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The Curvature of Spacetime: Newton, Einstein, and Gravitation

by Harald Fritzsch; translated by Karin Heusch
Columbia University Press, New York, 2002
368 pp. Illus. Paper, $19.00
ISBN: 0-231-11821-X


Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

Robert Pepperell reviewed this book for Leonardo Digital review in October 2003. (http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/ Leonardo/reviews/oct2003/Curvature_peppere.html) Now his review is cited on the back of the paperback edition. There is nothing I can add to his review except maybe an appreciation of the relative weight some of the issues get. Fritzsch uses quite a high number of pages to explain the basic concepts of general relativity, the curvature of spacetime, quantum chromodynamics and the current state of affairs in cosmology and particle physics. At the very end of the book, he quickly covers the breaking of the symmetry between matter and anti-matter in the decay of the K-meson and the inflation of the universe. String theory is only hinted at and the field of supersymmetry with the addition of a number of (unobservable) dimensions is only just mentioned. I would have appreciated a bit more of all that, and maybe just a teeny weeny bit more math. But that of course is just a question of taste.

I also had a good laugh from time to time, when Newton is reluctant to join the others in a good bottle of wine and when Einstein is aggravated by anything that has to do with uncertainty and quantum physics. I wish someone with the talent and the insight of Harald Fritzsch could write a similar book on genetics, with Darwin, Mendel and perhaps Richard Dawkins as the main characters. Now, isn't that an idea worth exploring, CUP?

 

 




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