基本信息·出版社：Vintage Books ·页码：304 页 ·出版日期：2007年06月 ·ISBN：0099488647 ·条形码：9780099488644 ·装帧：平装 ·正文语种：英语 ...
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Not Even Wrong |
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Not Even Wrong |
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基本信息·出版社：Vintage Books
·页码：304 页
·出版日期：2007年06月
·ISBN：0099488647
·条形码：9780099488644
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
·外文书名：连错误都不如
内容简介 "Not Even Wrong" tells a fascinating and complex story about human beings and their attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle there is: how does the world work at the most fundamental level and what is the role of mathematics in its description? The author's perspective on this story is unusual since he has worked in both leading physics and mathematics departments and holds very sceptical views about 'string theory', the subject that has dominated research in this field for the past twenty years. The book begins with an historical survey of the experimental and theoretical developments that led to the creation of the phenomenally successful so-called 'Standard Model' of particle physics around 1975. Despite its successes, the Standard Model does not answer all questions that one would expect it to address, and for the last thirty years physicists have been trying to come up with a better theory. What the remaining questions are is explained in detail, together with the history of attempts to answer them, including the spectacular new mathematics that has arisen from these efforts. Lacking guidance from new experimental results, physicists have followed the principle that one should be looking for more 'beautiful' theories, and here, Peter Woit considers what the role of beauty may be in mathematics and physics. In recent years, string theorists have found that the theory seems to lead to an unimaginably large number of possibilities and may be inherently unable to make predictions. The author explains what physicist's hopes have been, why they haven't worked out, and what may be more promising directions for investigation. "Not Even Wrong" puts the reader in a position to follow this increasingly controversial story as it continues to develop in the years to come.
作者简介 Peter Woit is a physicist and mathematician who is currently a Lecturer in the Mathematics Department at Columbia University. He graduated in 1979 from Harvard University with bachelor's and master's degrees in physics, then went on to get a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Princeton University. He has been a postdoc at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook and at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. Since 1989 he has been teaching at Columbia where in recent years he has taught graduate courses in quantum field theory, representation theory and differential geometry.
编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly String theory is the only game in town in physics departments these days. But echoing Lee Smolin's forthcoming
The Trouble with Physics (Reviews, July 24), Woit, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia, points out—again and again—that string theory, despite its two decades of dominance, is just a hunch aspiring to be a theory. It hasn't predicted anything, as theories are required to do, and its practitioners have become so desperate, says Woit, that they're willing to redefine what doing science means in order to justify their labors. The first half of Woit's book is a tightly argued, beautifully written account of the development of the standard model and includes a history of particle accelerators that will interest science buffs. When he gets into the history of string theory, however, his pace accelerates alarmingly, with highly sketchy chapters. Reading this in conjunction with Smolin's more comprehensive critique of string theory, readers will be able to make up their own minds about whether string theory lives up to the hype.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Review "Woit offers some intriguing ruminations on the relationship between physics and mathematics..." --
New York Times Book Review, 9/17/06"[A]n intriguing view of a significant scientific controversy..." --
Library Journal, 8/15/06"[L]ively and entertaining" --
Discover Magazine, September 2006 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
