Skip to main content

A Different Universe – Robert M. Laughlin ***

This rather quirky little book is certainly one of the most unique popular science books about physics I have read over the years. The basic argument that this title presents is that by taking a reductionist (i.e. nuts ‘n’ bolts) approach to understanding nature, physicists are not seeing the wood for the trees. Instead, Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin argues, physics should be concerned with emergent phenomena (i.e. what we get when the nuts ‘n’ bolts are put together) – the sort of things that chemists and biologists are typically concerned with.
Laughlin uses various examples such as: superconductivity, quantum computers, relativity, nanotechnology (of which he is incredibly dismissive) and the quantum Hall effect (the explanation of which Laughlin won his Nobel prize for) to make his case. Some of these examples don’t appear to be emergent at first glance – but as Laughlin points out this is often a case of misinterpretation of what is really going on.
The author makes effective use of humorous anecdotes and analogies to make his points. In some cases these work really well, but in some cases just serve to muddy the waters, and occasionally they verge on the completely irrelevant. There are also some fairly odd illustrations that don’t add anything at all to the book – why they have been included is a complete mystery!
Whether Laughlin succeeds in his argument is a moot point – the book certainly made me pause for thought – but I’m not sure that I was entirely convinced by the way that the science that was presented. I would argue that the book doesn’t reinvent physics as such – but it certainly does make a bold case for a new approach to the discipline.
I don’t think that this book would appeal to a general audience – you do need to have some grounding in the subject in order to really get to grips with the book’s ideas. Certainly physics lecturers/teachers, and students will find some interesting material in here, though.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Scotty_73

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Philip Ball - How Life Works Interview

Philip Ball is one of the most versatile science writers operating today, covering topics from colour and music to modern myths and the new biology. He is also a broadcaster, and was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has written many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and wider culture, including Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour, The Music Instinct, and Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He is also the author of The Modern Myths. He lives in London. His latest title is How Life Works . Your book is about the ’new biology’ - how new is ’new’? Great question – because there might be some dispute about that! Many

Stephen Hawking: Genius at Work - Roger Highfield ****

It is easy to suspect that a biographical book from highly-illustrated publisher Dorling Kindersley would be mostly high level fluff, so I was pleasantly surprised at the depth Roger Highfield has worked into this large-format title. Yes, we get some of the ephemera so beloved of such books, such as a whole page dedicated to Hawking's coxing blazer - but there is plenty on Hawking's scientific life and particularly on his many scientific ideas. I've read a couple of biographies of Hawking, but I still came across aspects of his lesser fields here that I didn't remember, as well as the inevitable topics, ranging from Hawking radiation to his attempts to quell the out-of-control nature of the possible string theory universes. We also get plenty of coverage of what could be classified as Hawking the celebrity, whether it be a photograph with the Obamas in the White House, his appearances on Star Trek TNG and The Big Bang Theory or representations of him in the Simpsons. Ha

The Blind Spot - Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson ****

This is a curate's egg - sections are gripping, others rather dull. Overall the writing could be better... but the central message is fascinating and the book gets four stars despite everything because of this. That central message is that, as the subtitle says, science can't ignore human experience. This is not a cry for 'my truth'. The concept comes from scientists and philosophers of science. Instead it refers to the way that it is very easy to make a handful of mistakes about what we are doing with science, as a result of which most people (including many scientists) totally misunderstand the process and the implications. At the heart of this is confusing mathematical models with reality. It's all too easy when a mathematical model matches observation well to think of that model and its related concepts as factual. What the authors describe as 'the blind spot' is a combination of a number of such errors. These include what the authors call 'the bifur