Forces of Nature

The book does a good non-technical presentation of elementary particle theory. The Feynman diagrams that involve the W(-1) and Z(0) are just not enegy Balanced. In QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter Feynman seems to realize this but says they needed a large particle to balance the long lifetime of the neutron in uncertainty terms. Mostly the idea is that the weak field bosons mediate fermion interactions with hadrons and each other, but as Davies points out this theory is pretty faulty in energy balance and other scientific philosophical ways. If he had covered more on the early universe and higher symmetry concepts I might have given him 5 stars. Good for a "dumb me down" physics book.

For someone interested in the fundamental physics of the different interactions in nature, but has yet learned the necessary mathematics needed to obtain a complete understanding of it, this book could be a good start. I read it when it first appeared in 1979, and it was a good source of intuition then as it is now. I had just finished taking BS degree in mathematics, and was very interested in becoming more familiar with the quantum field theories of elementary particle physics. A few years later in 1983, while waiting for a class on quantum field theory, the instructor, Ervin Fenyves, arrived to class and with great excitement announced the discovery of the intermediate vector bosons by the CERN team in Geneva. The syllabus for the class was of course not followed that day, but instead Dr. Fenyves explained just what decay signatures indicated the presence of the vector bosons. It must be remembered that this book was published before the discoveries of the intermediate vector bosons, and therefore it is in this sense out of date. These discoveries, and others after them, such as the discovery of flavor-changing neutrinos, give solid support to current physical theories of the fundamental interactions which the author introduces in this book. Readers needing a more in-depth understanding of fundamental physics will need to learn a lot more physics and mathematics then what can be found in this book. This will take a lot of time and effort, but it is well worth it, since the picture of reality that physics now gives us is fascinating, and guarantees to be even more so in the decade ahead, as experiments are conducted at even higher energies. There are of course many excellent books that are more up-to-date, and readers should consult these as their main source of information, but this one could still be used as an historical introduction and overview of what was known before the intermediate vector boson era.

If you are a highschool student or a college freshman/sophmore with an interest in physics, want to know about current topics in physics, and have only the time and money to spend on just one book, spend it on this one. It goes very far!!! If fact, most far than any popular exposition that don't use any math. It explains very detailed concpts of gravity, electromagnetic, and the weak and strong forces, and symmetry. It talks about the work being done on their unification. And ends with a conculsion by the author on what are the major open questions and what current physics is and what it ought to be. Oh, there is not much in this book on superstring theory, since this develpment is quite recent.

I am a non-scientist and, while I have no illusions that reading this book had turned me into a physicist, I do feel that I have gained a solid exposure to physics by reading this book.There's a lot of material covered in this book, and some passages are difficult. But it is extremely well-written, impeccably organized, explains things very clearly, and once you master even the hardest sections, you feel very rewarded and enlightened. It's too bad this book is out of print!I will keep my copy for years to come as a reference point as I continue to read about physics!