Product Description
In The Quantum Theory of Fields, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory. This is a two-volume work.Volume I introduces the foundations of quantum field theory. The development is fresh and logical throughout, with each step carefully motivated by what has gone before, and emphasizing the reasons why such a theory should describe nature.After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are most certain, relativity and quantum mechanics, and the properties of particles that follow from these principles.Quantum field theory emerges from this as a natural consequence. The author presents the classic calculations of quantum electrodynamics in a thoroughly modern way, showing the use of path integrals and dimensional regularization. His account of renormalization theory reflects the changes in our view of quantum field theory since the advent of effective field theories.The book's scope extends beyond quantum electrodynamics to elementary particle physics, and nuclear physics.It contains much original material, and is peppered with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. This work will be an invaluable reference for all physicists and mathematicians who use quantum field theory, and it is also appropriate as a textbook for graduate students in this area. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Quantum Theory of Fields
This book, along with volume II, is definitely the best of all the qft books I have read.After a year-long course based on Peskin and Schroeder I was able to calculate Feynman diagrams, but I had very little understanding of quantum field theory.To see why it is that qft is so useful both in particle physics and condensed matter physics, I believe that it is really necessary to motivate its foundations and clarify its relation to ordinary quantum mechanics, as is done in this book.Weinberg does not explain everything in complete detail, but he almost always gives enough that the interested reader can fill in the gaps.I would suggest only three things to be aware of:

1) Because of his heavy reliance on the S-matrix, his intuitive motivation is less useful for dealing with theories like QCD in which the asymptotic states do not correspond to fields in the Lagrangian.

2) The treatment of renormalization is somewhat dated, in that it still first assumes a continuum theory exists, begins to calculate and finds divergences, and then renormalizes them.He does emphasize that renormalization is present even without divergences, but the cleaner Wilsonian picture, in which the regularization is part of the definition of the theory, is introduced in an "optional" section and seldom used.

3) The discussion of Lagrangian symmetries in volume I is almost entirely classical.Anomalies and spontaneous symmetry breaking don't appear until volume II, but the careful reader will "discover" them trying to understand the cases where the arguments in volume I fail.I would have preferred to an "honest" discussion from the outset.This would of course require a more modern discussion along the lines of point 2)...

That said, the introduction of and motivation for gauge invariance, infrared divergences, canonical quantization, local fields, mass/coupling renormalization, and path integration are all very transparent and insightful.The canonical quantization of electrodynamics in Coulumb gauge is a very educational exercise, and it shocks me that the representation theory material in chapter 2 is not covered in all qft books.Without it we cannot even understand why photons do not have 3 spin states!Other highlights are the CPT and Spin-Statistics theorems, and the discussion of symmetries of the S-matrix.

All of this is not to say one shouldn't use other books; P&S provides necessary tools for phenomenologists, and Zee is useful in that he will tell you all the results without really justifying them.Zee especially is good for a beginner, since you know what to look for when you try and learn things properly.But anyone with the necessary background interested in understanding QFT will ultimately turn here.

Complete discussion
I have been able to get a lot out of this book. However, it is *very* complete, and the order of the book is different than a lot of other textbooks on the subject (for example Mark Srednicki "Quantum Field Theory", which I think is a better book for a first course in QFT.). AN example is that scattering theory is covered *in detail* before acgtual construction of the free field. I'd think that the latter subject would be good to cover first.
Overall, it is very complete and a great reference to use. For someone's first course, I would recommend Srednicki; however, Srednicki references this book frequently, so...

Very thorough and logical, but somewhat difficult and painful to get through
To put the review in perspective, My Background: I am a senior undergraduate engineering/physics student with an interest in mathematics and theoretical physics.This is my third QFT book.

Things I liked about the book:
- The book follows a very logical progression.I love how Weinberg presents a coherent argument based on simple physical principles (specifically Lorentz invariance and the cluster decomposition principle).
- Weinberg takes painstaking effort to avoid hand-waving, and is very careful to enumerate (and make plausible) his assumptions.In so doing, he avoids the sort of black-magic feeling I got when reading some less well written QFT books (see for example: Peskin and Schroeder, which makes a mockery of logical progression in an effort to teach you how to calculate as soon as possible).
- The book was very thorough, and often provided an original approach to the material.The coverage of renormalization seemed natural and coherent, and since the book is presented in a logical order (rather than a historical one) Weinberg avoids justifying renormalization as some mysterious subtraction of infinities, basing it instead on general non-perterbative methods (e.g. poles of the S-matrix, etc...)

What I didn't like about the book:
- As a result of his unwavering emphasis on logical progression, and his inclusion of a vast amount of material (almost all of which is necessary to understand in order to progress through the book), the book is somewhat painful to get through.Be prepared to re-read many of the sections a couple of times, and to make very slow progress.
- Weinberg chooses to present QFT in a very general form (i.e. abstracting it from a particular field such as particle physics or condensed matter physics).This is not necessarily a disadvantage, but I often found my interest waning after reading a few hundred pages without making any contact with phenomenology.Additionally, the excercises were similarly abstract, which makes it difficult (at least for me) to particularly care about their results. (More of a problem for self-study)
- The notation is very complete, which isn't normally a bad thing.However, the equations sometimes become very cumbersome when he includes every index, and every functional dependence regardless of how redundant they may be.
- In his coverage of path integrals, he derives things using functional determinants rather than through the more common generating functional methods.I think this hides a lot of the physical insight of the path integral approach, particularly, its equivalence to the 2nd-quantized approach, and its relation to Feynman diagrams.
- This book will drive the more mathematically inclined crazy, as the author admits, it makes very little attempt at rigour, and is very uncareful.He exchanges orders of limits willy-nilly, and often is not even clear about what sort of limiting process is taking place.There is not discussion of functional integration measures, or convergence, and there is very little justification provided for regularization methods (actually the coverage of dimensional regularization is extremely sparce, and would have been unfollowable, had I not already known it).


General Comments:
- I think that, contrary to some of the previous reviews, that the first few chapters of the book (through 6) would be a good first exposure to quantum field theory.I think the reader would have a much better understanding of the theory.However, the rest of the book is quite advanced, and would not be good for the uninitialized.
- I think that in an effort to make his coverage thorough and abstracting his discussion from phenomenology, the author sacrificed some of the readability of the book.That being said, if you're serious about learning the subject, this is a good resource.

Brilliant
Weinberg never disappoints the serious student of theoretical physics. There is no good reason to ignore perusing his texts.
Weinberg is a master expositor and creator of modern physics.
There simply is no good reason not to purchase his volumes.

superb book
in my opinion this should be one of the best books in qft.
Althought I've read jauch&rohrlich photons and electrons, p.ramond, itzykson, and ultimately, hatfield, Weinberg lead all of them for many heads. The features of this book are clarity, deepness, rigor, and authoritative treatment of all the topics. The discussion for a lagrangian versus hamiltonian formalism is lucid,and no finded in any other book. Group theory is applyied when is customary without cross over the physical implications. It contains a chapter devoted to scattering like no other book, wich is clear and explain concepts involved with "in" and "out" states(other of the lacks of many books of qft). Even the problems that contain are very well picked up, and solvable in most cases. I could't find any fault or mislead in what i read in this book, perhaps any skilled reader can find some. Even binding and typography are excellent, there is nothing more valuable for hardly 40$. ... Read more

Product Description
The classic of contemporary science writing by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains what happened when the universe began, and how we know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Not for the beginner
Definitely not for the layman. He talks about several concepts and reaches several conclusions without explanation of how he got there. Its somewhat frustrating at times because you have to stop and look up in another text to understand what he is talking about before you can go on. I read "The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene" before I read this in the hopes of getting a better understanding of the big bang. That didn't happen. I would recommend the Brian Greene book over this even though only a small section was dedicated to the big bang.

