The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces by Frank Wilczek (PDF)

Description

A Nobel-prize winning physicist takes on the essential question: what are we made of? Our understanding of nature’s deepest reality has changed radically, but almost without our noticing, over the past twenty-five years. Transcending the clash of older ideas about matter and space, acclaimed physicist Frank Wilczek explains a remarkable new discovery: matter is built from almost weightless units, and pure energy is the ultimate source of mass. He calls it “The Lightness of Being.” Space is no mere container, empty and passive. It is a dynamic Grid-a modern ether- and its spontaneous activity creates and destroys particles. This new understanding of mass explains the puzzling feebleness of gravity, and a gorgeous unification of all the forces comes sharply into focus.The Lightness of Being is the first book to explore the implications of these revolutionary ideas about mass, energy, and the nature of “empty space.” In it, Wilczek masterfully presents new perspectives on our incredible universe and envisions a new golden age of fundamental physics.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Frank Wilczek is one of the most brilliant practitioners of particle physics…He writes as he thinks, with a lightness of touch that can come only to one who is absolute master of his subject.”―Freeman Dyson, New York Review of Books”A thrilling read… a glimpse of physics at its quirkiest and most illuminating.”―The Economist”Bracing….We could scarcely wish for a more knowledgeable guide to subatomic physics than Wilczek….The book is an object lesson in how an original thinker can take familiar material and impress on it originality of interpretation that makes it come alive, even for experts who have been studying it for years.”―Times Higher Education Supplement”Read Wilczek’s book…to share some of the excitement and enlightenment that he and fellow particle physicists experience as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes into operation in Switzerland.”―Natural History””The Lightness of Being” is an apt description of Wilczek’s writing style, which manages to be at once profound and light, filled with humour, wordplay and original explanations of difficult concepts.”―New Scientist””The Lightness of Being” does a superb job of introducing the reader…to our current understanding of the nature of matter and the forces that govern the universe…. [A] wonderful program guide to what we can expect from the LHC in the coming years. Stay tuned.”―American Scientist”With a command of both concept and language that few can rival, [Wilczek] weaves witty commentary into eloquent explanations. Heavy on physics but light on math, this book offers an accessible though sophisticated look at the central ideas of modern physics.”―SEED”Frank Wilczek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, unwraps exciting new ideas…. He contends, with great wit and style, that we are tantalizingly close to unifying the fundamental forces of nature.”―Scientific American”Wilczek can write with wit, grace, and an uncanny facility for using lightweight language to express heavy-duty ideas.”―Physics Today”For a safari-like adventure into the world of physics, follow Wilczek’s lead. Quirky but knowledgeable, he explores the essence of the matter that makes up the universe — combining the enthusiasm of someone like Jeff Corwin with the thoughtfulness of a David Attenborough.”―Science News”Wilczek successfully documents the great discoveries, ideas, and mysteries of our universe…. [T]he author uses nontechnical language that is devoid of mathematics and theoretical proofs and that is rich in personal reflection and historical context.”―Library Journal”Don’t worry, the chapters are short, fun and larded with historical points that offer readers the payoff of understanding all the excitement in the scientific world over Europe’s Large Hadron Collider, just getting warmed up in its operations.”―USA Today”Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against ‘the Grid, ‘ Wilczek’s term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections.”―Booklist”Wilczek possesses a compelling writing style…. The beauty of the intellectual leaps, the grandness of the discovery, are palpable. Making the reader feel engaged and conceptually informed is no small feat for a book on advanced science.”―St. Petersburg Times”Vintage Wilczek–fun, simple and right.”―Robert Laughlin,Nobel Laureate, Stanford University””The Lightness of Being” takes the reader on a mind-stretching journey, providing a revolutionary new vision of the universe. Frank Wilczek is an extraordinarily accomplished and creative scientist who has the rare ability to communicate scientific ideas and insights with exceptional clarity–but also with a delightful playfulness.”―Jerome I. Friedman,Nobel Laureate, MIT”This book is deep, simple and incredibly well-written. Starting from the nature of mass, Professor Wilczek leads the reader to an understanding of the most profound ideas and accomplishments in physics today.”―T.D. Lee, NobelLaureate in Physics, Columbia University”Want to know what it’s all about? Here’s a book that candidly tells you what ‘it’ is. And just about everything you thought about ‘it’ is wrong. Accessible, charming and cheeky, “The Lightness of Being” reveals a universe where matter is the hum of strange music, mass doesn’t weigh, and empty space is a multilayered, multicolored superconductor.”―K.C. Cole, author of Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos””The Lightness of Being” is a delightful celebration of the wonders of physics, told by one who has helped define the current frontiers. Wilczek’s lightness of touch and wry humour make this book a joy to read.”―Frank Close, authorof The Void””The Lightness of Being” is a lively, playful, and inventive tour de force, written by a lively, playful, and inventive key mover in the field. Few creative popular expositors of physics are also brilliant physicists. It is rarer still to find a creative expositor of physics who is not only brilliant but has personally helped change the way we think about nature.”―Lawrence Krauss,author of Hiding in the Mirror”Frank Wilczek takes readers on an enjoyable and enlightening voyage that starts with the deep insightsthat won him a Nobel Prize, and moves on to the more speculative realms that physicists are now investigating. This is a colorful and masterful treatment of recent developments in fundamental physics.”―Peter Woit, author ofNot Even Wrong About the Author Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004. His 1989 book, Longing for the Harmonies, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Wilczek’s work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing and The Norton Anthology of Light Verse. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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

