It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science

If you have seen Frayn's Copenhagen, the essay on Schrodinger's equation entitled "Erotica, Aesthetics and Schrodinger's Wave Equation", will give you additional insight into Heisenberg, Bohr and Schrodinger.

As editor Farmelo says in his introduction "In common with with all great scientific equations, E=MC2 is in many ways similar to a great poem. Just as a perfect sonnet is spoiled if so much as a word or item of punctuation is changed, not a single detail of a great equation...can be altered without rendering it useless."

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I receive an acknowledgement after Farmelo's essay on Einstein and Planck.


'It Must Be Beautiful" is truly BEAUTIFUL   August 17, 2006
Joseph amoroso (Flushing, New York)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is written so that anyone with a general science background can understand the importance of the work and discoveries of these great minds. It demonstrates how their work has played a strategic roll in the historical events of our time and how it may affect the very future of mankind.
Besides analyzing the studies and writtings of these scientists, the book also gives us a very good description of their character and personality. One actually feels a personnel contact with each of them their unique traits are so carefully described. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science or history and to every college and high school student.


It is!   February 28, 2003
Palle E T Jorgensen (Iowa City, Iowa United States)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

The quantities on the two side of each of the equations in the book, are from science, or from life. The equations result from scientific experiments or from pure theory. Planck's equation signaled the start of atomic physics, and Einstein's E=m c^2 , the continuation. Dirac's equation reveals the secrets of the electron. All the equations predict physical reality; and yet they are strikingly simple to state, perhaps not to fully understand.-- They *are* beautiful! . Really! They are also fundamental discoveries that affect us all. Schrodinger's equation [along with the equivalt formulation of Heisenberg] puts quantum theory on a solid footing, and started wave mechanics. Shannon's equations initiated the age of information technology. And there are more: relativity, astronomy, dynamics, chemestry... The book consists of chapters written by authorities in the field, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg..., but no [or at least very little] knowledge of science is assumed on the part of the reader. Highly recommended!


It is!   March 2, 2003
Palle E T Jorgensen (Iowa City, Iowa United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

The quantities on the two side of each of the equations in the book, are from science, or from life. The equations result from scientific experiments or from pure theory. Planck's equation signaled the start of atomic physics, and Einstein's E=m c^2 , the continuation. Dirac's equation reveals the secrets of the electron. All the equations predict physical reality; and yet they are strikingly simple to state, perhaps not to fully understand.-- They *are* beautiful! . Really! They are also fundamental discoveries that affect us all. Schrodinger's equation [along with the equivalt formulation of Heisenberg] puts quantum theory on a solid footing, and started wave mechanics. Shannon's equations initiated the age of information technology. And there are more: relativity, astronomy, dynamics, chemestry... The book consists of chapters written by authorities in the field, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg..., but no [or at least very little] knowledge of science is assumed on the part of the reader. Highly recommended!


It Must Be beautiful   August 29, 2003
jake mazzone (ft.collins, co usa)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book had some of the best insight on equatiion form i have read in the rescent past.I could read larger sections of it without haviong to go grab a bottle of asprin. The insight it gave on the personal lives and how the evolution of the equation came to be from raw base form to what we learn now is amazing. The sections on Diracs eqaution I found the most intresting. I would reccommend this book to anyone intrested in math and not just the text book side. It takes almost and artistic veiw on math which i have never seen before. Very intresting .
DIG IN AND ENJOY