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freddurgan
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Non-math oriented book about current particle physics
#7571066 - 10/28/07 09:15 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm reasonably educated at the moment as a Biology major at a large university but I don't know much about physics per se. I know things like "light is a wave and a particle" but that doesn't mean a lot to me. I know a teeny weeny bit about electromagnetism but not a lot.
I'm looking for a good book to teach me things about the fabric of reality in a non "new age quantum intelligence" kind of way. I want to know what we actually know before I read all that possible garbage from new age guru wannabes. But I don't want to see the math behind it. I don't want to see proofs. People have already won Nobel prizes for the math and damnit I TRUST them. I believe them. I just want to understand what they are talking about.
Vague thread maybe, but any book suggestions could lead me in a good direction.
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DieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7571127 - 10/28/07 09:34 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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You want particle physics only, not physics in general? If you dont want alot of math, you will have to check out some freshman undergrad textbook. Of course most of those book deal with mechanics and E&M, and little modern physics.
You can check out pop-physics books like those from Hawking, Greene, or Kaku. But the subject material in those is generally cosmology, relativity and quantum. So there is some particle physics in there, but it is embedded with other stuff.
What exactly do want to know? About particle physics only? Or all the cool trippy parts of physics (quantum, relativity, etc.)?
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PhanTomCat
Teh Cat....



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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7571207 - 10/28/07 09:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Also, this is a pretty good course....: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1247&pc=Science%20and%20Mathematics It goes on sale for $70 a few months out of the year, or you can find it on Ebay.... Or, maybe someone has a recording of it somewhere that you can find on the web....
>^;;^<
-------------------- I'll be your midnight French Fry.... "The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...." >^;;^<
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: PhanTomCat]
#7572063 - 10/29/07 06:54 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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> A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The most owned, least read book of all time, next to the Bible.
Give the book "six not so easy pieces" by Feynman a try. Light on the math and great on explaining some of the harder ideas in modern physics. It isn't specific to particle physics, but gives a good description of things like relativity and curved space. The "six easy pieces," also by Feynman, is also a good. If you like both, they came from the Feynman Lectures on Physics (available as a set of books, but expensive).
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Madtowntripper
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7572690 - 10/29/07 11:33 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I would whole-heartedly reccomend "Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (2007)", by Neil Degrasse Tyson, who runs the planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.
This is an eminently readable book about the current state of physics and astrophysics.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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freddurgan
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: DieCommie]
#7572964 - 10/29/07 01:15 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: What exactly do want to know? About particle physics only? Or all the cool trippy parts of physics (quantum, relativity, etc.)?
I guess I'm looking for the trippy stuff. I'd like to know what Einstein was conceptualizing and what Bohr was conceptualizing. The big! principles explained well.
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maggotz


Registered: 06/24/06
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7574097 - 10/29/07 07:12 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Log in to view attachment
i just started reading it and it's great.
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Penguarky Tunguin
f n o r d


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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7576136 - 10/30/07 11:01 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Anything by Brian Greene. Checkout his PBS 3-part series as well.
-------------------- Every mistake, intentional or otherwise, in the above post, is the fault of the reader.
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vampirism
Stranger


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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7576200 - 10/30/07 11:16 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'd recommend "Road to Reality" i think you'll be very pleased with it
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sleepy
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: vampirism]
#7576561 - 10/30/07 12:49 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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you want something trippy. read this http://www.station1.net/douglasjones/aconvers.htm
its theoretical cybernetic immortality and infinite universes of crazyness
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Annom
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7576992 - 10/30/07 02:30 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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freddurgan
Techgnostic



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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: vampirism]
#7577524 - 10/30/07 04:33 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
vampirism said: I'd recommend "Road to Reality" i think you'll be very pleased with it
This is pretty much what I was looking for. It seems a little math oriented but I haven't actually *seen* the book yet. But it's by Roger Penrose so I feel like it will be worthwhile.
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: Seuss]
#7579692 - 10/31/07 08:01 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The most owned, least read book of all time, next to the Bible.
Hehe could be, but it is definitely not unreadable. Check it out, freddurgan
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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and0rr
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Re: Non-math oriented book about current particle physics [Re: freddurgan]
#7585462 - 11/01/07 08:17 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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"Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Jim Al-Khalili. It's a very laid back read as the title implies but I enjoyed it. It explains various things in lamen terms and covers quite a few theories from the founding fathers of quantum physics. Such as Lois de Broglie, Max Planck, Neils Bohr, Einstein...
-------------------- "Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." -John Lennon
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