God’s Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe by Amir D. Aczel (PDF)

Description

Are we on the verge of solving the riddle of creation using Einstein’s “greatest blunder”?In a work that is at once lucid, exhilarating and profound, renowned mathematician Dr. Amir Aczel, critically acclaimed author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, takes us into the heart of science’s greatest mystery. In January 1998, astronomers found evidence that the cosmos is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The way we perceive the universe was changed forever. The most compelling theory cosmologists could find to explain this phenomenon was Einstein’s cosmological constant, a theory he conceived–and rejected—over eighty years ago. Drawing on newly discovered letters of Einstein–many translated here for the first time–years of research, and interviews with prominent mathematicians, cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers, Aczel takes us on a fascinating journey into “the strange geometry of space-time,” and into the mind of a genius. Here the unthinkable becomes real: an infinite, ever-expanding, ever-accelerating universe whose only absolute is the speed of light. Awesome in scope, thrilling in detail, God’s Equation is storytelling at its finest.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “[Einstein’s] field equation remains the closest thing we have to a divine blueprint for the universe….Aczel gives a very readable account of the science and the scientists involved.”– Kirkus Reviews “There is something startling on just about every page.”– San Francisco Chronicle”It is a wonderful time to glance back over Einstein’s path in developing the field equation…fortunately, we have a fabulous guide in Amir D. Aczel.”– Discover From the Inside Flap Are we on the verge of solving the riddle of creation using Einstein’s “greatest blunder”?In a work that is at once lucid, exhilarating and profound, renowned mathematician Dr. Amir Aczel, critically acclaimed author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, takes us into the heart of science’s greatest mystery. In January 1998, astronomers found evidence that the cosmos is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The way we perceive the universe was changed forever. The most compelling theory cosmologists could find to explain this phenomenon was Einstein’s cosmological constant, a theory he conceived–and rejected—over eighty years ago. Drawing on newly discovered letters of Einstein–many translated here for the first time–years of research, and interviews with prominent mathematicians, cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers, Aczel takes us on a fascinating journey into “the strange geometry of space-time,” and into the mind of a genius. Here the unthinkable becomes real: an infinite, ever-expanding, ever-accelerating universe whose only absolute is the speed of light. Awesome in scope, thrilling in detail, God’s Equation is storytelling at its finest. From the Back Cover ARE WE ON THE VERGE OF SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF CREATION USING EINSTEIN’S “GREATEST BLUNDER”?In a work that is at once lucid, exhilarating, and profound, renowned mathematician Dr. Amir Aczel, critically acclaimed author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, takes us into the heart of science’s greatest mystery. In January 1998, astronomers found evidence that the cosmos is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The way we perceive the universe was changed forever. The most compelling theory cosmologists could find to explain this phenomenon was Einstein’s cosmological constant, a theory he conceived — and rejected — over eighty years ago.Drawing on newly discovered letters of Einstein — many translated here for the first time — years of research, and interviews with prominent mathematicians, cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers, Aczel takes us on a fascinating journey into “the strange geometry of space-time”, and into the mind of a genius. Here the unthinkable becomes real: an infinite, ever-expanding, ever-accelerating universe whose only absolute is the speed of light. Awesome in scope, thrilling in detail, God’s Equation is storytelling at its finest About the Author Amir D. Aczel is the author of many research articles on mathematics, two textbooks, and nine nonfiction books, including the international bestseller Fermat’s Last Theorem, which was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Award. Aczel has appeared on more than 30 television programs, including nationwide appearances on CNN, CNBC, and Nightline, and on more than 100 radio programs, including NPR’s Weekend Edition and Morning Edition. Aczel is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I recommend this book, but not strongly, for a number of reasons. I’ll do the pros before moving on to the cons. First, I really don’t know of a book that covers exactly what this book does, and does it in a way that is accessible to the broadest possible audience. In fact, I don’t know any historical treatments of the development of Einstein’s equation geared toward intellectuals. This book, then, fills an important literature gap in popular science. It is difficult to say that Aczel does a “good” job in this book, because he does some things so exceptionally well that it strikes the senses that he does other things so poorly. He writes well, and is very much to the point, in some chapters, and others just seem like a potpourri of information qua space filler, as one other reviewer noted. For example, chapters 11-16 are, individually, either poorly done and scant, or lacking cohesion with the whole project. (Chapter 1 isn’t great either.) Yet chapters 2-10 are either well done or very, very good. An example of this is Aczel’s leaning on historian of physics, John Stachel, and brings additional insight into Stachel’s intellectual products. The chapters pertaining to the pure mathematics are particularly well done. Some points of clarification are so lucid that I think the moderately intelligent, decent reader would completely understand otherwise inaccessible mathematical formalism. This aspect of Aczel’s work, even beyond his nice writing style, is a major achievement of the book. Additonally, I thought Aczel did a good job of researching some areas of the history, upon which little prior writing exists. Being fairly knowledgeable about the content of the book, I took away a number of valuable points, details, and grist for my mill.As far as the cons, I tend to ride Aczel’s works a bit harder than most, because I feel he is capable of more than he sometimes produces. Re: My point about the disparity in quality in various chapters within a single work; this book would be closer to a five-star book if Aczel could establish greater consistency. As it is, reading pages 13-148 of 220 could be read, dismissing the rest, to maximize the value of the text, though the reader might feel a little disoriented with the lack intro and conclusion. When other reviews express agitation over Aczel’s lack of depth, it is because he notes that so-and-so did such-and-such, but does not say what entailed the such-and-such: you really don’t have any more information than you began with, apart from a superficial factoid. Another issue with this book is the lack of historical and philosophically informed writing, probably, because Aczel consults scientists rather than historians and philosophers trained in the science. A good example is the fact that Poincare, historians believe, played no role in Einstein’s theory development. As far as letters have shown, Einstein did read one work of Poincare’s (on time) by 1902, and there is no evidence that it influenced his thought, as Aczel (and trained physicists, without an historical background, might think). For a philosophical example of lacking insight, Aczel says nothing about the idea that physicists (many physicists at around the turn of the century were the philosophers, as well, e.g., Duhem, Reichenbach, Poincare, etc.) were very interested in the fact that there seemed to be a philosophical difference between geometric space and physical space, such that physical space did not uniquely determine the applied geometric space. In Einstein’s compiled volume of “Ideas and Opinions,” it can be seen that Einstein had been similarly fascinated by this; and it wasn’t as Aczel seems to suggest, that Einstein just came up with the idea of applying non-Euclidean geometrical coordinates/metric to physical space, but it was part of an on-going and historically significant discussion between philosophical minded physicists, mathematicians with philosophical interests in physics, and physics-interested philosophers.Overall, only part of the book (chapters suggested above) will likely interest the intellectual without much exposure to this subject, but the book holds extended merit for the lay audience, being so accessible and on a unique subject matter. For the latter, I do suggest giving it a look to see if it suits potential interests.