Basic Understanding of Cosmology
This is a well written book for those unitiated in physics and cosmology. It was written before the Big Bang theory was revised to include inflation so some of the concepts are already obsolete.It is a good starting point however. I would recommend following it up with the Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth or The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawkings.

Impressive, view of the universe it presents is cold, pointless
The origin of the universe, according to the latest scientific findings (as of 1977). Written by the eminent physicist Steven Weinberg, two years before he got a Nobel Prize for the theory unifying the electromagnetic force with the weak nuclear force, a subject only tangentially related to the cosmology with is the subject of this book. Though obviously not up to date (there is an afterword written in 1993, however), the big bang theory expounded here nevertheless remains the mainstream scientific theory of the origin of the universe, and if anything have been reinforced by later data. Though the exposition is not mathematical (a mathematical appendix is included) the book is nevertheless heavy going, requiring a great level of concentration on the part of the reader. My very personal problem with this book is that I find this scientific view too uninspiring. On one side, I suppose one must feel awed that scientists have discovered with such detail what has happened to the universe as far back as its first three minutes. But the scientific view presented here has a pointlessness and purposelessness that can give the reader a feeling of sadness. As author Weinberg famously noted at the end of the book, the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

Still up to date after three decades
Despite some reviewers' concerns that the content of this book may be dated, it is not.What you read in this book is still the consensus among cosmologists on how the universe evoloved after the first one-hundredth of a second after the big bang.What happened before that is a matter of current debate.Though written for the layman in mind, this book is not an easy read: non-scientists may find the content a bit too difficult to follow, while scientists will find Weinberg's avoidance of the scientific notation for large numbers (e.g. two million millon degrees Kelvin) and the use of fully spelled out particle names in reactions instead of symbols (e.g. Neutrino plus neutron yields electron plus proton) annoying.If you are a physics/astophysics/astonomy student, this book is a must read.

Window to the Universe
Great book which explains the Big Bang in terms which are can be
understood by non specialists. ... Read more

Product Description

Just as Henry David Thoreau “traveled a great deal in Concord,” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg sees much of the world from the window of his study overlooking Lake Austin. In Lake Views Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive today, continues the wide-ranging reflections that have also earned him a reputation as, in the words of New York Times reporter James Glanz, “a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate—and sting.”

This collection presents Weinberg’s views on topics ranging from problems of cosmology to assorted world issues—military, political, and religious. Even as he moves beyond the bounds of science, each essay reflects his experience as a theoretical physicist. And as in the celebrated Facing Up, the essays express a viewpoint that is rationalist, reductionist, realist, and secular. A new introduction precedes each essay, explaining how it came to be written and bringing it up to date where necessary.

As an essayist, Weinberg insists on seeing things as they are, without despair and with good humor. Sure to provoke his readers—postmodern cultural critics, enthusiasts for manned space flight or missile defense, economic conservatives, sociologists of science, anti-Zionists, and religious zealots—this book nonetheless offers the pleasure of a sustained encounter with one of the most interesting scientific minds of our time.

Customer Reviews (3)

So, Mr Einstein, what have you done lately
Steven Weinberg is one of the top theoretical physicists in the world today.. yes, the material is dated, but so are special and general relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, etc. etc..... Considering that as given, then if you want the latest news, do not buy Weinberg's book; buy the newspaper, and hear what all the talking heads have to say!

Brilliant thinker but a little out of date
I am a huge admirer of Steven Weinberg. He is a brilliant man and a profound thinker. However, I can only give this book three stars, as most of the articles in it are several years old and available online. I have read several of the essays years before. I would have liked to see more recent work for a $26 book.

A nice compilation of Weinberg's writings
As a fan of Steven Weinberg's writings I enjoyed being able to read his more recent essays under one cover. His book the "First Three Minutes", written in the late 70's helped inspire my interest in physics and astronomy and a subsequent career in science. His recent book on "Cosmology" is Weinberg at his best.

I enjoy the writings and opinions of famous scientists even when they write about non science topics. It gives me a special insight into the kind of person they are often revealing their quirks and biases, and most importantly their occasional falibility in fields outside their domain.This is sometimes evident in Weinberg's writings. After reading his latest book of essays, I feel I got to know him a little better. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Nobel Laureate explains the beginnings of time
This short book is very accessible to smart high school level or undergrad level people interested in cosmology. Narry an equation nor 'physics jargon' to be found anywhere. Not even any latent promotion of "big science," experimental rather than theoretical physics. Weinberg was one of the big proponents of the Super Collider.

Given Weinberg's credentials, I am confident that this book is accurate and true to the time it was written. Much work (and observation) has been achieved since then. Check out the magazine "Sky and Telescope" for news, articles, and wonderful images from space telescopes (Hubble, Chandra, others) to get updates on news about the early time of the cosmos.

This book is a clear, led-by-the-hand but not patronizing tour of how the cosmos got started, who the major theorists were if you want to do further reading (such as Alan Guth's Inflation theory, which I will get to someday. It's not as easy to read) and is well written, too. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is unique in the detailed, self-contained, and comprehensive treatment that it gives to the ideas and formulas that are used and tested in modern cosmological research. It divides into two parts, each of which provides enough material for a one-semester graduate course. The first part deals chiefly with the isotropic and homogeneous average universe; the second part concentrates on the departures from the average universe. Throughout the book the author presents detailed analytic calculations of cosmological phenomena, rather than just report results obtained elsewhere by numerical computation. The book is up to date, and gives detailed accounts of topics such as recombination, microwave background polarization, leptogenesis, gravitational lensing, structure formation, and multifield inflation, that are usually treated superficially if at all in treatises on cosmology. Copious references to current research literature are supplied. Appendices include a brief introduction to general relativity, and a detailed derivation of the Boltzmann equation for photons and neutrinos used in calculations of cosmological evolution. Also provided is an assortment of problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Difficult, butindispensable
The material in the book requires some background -- I needed a lot of supplemental clarification from other texts and from the internet in order to understand everything.However, this book provided me with something that few textbooks have: a vivid view of the state of the nascent field of Cosmology.Very provocative.

Awesome! Watch a serious physicist work his way

This could be a private notebook of a serious student.
Prof. Weinberg has chosen to share his serious analyses
of much of current Cosmology. Watch a serious physicist
thinking and calculating until he understands and has mad
it all clear. A serious mind at work.

Fabulous Cosomology Resource ....
This book is a dense treatise on cosmology targeted for graduate students and professional physicists. But the clarity of Weinberg's prose and math makes this a valuable reference for anyone seriously interested in cosmology.If you grasp 5% of the material here you will have learned more than is contained in any of the popularized treatments.

