[.ca] It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science (ISBN 1862074798)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Through a study of celebrated examples, the collection of essays in It Must Be Beautiful sets out to reveal the true nature of an equation. What is an equation, after all? Why does it look the way it looks? Those lacking a scientific education can have only the vaguest idea. For a start, an equation is not one fixed thing. The same scribbles can be reinterpreted over time. (Frank Wilczek's chapter on the Dirac Equation offers fascinating insights into this process.) An equation's value can be contested, at one moment a mere "convenience", at the next, a profound expression of things. (Arthur I Miller, writing on Schrodinger's wave equation, beautifully captures the knives-drawn business of scientific interpretation.) An equation can even be a kind of political agenda. Take the Drake Equation--more properly, a formula, describing the likelihood of extra-terrestrial civilisations. Oliver Morton's acute account identifies in this equation "the classic technocratic lapse of mistaking the ability to state a question in the language of science with the ability to solve it using the practices of science". This problem haunts (as it should) the whole collection. As Farmelo writes in his introduction (paraphrasing Feynman) "... it may eventually turn out that fundamental laws of nature do not need to be stated mathematically and that they are better expressed in other ways". Some essays here never really get to grips with the hieroglyphics, choosing instead to trace the evolution of their subject's thoughts. Others go to the other extreme. Roger Penrose's essay on General Relativity delivers the mathematical punches other science books normally pull. But by one route or another, according to your preference, you will come away from this book with a more-than-trivial insight into the power and beauty of equations. Indeed, the notion that the world could be "better expressed in other ways" is likely to be furthest from your mind. --Simon Ings

Well worth the read - some excellent contributors !:
At first I was disappointed - the most beautiful equation in the world, e^i.pi = -1, was missing! As I read the book, I looked back at the title : great equations of Modern Science, not of Modern Mathematics. And indeed that is what the book is. However I do have a few criticisms : I knew by reputation only 2 of the 12 authors - who were the other people? Long after I had searched out their biographies on the web, I found them at the front of the book - but before the title page rather than after - how strange to put them there, or not at the back of the book ? I didn't think the Drake equation was that 'great' - and in Oliver Morton's chapter he places the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Costa Rica when in fact its in Puerto Rico. In the opening chapter, Graham Farmelo briefly alludes to 'British Astronomers announcing their results' without explaining what it was they were looking for and what they found? Only in the later chapters by Peter Galison & Roger Penrose respectively do they take pains to explain that Sir Arthur Eddington measured the bending of starlight during an eclipse. I was confused in the chapter on Schrodingers Wave Equation - it didn't describe the form I was familiar with. Then in the notes at the end of the book Arthur Miller explained the more general form - and confessed that the 'time' element had been ignored - rather a strange omission in my opinion. Shannons Equations & the Logistic Map were both new to me - and very interesting they were.

It is!:
The quantities on the two side of each of the equations in the book, are from science, or from life. The equations result from scientific experiments or from pure theory. Planck's equation signaled the start of atomic physics, and Einstein's E=m c^2 , the continuation. Dirac's equation reveals the secrets of the electron. All the equations predict physical reality; and yet they are strikingly simple to state, perhaps not to fully understand.-- They *are* beautiful! . Really! They are also fundamental discoveries that affect us all. Schrodinger's equation \oalong with the equivalt formulation of Heisenberg\c puts quantum theory on a solid footing, and started wave mechanics. Shannon's equations initiated the age of information technology. And there are more: relativity, astronomy, dynamics, chemestry... The book consists of chapters written by authorities in the field, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg..., but no \oor at least very little\c knowledge of science is assumed on the part of the reader. Highly recommended!

It Must Be beautiful:
This book had some of the best insight on equatiion form i have read in the rescent past.I could read larger sections of it without haviong to go grab a bottle of asprin. The insight it gave on the personal lives and how the evolution of the equation came to be from raw base form to what we learn now is amazing. The sections on Diracs eqaution I found the most intresting. I would reccommend this book to anyone intrested in math and not just the text book side. It takes almost and artistic veiw on math which i have never seen before. Very intresting . DIG IN AND ENJOY

It is!:
The quantities on the two side of each of the equations in the book, are from science, or from life. The equations result from scientific experiments or from pure theory. Planck's equation signaled the start of atomic physics, and Einstein's E=m c^2 , the continuation. Dirac's equation reveals the secrets of the electron. All the equations predict physical reality; and yet they are strikingly simple to state, perhaps not to fully understand.-- They *are* beautiful! . Really! They are also fundamental discoveries that affect us all. Schrodinger's equation \oalong with the equivalt formulation of Heisenberg\c puts quantum theory on a solid footing, and started wave mechanics. Shannon's equations initiated the age of information technology. And there are more: relativity, astronomy, dynamics, chemestry... The book consists of chapters written by authorities in the field, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg..., but no \oor at least very little\c knowledge of science is assumed on the part of the reader. Highly recommended!

An exhilarating and highly varied group of essays:
This collection of eleven essays, each written by a different author, is a pleasing assortment of articles which I recommend highly. The essays cover an astonishingly wide range of unrelated topics, including the Planck-Einstein Equation for the Energy of a Quantum, the Drake equation that estimates the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy, and Shannon's Equations on information theory. The only unpleasant aspect of this book is the uneven quality of the writing. Each author has a unique style of expression, so some chapters are exhilarating while others sound stilted and contrived. This is the reason I've limited my opinion to four instead of five stars. The most technically "beautiful" equation in the book is probably the Dirac equation, but the chapter on logistic mapping and chaos theory ("The Best Possible Time to be Alive", by Robert May) is far and away the most enjoyable and best-written essay. These alone would warrant the price of the book.