⭐Very strong on historical and QUALITATIVE contents of the Physics & Math, BUT…. Dr. Amir (sadly deceased) should have had better PEER REVIEW & input….. for instance, he repeatedly (4 times, including the Index reference) misspells Eugenio Beltrami’s name as Beltarmi (could it be the Editor or publishers fault, as well?) (all on the same page & in the Index, too!) and has TWO references (conflicting) for the meaning of “rho” (the Greek letter for density) in the chapter VERY late in presenting the Equation the book is titled for…(they are poorly explained as being from different equations….with the connection between them omitted) Chapter 11 pages 151-152. He did some original research though and turned up previously unknown correspondence with Erwin Freundlich, But his exposition of the actual equation (in 16 chapters) is sketchy, cursory and lacking in detail (to be a bit redundant for emphasis). He starts out at the ending (1998, before the discovery of the Higgs boson @ CERN) in Chapter 1, then proceeds from Einstein’s birth in chapter 2 and finally arrives back at the cosmological constant in Chapter 11. he skips forward and backward, timewise to develop some understanding of the mathematics needed to grasp curved space-time and occasionally presents very important insights, such as the effect of special relativity in altering the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter). Special relativity, unfortunately, is glossed over a bit. His expression for the relativistic metric is a gross oversimplification poorly explained (he uses c = 1 without stating so, and most likely means the deSitter metric) and which does not reduce to the non-relativistic Newtonian metric, omitting time completely and getting a sign wrong for the radial component. However, his historical discussions and digressions are not aimed at those with mathematical or physics backgrounds. Sometimes the digressions are a bit far afield, though interesting and additionally, his insight into physics is on a rare occasion sorely lacking (he finds Newton’s description of light being bent by distant solid matter to be mysterious, when all Newton most likely meant was the bending of light by a prism). He chooses to make physics as mysterious as a new religion, which it actually is, but not to explain or dwell on what is understood and how & why in detail.