Weinbergwastes no time, beginning with a one page derivation of theFLRW metric, relating it to the Hubble constant, and following up with a presentation and critical analysis of experimental results from Hubble to the Type 1A supernova project.Nothing is "beyond the scope" of this book, and Weinberg gives a thorough treatment of critical elements no matter how difficult -- e.g. detailed calculation of the CMB fluctuations.

Insightful look at modern cosmology
Cosmology has advanced at an extremely rapid pace in the past couple of decades, becoming inextricably linked with particle physics which itself is developing at a dizzying pace. The time is right for a summary of the current situation, bringing together the latest observational findings and theoretical developments in both these fields. There is no better scientist than Weinberg to carry out this task. "Cosmology" nicely complements his earlier, and oft-cited classic, "Gravitation and Cosmology" (1972), in his unique style - an inspiring blend of physical insight and self-contained mathematical derivations. For anyone with a good undergraduate-level understanding of physics, this book provides an excellent entry-point into the vast and rapidly-growing literature on many aspects of modern cosmology, and will position the reader well for understanding the true significance of new findings. With the persistent mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, the Large Hadron Collider expected soon to yield results, no time has been better to bring our current understanding of cosmology up to date, and no-one better than Weinberg to accomplish this task.

Excellent, likely the new standard
This book is the most complete and up-to-date book on cosmology I know of. It's extremely well written and very detailed. It's all so good, it's hard to say anything especially stands out. Nevertheless I especially enjoyed the discussions (done throughout the book) of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations, dark matter and dark energy. If you're read authors three volume set on quantum field theory or his graduate level text on gravitation, the writing in this book is exactly what you'd expect.

Obviously one can't understand cosmology without knowledge of general relativity, but this book doesn't require an especially strong knowledge of it. In addition to basic general relativity a couple of other things perspective readers would probably want some background in are statistical mechanics and the standard model of particle physics. The Robertson-Walker solution is pretty much taken as a given, solutions like Taub-NUT that clearly don't describe our universe are not covered. More speculative aspects of cosmology are not discussed. For example you won't find coverage of things like the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, quantum cosmology, non-standard topologies, topological defects (monopoles are mentioned briefly) or higher dimensional theories.

Aside from the speculative topics it covers everything most people would want to know. The topics include: the cosmological distance ladder, the cosmic microwave background, nucleosynthesis, structure formation, inflation, dark matter (baryonic and non-baryonic) and dark energy.

One of the striking features of this book is that it makes it very clear how precise the measurements in cosmology are. One example is Hubble's constant is give as 71+/- 6 (in the usual units), while in Peeble's excellent book (from 1993) was only known to be in the range 50-85. Another is that many measurements have been made to a fairly high precision and they fit together beautifully, the very realistic possibility (if the current model did not reflect reality quite well) that there are some conflicts is not realized.

All-in-all this is an excellent book that I would expect anyone seeking a deep knowledge or cosmology would enjoy. If one's interest in cosmology is more casual it may be too detailed. ... Read more

Product Description
Developing a theory that seamlessly combines relativity and quantum mechanics, the most important conceptual breakthroughs in twentieth century physics, has proved to be a difficult and ongoing challenge. Thisbook details how two distinguished physicists and Nobel laureates have explored this theme in two lectures given in Cambridge, England, in 1986 to commemorate the famous British physicist Paul Dirac. Given for nonspecialists and undergraduates, the talks transcribed in Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics focus on the fundamental problems of physics and the present state of our knowledge. Professor Feynman examines the nature of antiparticles, and in particular the relationship between quantum spin and statistics. Professor Weinberg speculates on how Einstein's theory of gravitation might be reconciled with quantum theory in the final law of physics. Highly accessible, deeply thought provoking, this book will appeal to all those interested in the development of modern physics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great book
Feynman's lecture is the simplest and the most intuitive explanation of the connection between spin and statistics that I have ever seen! This is a very readable book, no knowledge of quantum field theory is required, but a good understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics is essential for understanding the book. I think every physicist should read these lectures, although very simple, they add a lot to our understanding and even to our knowledge of fundamental physics.

Summary of Paul Dirac Memorial Lectures
This book is a summary of 1986 Paul Dirac memorial lectures delivered by physicists, Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg. This book requires the knowledge of undergraduate level physics and perturbation theory, and it is described in two chapters; the first is by Feynman under the title "The reason for antiparticle." This section describes the first attempt of Dirac in 1928 to "wed" newly discovered quantum mechanics and theory of relativity. When relativity was included into Schrodinger's pure wave equations, the relativistic equation (Dirac equations) would only be satisfied if there were two solutions corresponding to positive and negative energy states, and in the case of the electron, an electron with a positive charge was required for negative energy state. Thus the existence of antiparticles (positron) was predicted as a direct result of combining the relativity with quantum mechanics. Paul Dirac was also able to explain the origin of the electron magnetic moment and spin. Feynman postulated one of the revolutionary thought in quantum field theory, that antiparticles could be viewed as particles going back in time. This should not be taken as a physical reality in which cause - effect sequence could be revered. Because during the Lorentz transformation the time sequence of two events gets reversed, one of them could not have been the cause of the other because the two events are outside each other's sphere of influence. In frame A, if event 1 occurs first and event 2 occurs after event 1, but in frame B, event 2 occurs before event 1. This is possible in relativity because the time ordering of two events is not an absolute concept; one event can be in the past of another event in one frame, and in its future in a different frame. An observer in frame A will see an electron before event 1, an electron between events 1 and 2, and an electron after event 2, but in frame B, he will see one electron before event 2 and only one electron after event 1.

In the second part under the title, Toward the final laws of physics, Steven Weinberg discusses the developments in physics to explain physical reality with one set of physical laws. This has lead to several unsuccessful theories to unify relativity and quantum physics, finally leading to String theory.

Paul Dirac believed that physical laws should have mathematical beauty. Both Feynman and Weinberg have made beautiful theories. Weinberg played a key role in the unification of electricity and magnetism with the weak forces of radioactivity, and Feynamn expanded the understanding of quantum electrodynamics; they were best suited to deliver the Paul Dirac memorial lectures.

1. Paul Dirac: The Man and his Work
2. Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist
3. Dirac: A Scientific Biography
4. Lectures on Quantum Mechanics
5. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
6. Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character
7. Positron Physics (Cambridge Monographs on Atomic, Molecular and Chemical Physics)
8. Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature
9. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Science Library)
10. Cosmology

Tougher than the Lectures on Physics
When I readThe Feynman Lectures on Physics including Feynman's Tips on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition, I was hoping to understand the reasoning behind the exclusion principle, and was disappointed to find that RPF felt that this was too complex for undergraduates, so he asked them to take it on faith for the moment.

Here he is talking to a more advanced audience, and explains it - he was right, it's tough.I'm still struggling to understand it, but I have confidence that this is a good book to help.

[Added nearly a year later] Having reread the book several times, I finally understand Feynman's lecture!As is often the case, once I understand the principle, I see relationships to various other things I had not fully understood before.

I should also comment on Weinberg's lecture: he's talking about more speculative areas than Feynman, which is perhaps one reason I found him less enlightening than Feynman, but in a rather vague way I follow what he's saying.Certainly these are fascinating ideas, but they don't sing to me like Feynman's lecture.

