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A review by banandrew
The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics by Robert Oerter
4.0
Score: 3.5/5
Mixed feelings on this book. I picked it up for obvious reasons---who wouldn't want a casual introduction to the standard model?
Author Robert Oerter tries to write this book in an accessible way, but as you might expect, managing the line between accessibility and rigor in a book on particle physics is tricky, and some parts of the book are better than others.
Early on, when building up some early historical context, Oerter shows you Schrödinger's wave equation ("Just to show you what it looks like, here is the Schrödinger equation for the quantum field, denoted by Ψ"), but doesn't bother to explain the terms, the partial derivatives, or any of the equation's meaning. It leaves you feeling like he has just said "look at this big, scary equation, doesn't it look complicated?"
Another example shortly afterwards: Oerter explains that all probabilities in a given probability space must sum to 1 (of course), then informs you about Max Born's discovery that "the probability [of an electron's location] is equal to the square of the quantum field"---but no explanation is present as to where this came from, how Born went about finding it, or what further implications that relationship has.
Oerter tries a little too hard to inject humor into the book ("You can check Grimaldi's results for yourself. Find a straight-edged object such as a ruler, a pen, or a Republican"), but that doesn't generally detract from the actual content.
Despite these issues, I enjoyed Oerter's writing the further I got into the book. It often didn't have the details I was interested in, but the result was exactly what I wanted: a springboard to go learn more. By the end, I felt I had enough of a rudimentary grasp of the known elementary particles to comfortably dig into more rigorous materials.
The book was published in 2006, before the recent LHC experiments and Higgs boson. Oerter spends a good bit of time explaining what was thought about the Higgs boson, what it could mean if it was found, and what approaches might be tried if the Higgs doesn't exist after all. Even without the last seven years of history, the context is sufficient to provide a much better understanding of recent news.
Recommended for the intended audience: people who know nothing about the Standard Model but are interested!
(As a follow-up, I think I might get one of these.)
Mixed feelings on this book. I picked it up for obvious reasons---who wouldn't want a casual introduction to the standard model?
Author Robert Oerter tries to write this book in an accessible way, but as you might expect, managing the line between accessibility and rigor in a book on particle physics is tricky, and some parts of the book are better than others.
Early on, when building up some early historical context, Oerter shows you Schrödinger's wave equation ("Just to show you what it looks like, here is the Schrödinger equation for the quantum field, denoted by Ψ"), but doesn't bother to explain the terms, the partial derivatives, or any of the equation's meaning. It leaves you feeling like he has just said "look at this big, scary equation, doesn't it look complicated?"
Another example shortly afterwards: Oerter explains that all probabilities in a given probability space must sum to 1 (of course), then informs you about Max Born's discovery that "the probability [of an electron's location] is equal to the square of the quantum field"---but no explanation is present as to where this came from, how Born went about finding it, or what further implications that relationship has.
Oerter tries a little too hard to inject humor into the book ("You can check Grimaldi's results for yourself. Find a straight-edged object such as a ruler, a pen, or a Republican"), but that doesn't generally detract from the actual content.
Despite these issues, I enjoyed Oerter's writing the further I got into the book. It often didn't have the details I was interested in, but the result was exactly what I wanted: a springboard to go learn more. By the end, I felt I had enough of a rudimentary grasp of the known elementary particles to comfortably dig into more rigorous materials.
The book was published in 2006, before the recent LHC experiments and Higgs boson. Oerter spends a good bit of time explaining what was thought about the Higgs boson, what it could mean if it was found, and what approaches might be tried if the Higgs doesn't exist after all. Even without the last seven years of history, the context is sufficient to provide a much better understanding of recent news.
Recommended for the intended audience: people who know nothing about the Standard Model but are interested!
(As a follow-up, I think I might get one of these.)