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qatsiBook Review: Paradox - The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics, by Jim Al-Khalili
I read this some time ago, but the last couple of months have been difficult because reasons and so I'm only getting round to a write-up now. I enjoy Al-Khalili's television programmes and this is the second of his books I've tried; they are good as well. He begins with a discussion of what he means by a paradox, and explains that in physics at least, paradoxes are only apparent; once there's an explanation of how something works or behaves, it isn't a paradox any more. Some of the paradoxes are historic - Zeno's paradoxes of motion, Olbers' Paradox ("Why is the sky dark at night?") - but others are more recent, with relevance to thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory, before finishing on Fermi's Paradox ("why haven't we met or detected any extra-terrestrials?"). Finally, Al-Khalili lists some questions that he hopes future science will answer, and questions he suspects science will never answer. As expected, the writing is clear and of high quality.
I read this some time ago, but the last couple of months have been difficult because reasons and so I'm only getting round to a write-up now. I enjoy Al-Khalili's television programmes and this is the second of his books I've tried; they are good as well. He begins with a discussion of what he means by a paradox, and explains that in physics at least, paradoxes are only apparent; once there's an explanation of how something works or behaves, it isn't a paradox any more. Some of the paradoxes are historic - Zeno's paradoxes of motion, Olbers' Paradox ("Why is the sky dark at night?") - but others are more recent, with relevance to thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory, before finishing on Fermi's Paradox ("why haven't we met or detected any extra-terrestrials?"). Finally, Al-Khalili lists some questions that he hopes future science will answer, and questions he suspects science will never answer. As expected, the writing is clear and of high quality.