Recommended
From Richard Feynman, with love. Need more to be said? Read it, and read it again. This one can be read all over again once in a while and does not get boring.

Great Lectures.Requires Math Background.
This short book, Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics, offers two lectures: Richard Feynman's The Reason for Antiparticles and Steven Weinberg's Toward the Final Laws of Physics. These two talks comprise the 1986 Dirac Memorial lectures at Cambridge University. Both presentations are cogently structured and make fascinating reading.

The talks were directed at an advanced audience, one that was familiar with quantum mechanics. Unlike many popular presentations by Feynman and Weinberg, these lectures are not suitable for the general layman.

However, these lectures are accessible to a persistent (perhaps, stubborn) layman with a calculus background and a deep interest in particle physics. I am not a physicist, but I did take my share of physics, chemistry, and math courses several decades ago. I encountered Schrodinger's equation in more than one class, but not relativistic quantum mechanics. However, having recently read Bruce Schumm's wonderful review of particle physics (titled Deep Down Things), I was sufficiently motivated to work my way through both Dirac memorial lectures.

Richard Feynman's lecture, The Reason for Antiparticles, is decidedly the more difficult. Feynman first demonstrates that quantum mechanics and relativity together require the existence of antiparticles, and then shows that they also establish the spin-statistics connection. Within a few pages advanced mathematical expressions appear and then persistently stay in the foreground for nearly the entire talk.

Although understanding Feynman's mathematics is critical for a full and deep appreciation of his exposition, with careful, repeated readings the stubborn layman will have sudden moments of enlightenment and can come away with a deeper understanding of antiparticles and spin statistics.For readers engaged in some self-tutorial readings, it may prove helpful to return occasionally to this classic Feynman lecture to qualitatively measure progress.I have no doubt that, on a deeper level, Feynman's lecture will similarly challenge and enlighten physics majors as well.

Steven Weinberg discusses his speculations on the shape of a final underlying theory of particle physics.Initially, his talk is deceptively easy as few mathematical expressions are used.However, about midway a Lagrangian density equation appears, ratcheting the difficulty several notches, as Weinberg considers a theoretical framework based on quantum mechanics and a few symmetry principles, that is also mathematically consistent with the Lagrangian dynamical principle. After discussion of some limitations of the Standard Model, Weinberg concludes his talk with a somewhat mathematical introduction to string theory. ... Read more

Product Description
In a recent New York Times profile, James Glanz remarked, "Steven Weinberg is perhaps the world's most authoritative proponent of the idea that physics is hurtling toward a 'final theory,' a complete explanation of nature's particles and forces that will endure as the bedrock of all science forevermore. He is also a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate--and sting...He recently received the Lewis Thomas Prize, awarded to the researcher who best embodies 'the scientist as poet.'" Both the brilliant scientist and the provocative writer are fully present in this book as Weinberg pursues his principal passions, theoretical physics and a deeper understanding of the culture, philosophy, history, and politics of science.

Each of these essays, which span fifteen years, struggles in one way or another with the necessity of facing up to the discovery that the laws of nature are impersonal, with no hint of a special status for human beings. Defending the spirit of science against its cultural adversaries, these essays express a viewpoint that is reductionist, realist, and devoutly secular. Each is preceded by a new introduction that explains its provenance and, if necessary, brings it up to date. Together, they afford the general reader the unique pleasure of experiencing the superb sense, understanding, and knowledge of one of the most interesting and forceful scientific minds of our era.Amazon.com Review
Steven Weinberg isn't ashamed of science. Of course, as a Nobel winner in physics, he does have emotional capital invested in the enterprise, but most of his arguments are sound and compelling. Facing Up is a collection of his essays, written over 15 years, celebrating and defending mainstream science.Rising up against the cultural critics who insist that science is essentially politics or even imperialism dressed up in a white coat, he is patient and eloquent as he explains how their misreadings of scientific literature and their own preconceptions guide their reasoning. From mildly wonkish to endearingly passionate, his writing engages the reader's full attention regardless of cultural affiliation. Science lovers will adore Weinberg's unabashed boosterism, while skeptics can try to rise to his challenge. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

science and its cultural adversaries/weinberg
the usual weinberg prose. a worthy opponent for anyone who has a different opinion.a renaissance man in the true sense

Enjoyable series of essays froma great scientist
Steven Weinberg, a brilliant physicist who won the Noble Prize in 1979, does not disappoint in this series of essays and speeches. Weinberg covers not only science, but religion, politics, philosophy and other issues in this delightful book. He discusses science at a level that does not overwhelm the non-scientist. I particularly liked his critique of religion: "I have seen a mother die painfully of cancer, a father's personality destroyed by Alzheimer's, and scores of relatives murdered in the Holocaust. Signs of a benevolent designer seem pretty well hidden." Supporters of Israel will enjoy his writings on behalf of the Jewish state, where he reprimands his fellow liberals for their moral equivalency in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I cannot too highly recommend Facing Up.

Impressive successes
One probably cannot but be impressed by the honors received by the author, and they appear well deserved. In connection perhaps with science's "cultural adversaries" of the book's subtitle, I share the author's dissatisfaction with much of philosophy as he indicated in his last paragraph (p.270).

But I don't agree with his sentiment in that paragraph that it is not "actually possible to prove anything about most of the things (apart from mathematical logic) that they [philosophers] argue about". Aristotle's syllogisms, also complained about in that paragraph, are an achievement in logic independent of mathematics, and occasionally thinkers like Descartes (Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy) or the British empiricists contributed insights into epistemology, into how knowledge is acquired. Modern philosophers, I agree, contribute no insights outside those of science (to which they are subservient, if not its "adversaries"), notwithstanding their voluminous writings.

However, this doesn't mean it isn't possible to logically demonstrate facts about the world without the aid of science, and without contradicting most of its tenets. Although it appears quite bold, I do just that in On Proof for Existence of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries. The title may suggest some of the areas in which I question the contentions of the book reviewed. The author often states such as: "no biologist today would be content with an axiom about biological behavior that could not...have an explanation at a more fundamental level of physics and chemistry..." (pp.22-3); "the forces that act within atoms...produce all the rich variety of chemical behavior which...produced the phenomenon of life" (p.31); "If we ask any question about nature...and keep asking why...we will get a series of answers that generally takes us down to the very small" (p.40); "life emerges from biochemistry; biochemistry emerges from atomic physics; and atomic physics emerges from the properties of elementary particles..." (p.58); "and vitalism, the belief in autonomous biological laws is safely dead" (p.59).

The author here engages in the classical "not seeing the forest for the trees". As a particle physicist he is intensely involved in the reductionist efforts of finding the elementary building blocks of matter, the "final theory" as he puts it, simultaneously assuming that with that finding there can be no other basic principle producing worldly events.

One can only consider human volition, which utilizes those elementary physical forces for its own purposes, not for purposes of those forces, understood to be purposeless. But this goes much farther. Animal volition is only part of the property in all organisms to function purposely, in general toward their survival. There is accordingly indeed more that determines physical events than their microscopic functions. This leads to other, macroscopic, issues, in particular to theistic ones, also dealt with by the author.

