Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

· Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Sean Carroll
4.8
4 reviews
Audiobook
9 hr 49 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

Quanta and Fields, the second book of Sean Carroll’s already internationally acclaimed series The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, is an adventure into the bare stuff of reality.
 
Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way.  

Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at its most profound level. Starting with the basics of quantum mechanics itself, Sean Carroll explains measurement and entanglement before explaining how the world is really made of fields. You will finally understand why matter is solid, why there is antimatter, where the sizes of atoms come from, and why the predictions of quantum field theory are so spectacularly successful. Fundamental ideas like spin, symmetry, Feynman diagrams, and the Higgs mechanism are explained for real, not just through amusing stories. Beyond Newton, beyond Einstein, and all the intuitive notions that have guided homo sapiens for millennia, this book is a journey to a once unimaginable truth about what our universe is.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of graphs, equations, and images.

Ratings and reviews

4.8
4 reviews
Steve Field
June 5, 2024
Excellent treatment of a complex set of ideas. Guiding the reader/listener through those concepts with an emphasis on their similarity to more relatable classical analogs where possible. Brought back memories of my graduate level physics classes, but relying on explaining the big ideas (as expected per the title).
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John Grundowski
August 27, 2024
Great info- presented in ways to UNDERSTAND.thanks
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About the author

Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is host of the Mindscape podcast, and author of From Eternity to Here, The Particle at the End of the Universe, The Big Picture, and Something Deeply Hidden. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the American Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of London, and many others. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.

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