The Gravity of Math
How Geometry Rules the Universe
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
"A must-read.”―Avi Loeb, New York Times–bestselling author of Extraterrestrial
One of the preeminent mathematicians of the past half century shows how physics and math were combined to give us the theory of gravity and the dizzying array of ideas and insights that has come from it
Mathematics is far more than just the language of science. It is a critical underpinning of nature. The famed physicist Albert Einstein demonstrated this in 1915 when he showed that gravity—long considered an attractive force between massive objects—was actually a manifestation of the curvature, or geometry, of space and time. But in making this towering intellectual leap, Einstein needed the help of several mathematicians, including Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to the geometrical framework upon which his theory rest.
In The Gravity of Math, Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau consider how math can drive and sometimes even anticipate discoveries in physics. Examining phenomena like black holes, gravitational waves, and the Big Bang, Nadis and Yau ask: Why do mathematical statements, derived solely from logic, provide the best descriptions of our physical world?
The Gravity of Math offers an insightful and compelling look into the power of mathematics—whose reach, like that of gravity, can extend to the edge of the universe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Science journalist Nadis and Tsinghua University mathematician Yau follow up 2019's The Shape of a Life with an esoteric exploration of geometry's role in explaining gravity and the structure of the universe. The authors chronicle advances in physics and mathematics alongside highly technical discussions of the theory and details behind those advances. An overview of how Albert Einstein combined Bernhard Riemann's "ideas about curved space with Minkowski's concept of four-dimensional spacetime" to develop a theory of gravity is challenging yet comprehensible. The historical perspective intermittently intrigues, covering how astrophysicist Karl Schwarzschild first posited the existence of black holes in 1916, and how mathematician Theodor Kaluza's belief in "the presence of dimensions that have so far remained invisible" provided the premise for string theory. Unfortunately, discussions of more recent advances made by Stephen Hawking and Yau will be exceedingly difficult to grasp for most readers. For instance, the authors write of Yau's efforts in the late aughts to figure out the "conditions that a definition of quasilocal mass should satisfy": "The ‘correct limit' realized at a point—after a procedure called normalization is done to obtain a nonzero limit—would, in fact, be the value of the stress-energy tensor at that point." This is best suited to those with advanced knowledge of the field.
