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349th out of 594 books
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1,312 voters
A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down
Not since Richard Feynman has a Nobel Prize-winning physicist written with as much panache as Robert Laughlin does in this revelatory and essential book. Laughlin proposes nothing less than a new way of understanding fundamental laws of science. In this age of superstring theories and Big-Bang cosmology, we're used to thinking of the unknown as being impossibly distant fro...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
March 1st 2005
by Basic Books
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This is a delightful book by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The basic premise of the book is that most of the physics mechanisms are emergent. For example, Newton's Laws are not an approximation to quantum mechanics. They emerge from quantum mechanics, when the quantity of matter involved becauses sufficiently large; they are a "collective organizational phenomenon". Robert Laughlin gives lots and lots of examples of this sort of thing.
This book is perhaps more about the philosophy of physics,...more
This book is perhaps more about the philosophy of physics,...more
I slogged through the book -- not that it was long or difficult to read -- and came out the other side realizing I hadn't learned anything. Hey! That's not fair. Perhaps in an attempt to appeal to the fragile mentality of the common man, the Nobel Laureate author fails to provide much substance. To me it came across as a long-winded and weakly supported diatribe of how certain areas (all things reductionist) of scientific research are ultimately useless and a waste of taxpayers' money (yes, he u...more
It's been my belief for years - as Claude Levi-Strauss mentioned more than once - that magic and science don't know they're neighbors.
Yet.
Physics is organizing the first block party. Laughlin, a Nobel Prize winner in physics is able to write like a person who's writing for other humanoids.
This is a scholar who can call the sea what it is...a hole filled with water.
As only Stephen Hawking has before, the heady realm of advanced academics is delivered directly, and understandably, to our heads.
Phy...more
Yet.
Physics is organizing the first block party. Laughlin, a Nobel Prize winner in physics is able to write like a person who's writing for other humanoids.
This is a scholar who can call the sea what it is...a hole filled with water.
As only Stephen Hawking has before, the heady realm of advanced academics is delivered directly, and understandably, to our heads.
Phy...more
Indubbiamente un bel libro per chi ha la passione per la fisica, ma spesso l'autore entra troppo nei dettagli di scoperte e fenomeni di varia natura, utilizzando quindi un linguaggio tecnico che rende il libro molto ostico per chi non hai mai saputo nulla di questa splendida disciplina. Comunque si legge con piacere, anche se ogni tanto Laughlin divaga (facendo perdere un po' il filo) o fa degli esempi paragoni un po' azzardati per spiegarsi meglio.
A fantastic read. Many phrases I highlighted, but this last one I like: "While supernatural intervention is always difficult to disprove categorically, we know for certain that there is no need for it at this level, and that all of these miraculous behaviors can be accounted for as spontaneous organizational phenomena that descend from underlying law". Symmetry breaking. "So much to do, so little time", said Nowhereman...
Though-provoking, but not terribly informative. This book raises more question than it answers, but then, that is not unusual with physics, nor a bad thing -- it seems to be precisely the nature of property emergence -- reveals more mystery than solves mystery.
Did you know that sound propagating in solids is quantized? It's called a phonon. And it may be the best analogy yet to think about the quantum world and its properties. The book hits squarely on the idea that many properties we measure in the physics of matter are emergent properties the organization, rather than god like universals, ethereally disconnected from the bodies in reality.
I have enjoyed his (often curmudgeony) high level commentary, his keen understanding of the limits of the scient...more
I have enjoyed his (often curmudgeony) high level commentary, his keen understanding of the limits of the scient...more
Laughlin calls other theories wrong because they make leaps they cannot support with the available evidence. Then proceeds to state why his ideas are better and not demonstrate why his are supported by the available evidence. Just painful to read. By the way, describing others as illogical and stupid really defeats the argument.
You should read this if you know physics and want to know more about enterprises behavior.
Good read though a few concepts are very deep, it takes time to understand. I found it hard to digests a few topics because i am not fluent in english :(
Good read though a few concepts are very deep, it takes time to understand. I found it hard to digests a few topics because i am not fluent in english :(
I usually like books like this. But this style of writing just didn't seem to suit me. If I go back and read it again more carefully I can probably get more out of it, but I don't think I'll make the effort.
This was an exciting book for me. It introduced a whole new scientific view of the universe. It is a real paradigm shift. If he is correct science is undergoing a tremendous evolution.
Uncertainty explains the chaotic nature of the microscopic world.
May 08, 2013
Layla
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Mar 18, 2013
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Mar 20, 2013 03:01pm