He argues variously against theism, one of his points being: "Either you mean something definite by God, a designer, or you don't. If you don't, then what are we talking about?" (p.234), he seeking a meaning like "a deity more or less like those of traditional monotheistic religions" (p.232). His complaint about meaning "something definite by 'God' or 'design'" doesn't accord with his views on meaning elsewhere, saying (p.206) that though "it is terribly hard to say precisely what we mean [by] words like 'real' and 'true'", and he respects "the efforts of philosophers to clarify these concepts, [he is] sure that even [they] have used words like 'truth' and 'reality' in everyday life, and had no trouble with them".

While a deity meant by traditional religions may be easier to dispute, it is more justified to consider a supreme being in a universal sense of indeed basic attributes like of a designer. Design can be equated with purpose, which is the crux of the recent disputes between Darwinism and its opponents: Is there a God of purpose? Specifically, is there a higher power with purpose for the living?

An answer has been given by the preceding observation of purpose in all organisms.

Making Sense
This is an entertaining collection of essays that deftly clarify the value of science, and the pointlessness of many of the arguments of its critics.

With a sharp wit, and devastating common sense, Weinberg shines a light on the absurdities behind many of the post-modern ideas. He also tackles Kuhn, in many ways the source of much of the relativist confusion, with personal correspondence with him.

He offers valuable insight into the role and meaning of reductionism. He also points out the fact that reductionism and positivism, so often intertwined and confused by the critics, are more usually opposing forces.

He deals with a wide range of other topics including intelligent design, and the utopian fantasies of various types of idealist. In the end, I felt relieved to know that there are such minds of great clarity and common sense in the world. As much as fans of the irrationalist fad would claim to deny reality, this book reminds us that the world will always intrude on our fantasies, and reveal itself, if we allow it, to be more wonderful than our wildest imagination.

Well written articles on the culture of Science
This book is a collection of essays that to a large extent share the theme in the title: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries.Of course, the title begins with the words "Facing Up" which to Weinberg has three meanings: looking upwards as an astronomer, facing up to the conclusions one derives, and looking upwards rather than downwards as if in prayer.

Well, who are the cultural adversaries of Science?Creationists?Certainly.But there are others.Weinberg agrees with most of the Creationists about truth being a value.The disagreement with them is about which side possesses it.There are others who attack the value of truth, including many multiculturalists.We Westerners say that the Milky Way is a Galaxy, our home Galaxy.That works for us.Mayan culture had the Milky Way as a river in the sky.That may have worked for them.Can Weinberg say that one belief is better than the other?He sure can.As he says, "Western astronomers got it right."

Weinberg criticizes some political attacks on truth as well.That's the point of his very short (about one page) article on Zionism.His point is not that anti-Zionists may tell specific lies as a means to some goal (such as winning a war).It is that, especially when he deals with fellow Western liberals, anti-Zionism is an attack on Western civilization and the culture of science in general, so that defeating truth as a whole becomes an anti-Zionist goal.It is also the point of his article about utopias, some of which idealize a world in which the cultural adversaries of Science are either right or victorious or both.

Still, the most interesting articles are on Reductionism.This is a philosophy of trying to explain phenomena in terms of a finite set of laws, describing something complex in terms of the less complex, and describing large numbers of obervations with just a few simple rules.It is not simply an act of trying to describe objects in terms of their components.For Weinberg, reductionism is an important part of scientific culture.

It's an intriguing and informative book, and I recommend it.

... Read more

Product Description
This commentary on the discovery of the atom's constituents provides an historical account of key events in the physics of the twentieth century that led to the discoveries of the electron, proton and neutron. Steven Weinberg introduces the fundamentals of classical physics that played crucial roles in these discoveries. Connections are shown throughout the book between the historic discoveries of subatomic particles and contemporary research at the frontiers of physics, including the most current discoveries of new elementary particles. Steven Weinberg was Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard before moving to The University of Texas at Austin, where he founded its Theory Group.At Texas he holds the Josey Regental Chair of Science and is a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research has spanned a broad range of topics in quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology, and has been honored with numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, the Heinemann Prize in Mathematical Physics, the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Madison Medal of Princeton University, and the Oppenheimer Prize.In addition to the well-known treatise, Gravitation and Cosmololgy, he has written several books for general readers, including the prize-winning The First Three Minutes (now translated into 22 foreign languages), and most recently Dreams of a Final Theory (Pantheon Books, 1993). He has also written a textbook The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol.I, Vol. II, and Vol. III (Cambridge). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Discovery of Electrons, Protons & Neutrons
Steven Weinberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. He is a prolific writer and has published a number of "industrial-strength" physics texts. This book is intended for a general audience. It details the historical evolution of scientific discovery of the fundamental building blocks of matter - electrons, protons and neutrons.
Only one chapter of 14 pages deals with quarks and leptons, so the title is somewhat misleading (hence 4 stars).
Nonetheless, the historical narrative in this book is fascinating and would be of interest to laymen, physicists, chemists, and engineers. The experimentation upon which atomic theory is built is discussed in detail and the evolution of the periodic table would be of particular interest to chemists. Weinberg fleshes out the science with a delightful discussion of the characters and institutions that played a central role in this endeavor. A SPECIAL NOTE TO FEYNMAN DEVOTEES: Steven Weinberg writes with the same sense of wit and wonder that were the hallmarks of America's favorite bongo player, safecracker, and quantum electrodynamicist. If you liked Richard you'll like Steven.

More what one would expect from a great man than a final theory
In this book we see the older Weinberg who still
thought in terms of mathematics and experiment
and not in terms of defending his theories
against an uncertain future.
This book I can give to the younger generationin conscience
and say : be wise and read this and learn.

Revealing
This book is a deviation from the author's usual books about complex cosmological issues. The Discovery of Subatomic Particles is accessible to anyone, an easy read revealing much about scientific method.It's more a history of how scientists and physicists with rather rudimentary tools devised innovative ways to probe and measure atomic particles with surprisingly accurate results.This book will be appreciated by the mechanically inclined.For the mathematically inclined, you will see in the appendices calculations developed in such a way that requires only a basic background in algebra to understand.

The author guides the reader through the history of processes that refined our understanding of the subatomic world.The subject matter is covered in a logical timeline progression and consistent format.Quantum theory is outside the scope of this book, but Niels Bohr is included in the history for using some of the discoveries to formulate his view of electron dynamics.The reader will gain a higher appreciation of how much can be measured and discovered using the basic tools and instruments available at a given level of scientific development.

Extensive appendices amount to a concise development of fundamental physics, itself creating much value owning this book.My favorite appendix has the author describing how much of Rutherford's formula for the scattering of alpha particles can be derived through simple dimensional analysis, continuing the historic application ofbasic tools to analyze, measure, and discover subatomic particles.The appendices give the technical details supporting much of the scientific development described so well in the main text.Steven Weinberg's book, The Discovery of Subatomic Particles, is an easy read that can be appreciated by anyone.

Good but short history
I wavered between four or five stars and finally gave the authors, a brilliant scientist, the benefit of the doubt.The book is actually a chronological review of the exploration of the atom.Starting with electricity and the discovery of the electron, we then go on to weighing the atoms to the discovery of the nucleus.A truly fascinating observation of Einstein's work notes that the "energy released by a moving body is larger than when at rest by an amount proportional to the square of its velocity"..e=mc2 was originally expresses as m=e/c2.

