The book in 3 sentences
- The history of scientific discoveries is very exciting and is built on the work of hundreds of people. Einstein didn’t come up with his theories out of nowhere, he was standing on the shoulders of others before him. So did Faraday, Curie, Feynman, and every other scientist.
- One of the biggest reasons driving scientist is the desire to figure uncover the ways nature works
- We’ve managed to connect the three main forces into a single theory, but gravity still evades it. And so the search continues.
Impressions
It took a very long time to read this book. On my first run when I was almost halfway through it I started all over again because I already forgot what I was reading about. So every new concept, every discovery, every theory - I went to Wikipedia and YouTube to learn about these. And yet there still were many theories and explanations left that evaded my understanding. However I now now much more about the quantum physics, virtual particles, what was all the fuzz surrounding the discovery of Higg’s Boson. And more importantly: what the Large Hadron Collider will be doing after the discovery (I thought the sole purpose of it was finding the God’s particle).
I loved the book and the way it was written. It was very interesting to read how Faraday and Einstein made their discoveries. How each theory builds on the work of others.
How I discovered it?
It was a recommendation from the e-bookstore while I was purchasing books by David Deutsch. Having known and watched many of Lawrence’s talks, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to buy this book.
How it changed me
In my August 2021 update I mentioned how this book made me excited by the way physicists can come up with hypotheses on our Universe and use maths to describe them. A multi-dimensional Universe? Here you go. A 2D hologram on the verge of a black hole? Maths seem to work out. This is realization made me as excited as seeing the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.