⭐I carefully choose a new quantum physics book to read every couple of years. Each time I become convinced that my new selection is the absolute best and this one is no exception. Wilczek’s book came largely from public lectures he has given over the last few years: “The Universe is a Strange Place,” The World’s Numerical Recipe,” “The Origin of Mass and the Feebleness of Gravity,” and “The Persistence of Ether.” Readers of this book, get ready for a wild ride:Part I: Chapters 1-12Chapters 1-5 – Our senses – vision, hearing, smell, touch – did not evolve to understand the quantum world. It takes another “sense” – our minds – to try to grasp an understanding. Even then, attempts to put quantum concepts in words can compare to trying to understand the nonsensical flow of words from an automated postmodern paragraph generator. Mathematics (unfortunately for me) is the language of science.Newton took mass for granted as the lowest common denominator of matter – a gift from God. But contrary to what Newton thought, mass is not conserved. When electrons and positrons are smashed into each other at almost the speed of light, new particles result – 30,000 times as much mass comes out as what went in. Einstein suggested we need to explain mass in terms of energy.The extent of knowledge as of 1935 – still in most introductory physics books – is as follows (paraphrased, 24, 25): “All things are made from atoms and photons. Atoms in turn are made from electrons and atomic nuclei. The nuclei…contain all the positive electric charge and nearly all the mass….Atoms are held together by electric attraction between the electrons and the nuclei. Finally, nuclei are held together by the strong force.” In this book, Wilczek will modify every concept.The weak force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity are all created by the fields set up by strong force interactions in the nucleus. To find the origin of mass, the author says we must find how the constituents of protons, made of pure energy, endow protons and neutrons with mass. It took decades of experimental effort and theoretical ingenuity – and particle accelerators – to discover the fundamental equations that govern what goes on in atomic nuclei. Bizarre, more fundamental building blocks were found – quarks and gluons.Chapter 6 and 7 – Spins, color charges, hadrons, partons, asymptotic freedom, virtual particles, Feynman’s diagrams, and the ultrastroboscopic nanomicroscope – that visualizes the quantum aspects of quarks. This chapter jumps completely beyond classical physics and into the realm of fantasyland – complete with solid evidence. The equations to describe gluons turn out to be a natural mathematical generalization of Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics. Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong force and its central idea is symmetry – best described in the language of mathematics but the author does his best with words. These are tough chapters.Chapter 8 – The heart of the book – Wilczek’s effort to unify the forces: His “Grid” (diagram on page 75) fills in the gap left by the absence of Newton’s discredited “ether.” What we perceive as empty space is not empty. It is a rich, dynamic medium, bursting with virtual activity that shapes the universe – quark and gluon fields constantly seeking equilibrium.From page 111: “*The Grid fills space and time.*Every fragment of Grid – each space-time element – has the same basic properties as every other fragment.*The Grid is alive with quantum activity. Quantum activity has special characteristics. It is spontaneous and unpredictable. To observe quantum activity, you must disturb it.*The Grid also contains enduring, material components. The cosmos is a multilayered, multicolored superconductor.*The Grid contains a metric field that gives space-time rigidity and causes gravity.*The Grid weighs, with a universal density.”Chapters 9-12 – The Grid can explain Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” and QCD can explain the mass of protons made from virtually massless quarks and gluons of energy. The color charge of a quark creates a disturbance in the gluon fields of the Grid – that grows with distance. Nature strikes a balance between the demands of the gluon fields that don’t want to be disturbed and those of the quarks and antiquarks that want to roam free. The total energy won’t be zero and that is the origin of mass.Part II & III: Chapters 13-21 – Gravity is feeble in practice but not in theory. Historical solutions as to gravity’s derivation are: gravity might be derived as a by-product from the imbalances of the other forces; the other forces might be derived from gravity; or all the forces might appear on the same footing, as different aspects – perhaps related by symmetry – of a single whole. Wilczek finds a uniquely different source for gravity – then meanders through various supersymmetries, mathematics, and the particle zoo, ending up with a Unification Theory! – one that the author hopes will be vindicated by findings from the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland.As easy to read as this subject is ever gonna get, any physics buff will like this book. It is written with flair and humor as exemplified by this excerpt about working on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: “You orchestrate a carefully designed sampling of results at different energies and momenta to extract accurate positions and times (for experts: you do Fourier transforms).” There are appendices and a glossary. Following Einstein’s lead, I would say he made it “as simple as possible but no simpler.”