After the nucleus we descend further into all the subatomic particles.One must remember that although this book is a revised edition, the 1983 original version seems almost innocent in many of its assumptions. A LONG appendix is provided as much for explanation as for reference. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Ancient and Obsolete
The beauty of general relativity (GR) lies in the connection it provides between geometry and physics.Weinberg's algebraic approach completely obscures this connection.Instead Weinberg teaches how to crank through complex calculations without any insight or geometric intuition.It is a fairly good book when compared to Misner-Thorne-Wheeler (another ancient text).However, by modern standards, Weinberg's book leaves much to be desired.Having been published in 1972, the book lacks modern examples in cosmology and quantum gravity.It also lacks a proper introduction to differential geometry and makes no mention of topology or other mathematical ideas prevalent in current GR research.In the 35 years since its publication, it has been surpassed by many much better books.For an excellent introduction to GR, read Carroll's book.For a more rigorous study of GR read Wald's book.For an easy introduction to GR, read Schutz's book.

Unique,IdiosyncraticApproach
Flashback to 1979.I Purchased Weinberg's Gravitation book and
Misner,Thorne, Wheeler's Gravitation book, simultaneously. Back then it took four weeks to get hold of a book by mail. The waiting made it all the more special when the books finally arrived. I still have those same two worn copies. Still re-read each. Sure, they are different viewpoints of General Relativity.
But, how greatly they both enrich the world. Together, those two
books started a pedagogic revolution. Weinberg has no
equal,cherish this book. Cherish MTW, also.

A great book by a great physicist
This is the bestbook written on general relativity, and I have read or at least looked at nearly every one of them. It is better than Wald's book because Steven Weinberg is a better physicist than Robert Wald. The only people who will not be pleased with it are those mathematicians who are looking to physics for elegant mathematics and not for physical insight.

A virtue of this book is that so far as I can see Weinberg has thought through general relativity for himself, and he has worked through all of the derivations himself - certainly the ones that I have checked - rather than quoting others.
This is not always the case for books in physics. Weinberg is careful, and I have yet to find an error in the book.

Old book that is hostile to the spirt of G.R.
There was a time when this book was probably very authoritative and useful (though I can't see myself preferring it over Hawking and Ellis, even then).Put it out of your mind: that time is gone.There are a slew of much better, much more modern books out there.Furthermore, this book is written from a perspective that attempts to filter a huge chunk of the geometry out of G.R., sullying a lot of the beauty of Einstein's central idea.If you are interested in cosmology, you can do a lot better looking at Hawking and Ellis, or one of the more recent books that will, due to their newness, emphasize the numerous advances in cosmology since the 70s.If you are interested in Relativity, PLEASE look at Schutze (beginner) or at Wald (graduate).Don't waste time and energy on this book.

That being said, there are some interesting advanced topics here, and a few things that I haven't seen elsewhere.This can be a useful reference for a researching relativist.

Elegantly and concisely written
I used this book in a class taught by its author. That makes it hard to disentangle the experience of taking the class from the book itself. However, I found this far more readable that Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler's ponderous tome. As enjoyable as I found Taylor & Wheeler's Spacetime Physics (written in a similar style), MTW is leaden in contrast to Weinberg's text. I had no problem with the notation: the rules for manipulating indices are quite straightforward and easy to apply. Furthermore, this is the notation used in a variety of other applications of tensors, from electrodynamics to mechanics (stress and moment of inertia tensors), so get used to it. As other reviewers have observed, one cannot help but think that MTW could have been edited down considerably; Weinberg's book is much tighter. ... Read more

Product Description
The Nobel Prize-winning physicist describes the quest for a unifying theory of nature--one that explains events such as the pull of gravity and the cohesion inside of an atom. By the author of The First Three Minutes. Reprint. 25,000 first printing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Almost Perfect
Weinberg is a deep thinker and masterfully clear writer.All the praise given by other reviewers of this book is well deserved.Weinberg argues brilliantly for reductionism as a statement of the order of nature.Simply put, nature is ordered in such a way that every "chain of whys", every "arrow of explanation", converges towards elementary particle physics.Although it is physicists who do the explaining, Weinberg says that the convergence of the arrows is a characteristic of nature itself.

But there is one tiny fly in the ointment, one chain of whys dangling loose from the others.Tucked away on pages 44-45 is a passage that begins "Of all the areas of experience that we try to link to the principles of physics by arrows of explanation, it is consciousness that presents us with the greatest difficulty."Weinberg bravely predicts that further investigation of consciousness may reveal "something, some physical system for processing information, that corresponds to our experience of consciousness itself, to what Gilbert Ryle has called `the ghost in the machine.'"

Huh?No one, not even Weinberg, has given an inkling what form such an explanation might take.Consciousness stands alone in this regard - life itself, even before the mechanisms of cell reproduction and DNA were discovered, was seen as ultimately explainable in terms of the known laws of chemistry and physics, for example by von Neumann, who posited a self-reproducing machine consisting of a blueprint, a machine for making a duplicate of itself from the blueprint, and a copier that placed a copy of the blueprint into the duplicate.

But nobody has yet proposed even the vaguest outline how consciousness might be brought into the ambit of physics and chemistry.

What I take away from all this is that we have not one, but two endpoints of the arrows of explanation.Weinberg argues that the only way to extend our understanding of physics is to do experiments, collect data.It is fortunate that the Europeans, if not the Americans, have seen fit to pursue this goal by building an unprecedently powerful particle accelerator.

But there are also unanswered questions in the realm of consciousness.It is likely that explaining consciousness will also take more experimental investigation.Weinberg notes that biologists have worked out the entire wiring diagram of simple animals, such as the nematode worm C. elegans - "Of course a worm is not a human.But between a worm and a human there is a continuum of animals with increasingly complex nervous systems, spanning insects and fishes and mice and apes.Where is one to draw the line?"Moreover, nematode worms and humans share a common ancestor.At what point in the line of descent did consciousness first appear?

But no one can imagine how these questions can be answered in terms of physics and chemistry.As Weinberg quotes the physicist Brian Pippard, "What is surely impossible is that a theoretical physicist, given unlimited computing power, should deduce from the laws of physics that a certain complex structure is aware of its own existence."

This impasse should serve as much for inspiration as for discouragement. As Niels Bohr has said, "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox.Now we have some hope of making progress."

Still dreaming after all these years
Steven Weinberg is one of twentieth century's greatest theoretical physicists. He is one of the codiscoverers of the Electroweak Theory, an important piece of the puzzle that describes all of the fundamental forces of nature. He is also a very prolific writer, with several important textbooks and a few books that aim to popularize Physics and make it accessible to the general audience. The theme of this book is the long standing problem in Physics, and that is the one of unification of all forces under a single set of laws. Weinberg is as big of an authority on this subject as they come, as he has contributed and worked on various aspects of unification throughout his professional career. In this book he tries to explain what exactly is meant by "Final Theory." He is equally critical of opponents of this approach to science who deride it as overly reductionist, as he is of those who think that the discovery of final laws will in some way be the end of science. In some sense he is staking a middle ground between these two extremes.

