‘Not Even Wrong’ charts the success of modern scientific thinking, recalling the developments in both physics and mathematics that have heralded our wonderfully rich understanding of the world in which we live whilst also seeking to analyse the recent failure of physics to further the insight developed by previous generations. The two books also differ in the way they involve maths in the story of theoretical physics ‘Why Does E=m c 2?’ seeks to explain the maths behind special relativity so that we can all appreciate it – an uncommon feature of such books – whilst ‘Not Even Wrong’ treats maths and physics evenly in its discussion of theoretical physics, giving credit to the mathematicians and the mathematics that played (and continue to play) such an important role in science – and, again, this is rare in my experience. ‘Why Does E=m c 2?’ focuses on Einstein’s theory of special relativity, an established and substantially verified theory that agrees well with experiments (that is not to say that it is perfect, rather that it is a very good description of many aspects of the universe) that seeks to rejoice in the wonderful success of this theory and to help readers understand it better whereas ‘Not Even Wrong’ is a personal verdict on modern physics that seeks to address the lack of progress theoretical physics has made in recent decades (whilst at the same time celebrating previous successes such as Einstein’s theory of special relativity). In most other ways however, these two books are very different. Immediately once I finished reading ‘Why Does E=m c 2?’ I picked up another unread book that I had been looking forward to reading ‘ Not Even Wrong‘ by Peter Woit and, unintentionally, found myself reading another popular science book about theoretical physics that put mathematics at the heart of the discussion. I read this book after it was bought for me as a present (I’d seen it in a bookshop one day, thought it looked interesting but never quite got round to buying it, so it was a very welcome present!) and found it really rewarding. Not Even Wrong provides readers with another side of the story.In my previous blog entry I briefly reviewed ‘Why Does E=m c 2? (And Why Should We Care?)’ by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, an unusual book in that it doesn’t shy away from the mathematics underpinning Einstein’s theory of special relativity and instead embraces it as an important way of furthering our understanding of the key developments in that particular aspect of theoretical science. To date, only the arguments of the theory's advocates have received much publicity. The absence of experimental evidence is at the core of this controversial situation which means that it is impossible to prove that superstring theory is either right or wrong. However, after twenty years, superstring theory has failed to advance beyond the Standard Model.
Despite its successes, the Standard Model does not answer all the key questions and physicists continuing search for answers led to the development of superstring theory. The book begins with an historical survey of the experimental and theoretical developments that led to the creation of the phenomenally successful 'Standard Model' of particle physics around 1975. Not Even Wrong is a fascinating exploration of our attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle of all: how does the universe work at its most fundamnetal level? 'Peter Woit's book Not even Wrong is an authoritative and well reasoned account of string theory's extremely fashionable status among today's theoretical physicists.I regard it as an important book' - Professor Sir Roger Penrose, author of The Road to Reality.
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