Overview

Science is hugely influential in our culture. Equations lie at the heart of many of the most extraordinarily successful scientific theories. Yet, for many of us, these equations have been a closed book. Their difficult form has often acted as an obstacle to any understanding of their significance and they have even come to embody the mystery and terror of modern science. It Must Be Beautiful redresses this by presenting the great equations of modern science for non-mathematical readers, thereby attempting to convey some of their power and beauty. It Must Be Beautiful brings together some world-leading scientists with great historians and science writers, each with a gift for explanation. The authors each unpack an equation so that it becomes understandable, and we are entertained and enlightened by a knowledge of how it was arrived at, what it can do and its importance in contemporary culture. Contributors include: Roger Penrose on Einstein's equations of general relativity; John Maynard Smith on the role of the equation in biology; Arthur Miller on the wave equation of Erwin Schrodinger; and a general essay by Steven Weinberg.

Full Product Details

9781862075559

Table of Contents

Reviews

A clutch of the world's most influential scientists explain in laymen's terms some of the best known and important equations that lie at the heart of many of the most successful scientific theories. A critically acclaimed book of wide general interest that will become a solid stock title for all bookshops.

Talk about science and you inevitably end up at equations. To the non-scientist, the two seem irrevocably linked. Yet it was only 350 years ago that Galileo proposed that the progression of science could best be achieved through a 'narrow observation' of phenomena - with results described in mathematical terms. Since then some branches of science, of course, have remained relatively equation-free. You don't need mathematics to explain Darwin's theory of evolution or to describe the intricacies of continental drift or plate tectonics. In fact, as Graham Farmelo explains in his introduction, pure maths is abstract and has nothing at all to do with the real world that science seeks to explain. The great enigma for many scientists is not how a law of nature can be expressed mathematically, but why. This book is a revelation - and will do much to scotch the popular public conception of scientists as dry, rather soulless individuals. Here, in 11 succinct, enlightening and surprisingly readable essays, experts from the world of science explain, with remarkable passion, the attraction (and frustration) of working with equations. Dealing with a topic which most popular science books chose to shy away from, It Must Be Beautiful reads at times more like a philosophy text. Take, for example, the question of whether equations are invented or discovered, the fact that some equations seem to take on a life of their own or the question of why, as Einstein commented, the best theories 'are the beautiful ones'. If, as Farmelo suggests, equations are 'the poetry of the twentieth century', then this is the indispensable reader's guide. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Graham Farmelo is Head of Science Communication at the Science Museum, London and Associate Professor of Physics at Northeastern University, USA.

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