⭐When I first chanced across this book, I was waiting for a friend in a large bookstore. The title was intriguing, and so I took the book down and began to read it. When it was time to go, I was quite intrigued. A week or two later, once again I was marking time in the bookstore. I took the book down again, and continued to read it. On my third visit to the bookstore, I bought the book.Frank Wilczek’s writing style is both a blessing and a curse. He is refreshing, with a good sense of humor and a whimsical streak. This lightens the book and adds a refreshing human touch. But there have been times when I’m not sure if he is having fun with us, or strictly on the level.These science books for laymen can be scaled at different levels. Some are a plodding refresher scaled at the level of a high-school freshman. I’m a bit beyond those. Then others are more challenging. I have read a couple of layman’s science books by Michio Kaku recently. He writes very well, is a respected scientist, and is very clear. His books are very worthwhile. Then there’s a very challenging level of science book, such as the current volume. Frank Wilczek’s present effort goes over my head at times. I put up a good fight — and have read several of the chapters more than once. But Frank really plunges pretty deep, including quite a few equations expressing quark variants and other esoteric matters. The equations begin in a simple way, and I seem to follow. Then they become quite complex and sprawling, with a dozen or more variables, and I just give up. Moreover, there are so many various particles, to include quarks of nine varieties, gluons, mesons, and more, that a certain “overkill” creeps into my noodle.Why do I rate the book positively? Dr. Wilczek did an amazing job of explaining the sourcing of particle mass. His chapters explaining the source of proton mass were totally fascinating. How can the gluons and quarks in a proton, all of very minimal mass, combine to provide the proton’s total mass, which is hundreds or thousands of times greater?Dr. Wilczek also explains the peculiar attractive force that keeps quarks inside of protons. How can a force increase in intensity as particles draw FARTHER APART? While I have seen this stated over the years, I never understood the nature of the force. This is well explained, and totally opened some doors to me.I also found great enlightenment in Wilczek’s discussion of what he calls the “Matrix,” which is his term for the “vacuum” of empty space that figures so importantly in quantum mechanics. This was a guided tour par excellance, and explains the virtual pair generation, various “condensates,” and the infrequent, spontaneous generation of rather massive particles.Dr. Wilczek has a Nobel Prize, and seems to be an expert on various esoteric aspects of quantum mechanics, especially quantum chromodynamics. He seems to have had personal experience in experiment and professional collaborations with many of the quantum phenomena that he discusses in his book. Moveover, the book has just appeared, and so has the freshest information. In some of these cutting edge fields, a five-year old book may be outdated.This book is not an easy read. You may very possibly find sections that seem to go over your head. But this book is very provocative and genuinely interesting.The greatest challenge — for me — may be figuring out how to pronounce Dr. Wilczek’s last name.

