Preface

Summary

The twentieth century saw four astonishing revolutions in physics: relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, and cosmology. Each one radically changed our understanding of the Universe. There were also, of course, extraordinary breakthroughs in technology (electronics, lasers, computers) that had a much larger influence on our daily lives, but did not carry the same conceptual impact.

This is a book about those four revolutions. It is intended for anyone with a serious interest in the great ideas that have shaped modern physics: advanced high school students or freshman physics majors who would like a taste of what lies ahead; undergraduates who do not intend to major in the sciences but are curious to know about some of the most profound intellectual achievements of our time; general readers who have heard about quarks and quanta, Albert Einstein and the Big Bang, and would like to know what all the fuss is about.

I should tell you up-front what this book is not. It is not another breathless account of the fantastic speculations that seem to dominate much of contemporary theoretical physics – things you may have read about, or seen on NOVA. Apart from a few footnotes and an occasional parenthetical remark, there is nothing here about superstrings or extra dimensions or multiple universes. We're dealing with well-established, robustly confirmed “facts.” In a way, modern physics has been a victim of its own success. The revolutions described in this book account so perfectly for everything that is known about our world, that anyone hoping to come up with the next “great idea” is forced to rely more on imagination than on observation.