Gravity: How the Weakest Force in the Universe Shaped Our Lives by Brian Clegg (PDF)

Description

A history of gravity, and a study of its importance and relevance to our lives, as well as its influence on other areas of science. Physicists will tell you that four forces control the universe. Of these, gravity may the most obvious, but it is also the most mysterious. Newton managed to predict the force of gravity but couldn’t explain how it worked at a distance. Einstein picked up on the simple premise that gravity and acceleration are interchangeable to devise his mind-bending general relativity, showing how matter warps space and time. Not only did this explain how gravity worked – and how apparently simple gravitation has four separate components – but it predicted everything from black holes to gravity’s effect on time. Whether it’s the reality of anti-gravity or the unexpected discovery that a ball and a laser beam drop at the same rate, gravity is the force that fascinates.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐I am fascinated by gravity. I would like to understand not just how to accurately calculate its magnitude by Newton’s formula or Enstein’s General Relativity, I would like to understand how space-time is actually deformed by mass. How is the information that mass is present transmitted to space-time. So, I was disappointed that I didn’t really learn anything new in Brian Clegg’s book. I did not get my questions answered. The book begins with an interesting historical summary of theories of gravity. He eventually gets to general relativity. I didn’t really learn anything new. If one does not have an understanding of Newtonian gravity then this book would be interesting. If one has never read about the development of general relativity, then the history is interesting. For readers who have previously read about Newton and Einstein, there is little new material. There is a very brief mention of quantum gravity and modified theories of gravity that may preclude the need for the invention of dark matter, but the word brief is important. This book is aimed directly at the non-mathematical science enthusiast who wants a historical perspective on gravity and is satisfied with a very limited description of general relativity or other modified theories of gravity. No math is provided. There are brief descriptions of gravitons without much discussion. I didn’t get my questions on the mechanism for the deformation of space-time by mass, explained.

⭐No math of any kind or diagrams. Suitable for advanced middle school students. Gave it a 2 because there were no gross errors of any kind.

⭐Brian Clegg’s succinct expose of what science has often referred to as the weakest force but which science now suggests is the progenitor of all futures is the paradox of what is ‘Gravity’. A clever admix of the historical and the more contemporary thinking that is further infused with detailed analysis, yet this is an eminently readable thesis that folds time and space into the inevitable dance between uncertainty and predictability, between general and special relativity and between action across the ‘ether’ and across dark matter. If a black hole is indeed a time machine, then gravity must be its timekeeper. I thoroughly recommend this book to all who thirst for knowledge.

⭐Great book on what we know and what we don’t know about gravity. It’s a refresher on basic physics and the scientific process too! It is written in a very entertaining style and really lays out how our views of gravity have developed throughout history. It traces the understanding of gravity from Newton through Einstein to the quantum guys.

⭐A great book – although I am a bit of a science nerd, I have actually read it twice. The author really lays out the whole “warping of space-time​” concept that we have all heard about. I can’t recommend it enough!

⭐Interesting

⭐This book offers a historical account of gravity, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, and how it eludes our understanding. This is a concise narrative that is engaging without any equations or too much physics. It is explained in a very simple language. But some of the recent and relevant discussions have not been included here.The Newtonian physics describes the behavior of matter and energy in space and time. According to Isaac Newton, time flows equably without relation to anything external, and absolute space is also its own thing, always similar and immovable. Events of physical reality performed independently on a neutral stage where actors strutted and fretted without influencing the rest of the theater. This pretty much explains physical reality we see and experience in our daily life. But Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity turned Newton’s absolute space and time into a relativistic mash-up. According to him, spacetime is completely amalgamated into a malleable fabric and the two do not exist independently as Newton predicted. This is a new arena in which the players altered the space of the playing field. It was a physics game changer. Einstein also showed in his general theory of relativity that matter and energy warped the spacetime surrounding it. In fact, that is called gravity, which Newton thought was a force. Newton’s apparent force of attraction became a sort of illusion perpetrated by spacetime geometry. The shape of spacetime dictated the motion of massive bodies, and in turn massive bodies determined spacetime’s shape.With our understanding of quantum physics where matter at the most fundamental state is known to have wave-particle duality, that is it exists as both particle and a wave simultaneously. If that is the case, then how does matter exert gravity when it is in a wave-state? Quantum physicists suggested that spacetime at the most fundamental state also exists in discrete quanta, that in bits and pieces, qubits. In fact, the treatment of gravity with quantum physics has led to thorny issues that is largely derived from the black hole physics where spacetime is curved to an extreme extent.To understand the quantum properties of space and time, it is realized that information plays an important role in quantum reality, because it gives the observer a role who becomes an integral part of the physical reality. Recent advances in quantum Information have shown that information naturally describe evolution of quantum geometry. There seems to be a deep connection between information and the nature of space and time, and space and time are losing their role as grounds for an objective physical reality. The observer or the consciousness is an integral part. It may also mean that gravity may be an emergent phenomenon in quantum physics, or gravity and quantum physics are different approximations of a more fundamental theory that is still out there but not yet discovered.

⭐Everybody decently skilled in natural sciences should read this book to recognize the whole space and his/her position in the universe.

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