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Title: The Dancing Wu Li Masters : An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav ISBN: 0-553-26382-X Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1984 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.96 (85 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Finally, quantum mechanics is accessible to the lay reader
Comment: If you're like me, an arm chair physicist in another line of work, you've tried and tried to understand recent developments in theoretical physics, only to stumble when you reach quantum mechanics. Newtonian physics and relativity are fairly intuitive once you get the ideas, but quantum mechanics? quantum electrodynamics? quantum field theory? Not easy stuff. Zukav is the first author I've read who says "Hey, if you're a lay person, don't sweat it. Physicists don't really understand it intuitively either. They're just equipped with the math to think it through." Now you can relax in the knowledge that you're not dense, the subject is. Thank you Mr. Zukav for making quantum mechanics accessible to the rest of us. Don't let the title throw you. Eastern philosphy plays a role in the narrative, but the book is about physics, pure and simple. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has struggled to understand our view of the universe since Einstein.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply Brilliant
Comment: A few things before reading this book -
1. You don't need to know anything about Quantum Physics
2. You don't need to know anything about Vedanta, Buddhism or Taoism
All you need to have is the 'Wu Li' - patterns of organic energy.
'The Dancing Wu Li Masters' is a book that takes you through newtonian physics, Quantum physics of the 20th century, Einstein's theorem of relativity, Geoffrey Chew's bootstrap theory of the universe on the one hand and Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, Chuang Tsu's Taoism, The I-Ching on the other hand. The two streams of thought, Western Science & Eastern Mysticism are interwoven skilfully by Zukhav in an amazingly lucid style of writing. And wait, this fascinating intellectual journey is not sequential or chronologically structured in the manner of texts of physics or philosophy. Instead, it dynamic, chaotic, full of Wu Li. And 100% understanding and comprehension guaranteed for the reader irrespective of his background.
..and my school course in Quantum Physics would have been much more fun if I had read 'The Dancing Wu Li Masters'
Rating: 4
Summary: Flow Like a River, Understand Relativity Like an Physicist
Comment: Do you want to understand all the mysteries of the universe? Hoping to discover the essence of existence? Well, if you desire to do anything along these lines, there are certainly worse ways to start than through reading The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav.
This information-packed book represents the pinnacle of popular science achievement, as it provides a gentle guide for the average reader through the intellectual minefield of modern physics from quantum mechanics to relativity. Rather than bogging down the reader with dozens of equations and complicated graphs, Zukav chooses to demonstrate the concepts of new-age physics through metaphors, diagrams, and an explanation of the thought processes that led to such startling theories as the Theory of General Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Sure, Zukav may explain the experiments that confirm the viability of a theory, but he doesn't force you to sift through the data; instead, writes in plain English while including lots of easily-followed, pretty pictures. Particularly for a high school student without too much exposure to physics, this style provides an excellent overview of the most interesting, cutting-edge ideas in science.
Zukav's subject-matter couldn't be more interesting: using the backdrop of Eastern philosophies to better link physical concepts to ideas more compatible to the human mindset, he breezes through Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and both theories of relativity in just a little over 300 pages. Zukav also admirably presents the problem of the irreconcilability of quantum mechanics with relativity, which bothered Einstein to his dying days. While none of these concepts is dealt with entirely thoroughly (it is a short book), the book is an enjoyable and easily understandable introduction to one of the most difficult fields mankind has to offer
At the same time, Zukav's book is not perfect. For one thing, the book is rather dated; he doesn't even deal with String Theory, which was by and large developed after the publication of this book. At the same time, the absence of String Theory may be advantageous to the reader who knows little about physics, since the five separate String Theories are both difficult to understand and incredibly theoretical (that is, no physicist has been able to design an experiment that actually produces data to prove String Theory, which means that the concept is rather ephemeral and hard to describe in a concrete way; for more on this, see http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0311047). Further, the whole Zen thing seems a little excessive. Sure, Eastern philosophies are generally conducive to modern physics in that Eastern philosophers have always realized that sometimes the human mind can't comprehend everything at once, but the fact is that people reading this book probably aren't doing so to learn about "Wu Li" ("The Way"); they're reading it to learn about "New Physics."
Despite these minor deficiencies, though, this book does a good job of explaining very difficult concepts to a "normal" reader. There was a time when only the very top physicists in the world understood Einstein's theories of relativity, but books like The Dancing Wu Li Masters have helped rectify this problem by making complicated physics accessible to the general public.
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Title: The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra ISBN: 1570625190 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav ISBN: 067169507X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 15 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Quantum Reality : Beyond the New Physics by Nick Herbert ISBN: 0385235690 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 February, 1987 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Heart of the Soul : Emotional Awareness by Gary Zukav ISBN: 0743234960 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 06 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice by Gary Zukav, Linda Francis ISBN: 074323698X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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