Phil in St Tropez

A huge disappointment

Reviewed: 05-11-24

Very little of this book actually gives any insight into quantum computing. Most of the book discusses the issues in the design of things like nuclear reactors and then goes into unrelated effusive speculation about how wonderful things would be when quantum computers will be applied and nirvana was achieved. Without any corresponding detail about exactly why. Better titled “how things work”.

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A perhaps prophetic analysis

Reviewed: 11-13-23

The author reads his own book and the content and performance is excellent. The book is organized into three sections, and the last one which is his government policy recommendations could be deleted. The first two sections constitute a well-thought-out analysis of AI and its potentials and issues. The man is clearly one of the thought leaders in the emerging field.

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Disjointed and not well organized.

Reviewed: 11-13-23

This book has a few good tidbits about Tucker's family and life, but it is disjointed, disorganized and I think the authored struggled to make the text long enough to be a book instead of a magazine article. He is certainly no Walter Issacson. Not worth the time to read or listen.

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A great introduction to dark matter and dark energy

Reviewed: 11-05-23

The topics are well covered and told in a way that does not require a strong physics background, although parts are more well, understood if one has some reasonable math and physics background.

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Nothing new

Reviewed: 07-18-23

For almost anyone who is going to read this book, there is nothing new in it, and a lot of it is not well presented

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Too similar to Ms. Penny’s other novels

Reviewed: 01-16-23

Having read Louise Penney’s other books, this was a bit of a bore, as it seemed like a redo of some of her other books, and frankly not as interesting

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Unique insights into the personality and experiences of one of the great men of modern physics

Reviewed: 12-19-22

This entire book is done as a first person account by Feynman of various episodes in his life, with perhaps a little too much emphasis on what a ladies man he is, but overall it both had messages regarding issues in society as well as personal anecdote. It is a very interesting read. Highly recommend it.

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Of course a great story, but this version highly duplicate

Reviewed: 03-21-22

Perhaps I have read too many books recently that generally cover the history of physics from Newton to the present, but I did not find that this book offered much more specificity regarding Einstein than I had got ten from these other more general books. I expected to get much more depth on Einstein in this one . Plus this book somewhat duplicative even within itself. However the author does a very good job of presenting the material so it was not a painful read.

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1 person found this helpful

Too many details about too many details, but a captivating read nonetheless

Reviewed: 01-14-22

Overall Weir does a good job putting together an interesting complex story with an array of technologies that intersect with the progress of the story in various and sundry ways that require unique solutions, much as in “The Martian“. I would have given it five stars except he goes on much too long with too many contrived issues in order to demonstrate uniquely creative solutions from a limited basket of assets. It gets so bad that, about 2/3 of the way through the book, that I almost quit but I didn’t and it has an interesting and that I will not disclose and I am glad that I didn’t quit because it is actually a great story with a number of interesting moral issues as well as space and technology ones, wrapped up nicely by the end of the book.

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A tour de force

Reviewed: 11-14-21

A terrific laying of the foundations behind the prediction of the Higgs and the mechanisms by which all the forces of the standard model are now known, then followed by a walk-through of how to design Machines and instruments that would find the Higgs via its decay particles, and how they did it. In Sean Carroll’s typical clarity of presentation and the enthusiasm with which he presents it, this is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the current state of particle physics at a high level, and sometimes not so high. (Fortunately, he also stays away from his misadventure into many worlds theory.)

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