When new physics books come out by Five Books interviewees and popular authors, we'll list them here. Please email us if a new physics book you like is missing! editor@fivebooks.com.
“Existential Physics is by Sabine Hossenfelder, a German theoretical physicist and physics popularizer, and is her take on some of the big questions. The book was not easy for me—I had to reread parts—but I loved the opening lines, based on a young man’s question to her. He asked: ‘A shaman told me that my grandmother is still alive. Because of quantum mechanics. She is just not alive here and now. Is this right?’ And Hossenfelder’s response, addressed to the reader: ‘As you can tell, I am still thinking about this. The brief answer is, it’s not totally wrong.'” Read more...
Nonfiction of 2022: Fall Roundup
Sophie Roell, Journalist
Supernova
by Or Graur
In his book Supernova Or Graur, Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, introduces his field. Graur does research on Type Ia supernovae but has also spent a lot of time doing public education and outreach, including working with high school students. The book is interesting, informative and very clear. It makes you want to go out and look at the night sky.
Quantum Reality: The Quest for the Real Meaning of Quantum Mechanics
by Jim Baggott
Science writer Jim Baggott has devoted his working life to making quantum physics accessible to the rest of us. As he mentions in the preamble, he has been called 'depressingly sane'. He is a strong advocate for a bigger role for philosophy in science, as we reach the limits of what our minds can get our heads around and wild speculation has taken the place of empirical evidence. In this book, he explores the relationship between quantum physics and reality.
At The Edge of Time
by Dan Hooper
At The Edge of Time by astrophysicist Dan Hooper is a popular science book that explains, in lay person's terms, not only what we know out about the universe to date, but also what we don't know about it. "Right now, there’s a culmination of mysteries in cosmology that need to be told as a coherent story," he says in his Five Books interview on the Big Bang. "Maybe we’re in the 1904 of cosmology right now, and we're going to tear down everything we think we know to the ground and build something entirely new."