⭐Recounts the history of the derivation and proof of Einstein’s theories of general relativity and special relativity. Amir Aczel does a nice job of making very comples mathemeatic and scientific theory approachable for the layman, as well as provides enough background and human interest to the story to give a genuine feel for the man and the challenges faced in achieving the scientific breakthrough. There are sufficient illustrations of the proposed geometry to give the reader a good feel of the visual of the theories as well. If you have interest in science, math, physics or cosmology, this book is well worth the read.

⭐Very informative book dealing with a famous equation in a way hat everyone can understand.Book received in good condition.Good service.

⭐ポピュラーサイエンス本でもムツカシイものはムツカシイ、ということが明らかになる一冊。内容は、副題のままに、まずはアインシュタインの相対性理論が誕生するまで。そして、自分の理論が描き出す宇宙の姿に戸惑い（「膨張する宇宙」が信じられなかった）、アインシュタインは重力場の方程式の中に「a cosmological constant（宇宙定数）」を仕込んでしまう。オリジナルには仕込まれていなかったのだが。後年、宇宙の膨張が確認され、アインシュタインは「しまった！」状態になる。しかし現在もアイシュタインの「宇宙定数」は種々の事情により利用されており、誤ってなお偉大なアインシュタインであった、という流れ。ちなみに、「商品説明」に数学者のヒルベルトがアインシュタインから剽窃したかのような下りがあるが、本書ではそこまでは言っていない。非ユークリッド幾何学の解説を丁寧に施してくれて、数学者リーマンにもある程度ページが割かれている。純粋数学と物理学の関係、理論と実験の関係も分かり易く描かれている。理論物理学のパワーが伝わり、後年、経済学が羨望のあまり真似っ子に走ってしまった気持ちもそれなりに理解出来る。頁数的にも重すぎず、シロートには軽く読める一冊だ。尤も、理解度は人それぞれだが。しかしこういう本を読んでいて、著者氏から退場勧告を受けそうな感慨を湧かせてしまう自分の限界も痛感した。たとえ大統一理論が誕生しようと、この地上の人間の問題は何ひとつ解決しないだろうに、とか、膨大な物理学の実験の末に宇宙の作用がより明らかになろうとも、作用の解明から「神の考え」が見えるのかい、とかとか。いや、別に物理学の予算を削れ、なんて主張をするつもりは毛頭ない。ただ、ウン十億年先の宇宙の姿が人類にとって重要な問題なのだろーか、なんて途中から思ってしまったのだ。蹴り出されても文句は言えない残念な読者だ。太古から星を見上げてきた人類がはるばるとここまで辿り着いた、という人類の夢と知の蓄積の旅路だと受け止めてみた。

⭐

⭐これはアインシュタインの生涯を、彼が創出した相対性理論を中心に語った本です。前半はアインシュタインが特殊相対性理論から相対性理論を創出し、相対性理論が予言する日蝕を利用した光が曲がりの検証されるまでのことを描いています。そこには、自分の理論の正当性を証明するために、それこそ古今東西を奔走し、検証してくれる可能性のある人物に対してはおだて上げ誉めそやし、一方ではその役に立たないと見るや関係を遠ざけるといった、我々が知らなかったアインシュタインの人となりを、丹念な資料解析に基づき描いています。後半は、現代の宇宙論が直面している宇宙の加速度的な膨張と、かつてアインシュタイン自身が葬りながらも現代に甦ったアインシュタイン定数についてのことが描かれています。こちらは、当人とのかかわりより、アインシュタインの創出した重力理論の完成度の高さと観測された結果について、現代の物理学者たちが日々奮闘している様子が描かれています。単なる伝記ではなく、アインシュタインの重力方程式を中心に据えて物語を展開している手腕はさすがだと思います。アクゼルらしい一冊だと思います。

⭐

⭐宇宙の構造は誰でも興味津々ですが、理解の基本は幾何学。素人でもよく分かる様に書かれた良書。

⭐

⭐Nice book

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