This book was written in the years when the prospect of building the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) was still tenable. SSC was supposed to be the largest particle collider in the world, and had it became operational it would have provided new data and insights into the mysteries of fundamental Physics. Or so we believed. Weinberg was one of the most prominent scientific proponents of this project, and he testified often in US Congress in its favor. Many of those encounters with politicians are discussed in this book. They provide a valuable and fascinating insight into how "big science" gets done. For one thing, scientific viability and value of any given project is only one of the important criteria that are considered when the pricetag for a project exceeds the entire budget of a small country. In the end SSC did not get the funding, and for better or worse our search for the ultimate laws of nature has since been almost exclusively a theoretical endeavor. This may change with the advent of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, which is supposed to start taking data any moment now.

Throughout this book Weinberg touches on many philosophical themes, which in some sense is inevitable when one discusses such a vast topic as the ultimate theory of nature. Weinberg is rather dismissive of philosophical and religious considerations. This may be respectable insofar as his intellectual honesty is concerned, and we as readers at least know where he is coming from. However, the vast majority of people hope to understand the questions of the ultimate meaning in broadly philosophical terms, and it would be useful if scientists who are the most invested in the search for the final theory would at least try to present that search in some more accessible categories. Especially if they hope to have the general public on board when it comes to funding exceptionally large scientific projects.

Tedious with a few exceptions
I really could only stand two chapters: Against Philosophy and What about God? The rest of the book was really dull, if you're not a physics buff. Oh, and the chapter on the Super Collider was about as boring as you would expect, especially reading it a decade later.

The final theory: a postponed dream
This book is very easy to read, perhaps the easiest I have read on the subject. It is intended for the lay persons and is completely free of formulas, complicated concepts and tortuous reasonings. Maybe I would have liked that the author went into deeper explanations on some topics.

I personally liked Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (Princeton Science Library) and Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics much better, since they contained more detailed explanations on several topics. In Fearful symmetry the author devoted the entire book to the intrinsic beauty of physical laws and its formulations.

I found Mr. Weinberg's chapter "what about God" to be one of the best essays on religion/atheism and science that I have read, since he expresses his ideas in a thoroughly respectful manner and without complicated philosophical thesis.

Throughout this book you perceive the author's sadness, anger and frustration at the cancellation of the SCC project and at the way funding is assigned to the various projects in the US. Although I share his feelings, I would have preferred to share with him his passion for physics instead of his sadness about a postponed dream of a final theory. I know that unfortunately "lobbying" is essential for getting funds for pure research, but in a way, I prefer to think of scientists as never minding such "earthly" things.

I believe the author wrote this book to open more people's minds about the importance of this project and I truly wish he succeeds with it, because it seems that what started as a beautiful dream of a truth revealing accelerator, ended as a frustrating nightmare in front of an empty tunnel.

Not the most successful Weinberg book
At least he has learned between 1977( The First Three Minutes)
and 1992 about the Planck scale of mass/ energy...?
No equations in this book, just a lot of verbiage about "stuff".
This is the Steven Weinberg who wrote the "Standard Theory"
that gave neutrinos no mass ( wrong) and gluons no mass ( most probably wrong).
It seems that even his ideas of symmetry breaking may be wrong as well
or at least wholly incomplete.
I would say that Heinz R. Pagels ( The Cosmic Code) is a better bet
if you actually want a chance at understanding modern physics.
In physics we call this kind of book "dumbing down" or "physics for dummies".
If you have zero respect for yourself, buy this book.
Otherwise get wise and get his Cosmology
and give into doing some intellectual work.
He wants us to cry over the Super Collider
and that Cern is now in control of the world's high energy physics research.
I say with books like he has written,
he is probably as responsible as anyone for people turning away. ... Read more

Product Description
Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg continues his masterly exposition of quantum field theory.This third volume of The Quantum Theory of Fields presents a self-contained, up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to supersymmetry, a highly active area of theoretical physics that is likely to be at the center of future progress in the physics of elementary particles and gravitation. The text introduces and explains a broad range of topics, including supersymmetric algebras, supersymmetric field theories, extended supersymmetry, supergraphs, nonperturbative results, theories of supersymmetry in higher dimensions, and supergravity. A thorough review is given of the phenomenological implications of supersymmetry, including theories of both gauge and gravitationally-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Also provided is an introduction to mathematical techniques, based on holomorphy and duality, that have proved so fruitful in recent developments.This book contains much material not found in other books on supersymmetry, some of it published here for the first time. Problems are included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Defective Hard Cover
The whole current production run of this book has a defect. A glue is bleeding through on the inside of the hard cover fold, front and back. This does not seem to affect the structural quality of the book and is not visible from the outside. If you need this book and get it with this defect, don't bother trying to exchange it.

Once again, great book
Finding good introductions to supersymmetry can be difficult.Most introductions concentrate on N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions, and there the superfield forumlation can be useful.However, when you go to N=2 supersymmetry (e.g. when considering theories in five or more dimensions), component fields can be better.Many times it's a matter of taste.For those cases, you have to go to review articles.Anyway, Weinberg concentrates on N=1 4D supersymmetry and supergravity using the superfield formalism.However, he ventures into the N=2 strong-weak coupling results of Seiberg and Witten, which are now a fundamental part of (supersymmetric) field theory.The text is, as the previous volumes are, a fantastic resource for learning the subject, and as a reference (for things like gravity- and gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, as well as the minimal supersymmetric standard model, which are open areas of reserach).As for all modern areas of research, the body of knowledge is stacked higher every year; but the topics covered here stand as solid fundamentals of supersymmetry.For more advanced topics, one is forced to go to the recent literature.

A self-contained treatment of the subject
If the two first volumes of "The Quantum Theory of Fields" were considered masterpieces in a modern and original presentation of the basics of quantum field theory and its penetration in the recent development of particle physics, with the machinery of spontaneously broken gaugetheories, the new volume embraces the wide subject of supersymmetry inWeinberg's typical style, which always means a self-contained treatment ofthe subject, from its foundations and motivations, to its most recentapplication as a possible scenario for new physics beyond the StandardModel.

A complete review is published in CERN Courier, May2000

Weinberg Keeps the level!
Great book, contains a lot of material, will be useful to many as a reference on supersymmetry for years to come. Highly Recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
In this second volume of The Quantum Theory of Fields, available for the first time in paperback, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg continues his masterly expoistion of quantum theory. Volume 2 provides an up-to-date and self-contained account of the methods of quantum field theory, and how they have led to an understanding of the weak, strong, and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is throughout interwoven with accounts of the problems of elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics to which they have been applied. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The most authoritative book on QFT ever
Before Weinberg's books, a typical graduate student in theoretical physics would study the standard textbooks (e.g. Itzykson-Zuber, Peskin-Schroeder) to pass QFT courses. When confronted with actual research problems, he would discover that all he has learned is how to do calculations in perturbation theory, that he is unfamiliar with a host of ideas and techniques that are widely used in the present-day research literature and that he has to resort to original papers and reviews to learn them.

Weinberg's three-volume set drastically changed this situation, giving the most authoritative and complete presentation of QFT to appear in a textbook. Although it is not suitable for beginning graduate students, it is invaluable for covering all these topics that are typically omitted in QFT courses and for providing valuable insight missing from other textbooks.

