Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer short and informal introductions to big ideas in physics. Predictably, they grew into long and detailed videos. But they never lost their informal charm, especially since I didn’t do that much in the way of research or preparation.
For the book, by contrast, I actually did research and preparation! So the topics are arranged a bit more logically, the presentation is a bit more thorough and coherent, and the narrative is sprinkled with fun anecdotes about the philosophy and history behind the development of these ideas. In this volume, “these ideas” cover classical physics, from Aristotle through Newton up through Einstein.
The gimmick, of course, is that we don’t shy away from using equations. The goal of this book is to fill the gap between what you generally get as a professional physics student, who the teacher can rely on to spend years of study and hours of doing homework problems, and what you get as an interested amateur, where it is assumed that you are afraid of equations or can’t handle them. I think equations are not so scary, and that essentially everyone can handle them, if they are explained fully along the way. So there are no prerequisites, but we will teach you about calculus and vectors and all that stuff along the way. Not enough to actually solve the equations and become a pro, but enough to truly understand what the equations are saying. If it all works, this will open up a new way of looking at the universe for people who have been denied it for a long time.
The payoff at the end of the book is Einstein’s theory of general relativity and its prediction of black holes. You will understand what Einstein’s equation really says, and why black holes are an inevitable outcome of that equation. Something most people who get an undergraduate university degree in physics typically don’t get to.
Table of contents:
- Introduction
- 1. Conservation
- 2. Change
- 3. Dynamics
- 4. Space
- 5. Time
- 6. Spacetime
- 7. Geometry
- 8. Gravity
- 9. Black Holes
- Appendices
Available wherever books are available: Amazon * Barnes and Noble * BAM * IndieBound * Bookshop.org * Apple Books.
You completed this during the transition to JHU? How did you (both) survive?
I was able to access the Audible version of your Biggest Ideas book, but alas, I’m having trouble locating the accompanying PDF mentioned in the Introduction. Any suggestions ? Apologies in advance if I missed an obvious link.