The lightness of being : mass, ether, and the unification of forces /
Frank Wilczek.
- New York, NY : Basic Books, c2008.
- xi, 270 p., [4] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm.
Includes index.
About the title -- Reader's guide -- pt. I. The origin of mass -- Getting to It -- Newton's zeroth law -- Einstein's second law -- What matters for matter -- The hydra within -- The bits within the its -- Symmetry incarnate --The grid (persistence of ether) -- Computing matter -- The origin of mass -- The music of the grid : a poem in two equations -- Profound simplicity -- pt. II. The feebleness of gravity -- Is gravity feeble? : Yes (in practice) -- Is gravity feeble? : No (in theory) -- The right question -- A beautiful answer -- pt. III. Is beauty truth? -- Unification : the siren's song -- Unification : through a glass, darkly -- Truthification -- Unification [loves] SUSY -- Anticipating a new golden age -- Epilogue: A smooth pebble, a pretty shell -- Appendix A: Particles have mass, the world has energy -- Appendix B: The multilayered, multicolored cosmic superconductor -- Appendix C: From "not wrong" to (maybe) right -- Glossary.
The 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics offers this readable and authoritative work for the general public. It explores basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of nature.