The highlight of the set is Volume 2, which includes most topics where Weinberg has made his own invaluable contributions. In his inimitable style, Weinberg guides us through the great developments in QFT from the 1960's to the 1980's, including most topics that are essential for a working knowledge of modern QFT. The presentation is crystal clear throughout and every topic is presented in as much detail as it deserves. In particular, the chapters on spontaneously broken symmetries are simply masterpieces, the treatment of anomalies is the most complete ever, while the chapter on extended objects is a thorough overview of an ever-expanding subject. This book is a must for everyone working on theoretical physics.

If you appreciate Vol 1, you'll want Vol 2.
I have found this text extremely useful as a guide to the essentials of modern renormalization theory, as well as modern quantization techniques for Non-abelian gauge theories.The chapter on extended field configurations is nice, though it is meant as an overview and guide to the literature.What I like most about this volume is the discussion of experimental or phenomenological issues that complements many of the discussions.He has a broad base of knowledge in particle physics, as well as field theory.If you don't have volume 1, get that first.

Delightfully insightful
This book has some of the most exquisite expositions on the theoretical aspects of quantum field theory that you are ever likely to run into, i.e. Weinberg's name is literally stamped on every page for brilliance. There are topics treated here that are not likely to be found anywhere else, for instance Batalin-Vilkovisky Quantization. Weinberg's treatment of the proof of renormalizability is compact and yet very readable. And his chapter on anomalies is simply speaking the authortiative treatment. This book is a must have for anyone interested in the more theoretical aspects of Field Theory. Though I would recommed a few months with Peskin & Schroeder, and volume 1 of Weinberg to get the full flavour of Weinberg's treatment.

Excellent, despite some idiosyncracies
This is another gem of a book by Weinberg. The discussion is fairly modern at places (for instance nice discussion of BRST, BV Formalism, RG and Anomalies), but could have been more modern and compact in certain otherplaces (like chiral lagrangians, standard model etc.). However, even thoseparts are a pleasure to read. It is just that some other aspects could havebeen discussed (as I hope he does in the third volume), such as SUSY,especially QFT dualities. Anyway, an excellent book! ... Read more

Product Description
Available for the first time in paperback, The Quantum Theory of Fields is a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory from Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. The first volume introduces the foundations of quantum field theory, the second volume examines modern applications, and finally, the third volume presents supersymmetry, an area of theoretical physics likely to be at the center of progress in the physics of elementary particles and gravitation. The development is fresh and logical throughout, with each step carefully motivated by what has preceded. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is interwoven with accounts of applications in both elementary particle and condensed matter physics. The three volumes contain much original material, and are enhanced with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Hb ISBN (1995) Vol.1 0-521-55001-7 Hb ISBN (1996) Vol.2 0-521-55002-5 Hb ISBN (1996) Vols. 1 & 2 Set 0-521-58555-4 Hb ISBN (2000) Vol.3 0-521-66000-9 HB ISBN (2000) Vols. l-3 Set 0-521-78082-9 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Classic
This will certainly be a classic reference book. However, it focuses on the underlying formalism. So it is not going to be overly useful as an education tool, unless you are looking into the fundamentals which support the theory. ... Read more

Product Description
Since Robert Oppenheimer called the first Shelter island conference in 1947 to consolidate the advances in theoretical physics made during the war and to chart a course for the development of a "pure" physics far removed from defense applications, physics appears once again to have reached a critical juncture. Shelter Island II held at that same remote inn off the Eastern tip of Long Island documents the proceedings of the 1983 Shelter Island Conference on Quantum Field Theory and the Fundamental Problems of Physics, calling for a new consolidation and consensus on the directions of future research.Shelter Island II brings together an international constellation of leading theoreticians, including some of the most intellectually vigorous of the younger physicists and almost all of the living participants in the first conference, a number of them now Nobel laureates. It provides a historical overview and recollections of the first conference, whose proceedings were never published, reviews the major developments in quantum field theory and cosmology over the subsequent 36 years, and identifies the most promising paths for future exploration. A number of the contributions present significant new results. Among the topics discussed are the new inflationary universe scenario, supersymmetry, "The Cosmological Constant Is Probably Zero" (Stephen Hawking), superunification and the seven-sphere, time as a dynamical variable, induced gravity, and an extensive and previously unpublished paper by Edward Witten on KaluzaKlein theories.The contributors are Stephen L. Adler, Hans Bethe, M. J. Duff, Murray Gell-Mann, Alan. Guth, Stephen W. Hawking, R. Jackiw, Toichiro Kinoshita, W E. Lamb, Jr., T D. Lee, A. D. Linde, R. E. Marshak, Y Nambu, K. Nishijima, John H. Schwarz, Silvan S. Schweber, I. M. Singer, Steven Weinberg, Victor Weisskopf, P. C. West, Edward Witten, and Bruno Zumino.Editors Jackiw, Khuri, Weinberg, and Witten are respectively affiliated with MIT, Rockefeller University, the University of Texas, and Princeton. ... Read more

Product Description
With this beautiful photography book, Steven Weinberg takes the reader on a voyage along the famous Greenwich meridian. ... Read more

Product Description
In The Quantum Theory of Fields Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory. Volume II gives an up-to-date and self-contained account of the methods of quantum field theory, and how they have led to an understanding of the weak, strong, and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is throughout interwoven with accounts of the problems of elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics to which they have been applied. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

must have!
As with Weinberg's first volume, this text can be difficult to follow due to dense notation and, at times, a somewhat overly general approach.However, it is well worth the effort.Weinberg provides extraordinary insight, and he offers a unique perspective in his presentation. ... Read more

Product Description
Steven Weinberg, the Nobel-Prize-winning physicist, writes that America "has an unprecedented opportunity to begin to escape from the risk of nuclear annihilation." But, he warns, President Bush is not only letting this opportunitiy slip away, he is, in some respects, moving in the wrong direction.

Bush's abrogation of the 1972 treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile systems is one example. Another, equally worrying, is the "revival of the idea of developing nuclear weapons for use, rather than solely for deterrence." The proposed development of low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons for attacking underground bunkers "would be foolishness on a scale that even medieval knights might find implausible," Weinberg writes.

Such a weapon would be "one sort of folly to which war is especially well suited: the lust for glory." The temptation to prize military glamour over sensible strategy has always been with us, as Weinberg shows in examples from the Middle Ages onward, but may have especially dangerous consequences in an age of high-tech arms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Impressive historical knowledge but unconvincing conclusion
This book is a reprint of two essays Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laurate in physics, wrote for the New York Review of Books on the danger of nuclear war. Dr. Weinberg shows an impressive knowledge of military history, but I can't endorse his solution. He argues that missile defense is a costly program doomed to failure, underground "bunker busters" are impractical, and that the only solution is mutual disarmament. I respectfully disagree. I believe that America does need a system of missile defense and I do not think in this dangerous world that reducing our arsenal is a good idea. I still suggest reading Glory and Terror, but with a skeptical mind. ... Read more

Product Description
If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This book is the second editon of the lectures given at the 4th Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics, with new material added. The lectures are devoted to the "missing matter" problem in the universe, the search to understand dark matter. The goal of this volume is to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students without prior experience in this area and to provide insights for experts in related research fields. Due to the pedagogical nature of the original lectures and the intense discussions between the lecturers and the students, the written lectures included in this volume often contain techniques and explanations not found in more formal journal publications. ... Read more