“[The ceremonial key to the city of Padua] is engraved with a quote from Galileo that is also on display at the physics department of the university...'I deem it of more value to find out a truth about however light a matter than to engage in long disputes about the greatest questions without achieving any truth.” — 1 person liked it

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Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World

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