James S.

Good exploration, but imprecise/false science

Revisado: 05-13-23

A reasonably good, high-level exploration of many climate-related technologies, but with important significant caveats detailed below.

For the most part, this book is full of many detailed examples, delivered by the author in a coherent and engaging way.

Unfortunately, there are many times when the author gives imprecise explanations for the science behind the technologies. For example, when he's wrapping up his discussion on nuclear energy, he attributes the forces that stop material objects from intermixing, e.g. the worn out example of why we don't fall through chairs when we sit down, to nuclear forces rather than electrostatic forces. The only time his analogy is remotely close to being relevant is in a neutron star when nucleons repel each other due to the Pauli exclusion principle; but this is still not due to nuclear forces in the context that he had just finished discussing them.

There are other such examples that I am not remembering at the moment, but they are even more glaring and undermining of the public trust implicitly given to someone who writes this sort of book. In this regard, the author is exhibiting and spreading the most dangerous type of ignorance.

Other than the caveats, which aren't trivial, the rest of the book is worth exploring.

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Average at best

Revisado: 04-12-23

The claim in the book description, about how details would be uncovered regarding many of the people involved behind the scenes during early space flight, was exaggerated. It wasn't any more detailed about such people or events than any other books I've listened to or read in this genre. If anything, it was lacking some important details, and had somewhat dull filler in place of those details.

The narrator wasn't horrible; but half the time his performance made me think of high school students being forced to read in front of the class when they have no clue how to give an entertaining delivery.

There are much better options in this genre, but this one is good enough if you've already worked through the others, and you just want more space crack or you'll die.

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Best of Baggott (as far as I can tell)

Revisado: 03-17-23

I couldn't stand Baggott's most recent book, called Quantum Space, which attempts to tell the story of loop quantum gravity. It was just so dull, boring, lacking any insights into the physics, poorly told story, etc. So it was just by chance that I gave him another shot with this Higgs book (I downloaded it as a freebie on Audible).

I'm glad I took another chance on Baggott, because this book is phenomenal! It's by far the best telling of every relevant piece of the Standard Model, including the Higgs Boson.

He builds the story like an expert novelist, giving plenty of historical context at just the right times, injecting physical concepts so seamlessly that the story and science come to life together.

Of course, this type of story requires the proper choice of narrator, and I think Julian was a great choice here.

Pretty good!

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Applied chaos theory; beware of quantum quackery

Revisado: 03-10-23

The author defended his physics PhD thesis on general relativity, but then switched to weather modelling where he made some important discoveries; e.g. the significance of large-scale atmospheric waves on climate.

He discusses many applications of nonlinear dynamics (aka chaos), e.g. in climate modelling, the spread of covid, etc. This part of the book is great.

He eventually meanders off into what many physicists would consider "the weeds" with discussions on consciousness and untestable connections between chaos and quantum mechanics. I don't think he made a very persuasive argument regarding the later, but it seems he ran out of space in the book to delve much deeper.

A good pop-sci book, with plenty of learning and edutainment to be had by all.

The book is well written, and equally well narrated by the author.

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Good overview of cosmology, great delivery

Revisado: 03-10-23

If you're looking for significant conceptual depth in regards to cosmological physics, you may end up disappointed here. But what it lacks in depth, I think it mostly makes up in breadth and delivery.

The writing and narration are both excellent, IMHO.

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Great for the right audience

Revisado: 03-09-23

It's a good development of number theory and some related concepts. The author definitely has an unbearable quirkiness. I often was left screaming to myself, wishing he would get to the point!

The narrator dampened the author's quirkiness in some ways, but also somewhat magnified them! I feel this narrator was as good a choice as could've been made, given the author's quirks.

Overall it was worth a listen.

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Uniquely insightful

Revisado: 03-04-23

Great conceptual discussions throughout, especially regarding the motivation for cosmic inflation beyond the trivial explanations usually given. It was written ca. 2009, so it's dated; but if you're interested in the educational aspects, without being bored out of your mind while listening, this is a good one.

The narration was great!

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Best and worst in the same audible!

Revisado: 11-02-22

First, the best:
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1- It's great that Sean is committed to teaching physics to the lay people. You can sense his passion for teaching in his voice, and he is insanely skilled at it! No one would be better at narrating his books than he is.

2- He cuts no corners in explaining the basic physics necessary to understand the simplest models leading up to and including general relativity (GR). He (eventually... finally!) goes deeper into the mathematical structures GR is built on than any other author in this genre, as far as I'm aware. In particular, he gives great explanations of special relativity, space-time proper, Minkowski space and metric, the differential geometry involved in space-time curvature and associated metrics, Ricci and Riemann tensors, etc.

Now, the worst:
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1- He warns upfront that it is necessary to read off equations in order to properly explain GR. But I know from firsthand experience teaching this physics, etc., it is not true; it is possible to explain enough of the critical concepts without ever reading an equation - especially not each component of entire 4x4 matricies over and over again! I agree with him that no one will ever be useful at DOING physics without coming to terms with the equations, but it is relatively easy to give someone the most critical insights without the formalities.

2- Who is the intended audience?!?! Most of the chapters are so remedial as to be pointless for anyone who knows anything about physics already. But anyone with the patience to slog through his reading of equations and matricies is definitely not from the remedial camp!

3- He adds an unnatural intonation to his voice in order to accentuate his vocabulary. This irks me because it reminds me of the way people in cults (aka staunch religion) talk when they're trying to persuade someone to join. We're already part of your religion, Sean, and we all pray to the same savior -- Einstein! (At least I do...)

So in summary, it's got some gems that make it worth a look; but be prepared for the disappointment that surely awaits if anything I mentioned above is likely to bother you, too.

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Why did I wait so long to finally listen?!?

Revisado: 08-25-22

This book is a great survey of concepts in mathematical physics throughout the ages, and how the discoverers came up with them.

It's another phenomenal audible that I completely regret having waited so long to listen to all the way through (I also hesitated with Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, which was equally phenomenal). Actually, I had already tried to listen to this over the years on at least two occasions before this one, but I was always turned off by the narrator's snobbish voice. It seemed like it was just going to be entirely dry and humorless. But it was literally awesome! Not dry at all after finally accepting the narrator's style. And it was reasonably humorous throughout, which helped to make the initially unbearable narration bearable.

I can see why a few reviewers were turned off by the humor, but I don't think it was at all over-the-top like they are claiming.

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Frank Close has been hit-and-miss; this is a HIT!

Revisado: 08-11-22

Extremely well written, well narrated, deeply informative, and entertaining. Though not as profoundly insightful as most of Brian Greene's works, it is also much easier to grasp and to stay engaged.

Lot's of great details on the theory of the Standard Model, as well as most of the important experiments that proved it.

I wrote in the review title that Close's works have been hit-and-miss; this is mainly based on my firsthand experience with The Infinity Puzzle, which was written and narrated in such a way that I found it impossible to stay engaged. Maybe I should give it a second attempt, now that I know Frank is capable of getting the message across in an effective way... or maybe Elusive is his attempt at fixing what he did wrong with Infinity Puzzle.

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