⭐I need to start this review with two clarifications and a proviso. The first clarification is that this quite an old book (2008), but someone just brought it to my attention. The second clarification is about the book’s title. It’s not about ‘The lightness of being Frank Wilczek’, that’s just an unfortunate choice of title. The proviso is about the four star rating. This, to me, is a very mixed book. It does two things brilliantly, and quite a lot of other things not very well. If you are interested in modern physics, particularly particle physics and quantum field theory, though, it is a must-read.Let’s get the brilliant things in first. One of the baffling things about physics when you get into quarks and gluons as the constituents of particles like protons and neutrons is that the strong force that holds them together appears to be almost non-existent when the are close, but grows to be extremely strong when they try to separate (and then pretty much disappears a little further apart). As a result of this we’ve never seen raw, naked quarks, even though the evidence for their existence is good.The section of the book that covers the theoretical reasoning for the existence of quarks, the experimental evidence we have for them and how this strange topsy-turvey force works the way it does (and, by the way, gives protons and neutrons 95% of their mass – take that, Higgs!) is excellent. It’s by far the best explanation I’ve ever seen. Not entirely surprising when you realise that Frank Wilczek won his Nobel Prize for ‘the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.’ And asymptotic freedom is the rather clumsy name (Wilczek apologies for it in the book) for this odd way that the force increases as the quarks try to separate.The other reason this book is excellent is that it gives a real insight into the kind of mental world modern theoretical physicists occupy. Once Wilczek gets going on what he calls ‘the Grid’ (because, he says, ‘the Matrix’ was spoiled as a name by the sequel movies), he is both dazzling and worrying. You might have thought that the ether went out with Maxwell and Einstein, but Wilczek shows how quantum field theorists postulate a whole multilayered collection of ethers filling space, from the assorted quantum fields to strange concepts of universe-filling condensates. I don’t know if it’s the impression he intended to give, but it really did come across to me as if modern theoretical physicists live in a fantasy world of mathematics which only occasionally touches base with reality when it happens to fit rather well with specific observations. The intention was, I think to show how this viewpoint is inevitable, but instead what comes across to me it that it feels like an abstraction with inevitable parallels with reality but that feels horribly like a house of cards.Less effective are Wilczek’s explanations once he gets away from quarks. I think I understand symmetry, at least to undergraduate physics level, but Wilczek’s example that was supposed to show how symmetry worked for beginners totally lost me once he started talking about squeezing the sides of triangles. This, and much of the field theory explanations came across as someone who understood the topic so well that he didn’t understand how to explain it to people who don’t. It was more like a magician waving his hands at the end of a trick and saying ‘So that’s how it’s done,’ without revealing the actual mechanism.Another slight problem was the writing style which tended to a kind of pompous joviality that I found rather wearing. Here’s an example:So: fully aware of the difficulties but undaunted, heroes of physics gird their loins, apply for grants, buy clusters of computers, solder, program, debug, even think – whatever it takes to wrest answers from the Grid pandemonium.It’s bearable, but hard work sometimes. So a definite recommendation, but with some significant reservations. You have been warned.

⭐Reading a single book about Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces is never going to provide a grounding in the fundamental theories behind these concepts. Instead, this book conveys an impression of how these topics might appear if you were already familiar with the science.It does so remarkably well; much better than a host of other books along similar lines. Frank Wilczek has a master’s touch in conveying how the world looks to someone who thinks about it in terms of grids, fields and symmetries rather than of fundamental particles which he shows to emerge as inevitable consequences.The author is an expert who has made fundamental contributions to the subject of quantum chromodynamics, but it takes more than that to write such an excellent book as this. He has a fluent, at times humorous, at times philosophical, style. And his impressions of nuclear regions a million times beyond nanotechnology are conveyed as if by someone who had actually been there, at least in imagination.

⭐I am a person with an intense interest in knowing how the world works. I have read many books bravely attempting to explain quantum mechanics to the non-mathematician, non-physicist person. This is my favorite. It is not the latest, most up to date tome, but I have read it three times, and each time I feel I have a better understanding of the manner in which different fields fill the entire universe, and of the fact that we are made up of particles of matter which are disturbances in these fields. I find all this completely marvelous and wonderful, and appreciate Wilczek’s whimsical and sometimes humourous approach to explaining the science. The title is apt.

⭐A good book, well written. It tries to explain some deep ideas without the use of complex mathematics and, by and large, succeeds. However a slightly frustrating thing about reading the paperback edition is the many references to coloured plates, which were presumably present in the hard back but are not reproduced here. This takes something away from the book and could have easily have been remedied by appropriate editing.

⭐To much waffle re protons, gluons , electrons , all summed up by ” Particles”.

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