# A few good books about Physics please **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2015, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535 "2015-10-13T11:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartesian_Rationalist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/1 "2015-10-13T11:06:00Z")
Hello Dopers, I’ll keep this brief, as I don’t think I need to say too much at the moment. I’m working on a PhD in Philosophy about materialism and other aspects of Metaphysics, nevertheless, my understanding of Physics does not go beyond BBC documentaries and my very vague memories of the subject in college. Which book(s) would you recommend to get a good grasp on physics, while avoiding, in as much a degree as is possible given the subject area, complex mathematical equations? My other request would be, that the author be a reputable or known scholar or scientist in this area, which might exclude the series “For Dummies”, though I could be wrong. So which books about physics would you recommend, given my “requirements”? Thanks a bunch! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/2 "2015-10-13T11:21:48Z")
Well, you won’t avoid math, but I highly recommend Richard Feynman’s three-volume _Lectures on Physics_. also Albert Einstein’s 1920 book _Relativity_, which isn’t intended for a specialist audience. If it’s popular you’re looking for, Isaac Asimov had a series of books on _Understanding Physics_ that avoids math altogether > **[Understanding Physics (Motion, Sound, and Heat / Light, Magnetism, and...](https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Physics-Magnetism-Electricity-Electron/dp/0880292512)** > > Buy Understanding Physics (Motion, Sound, and Heat / Light, Magnetism, and Electricity / The Electron, Proton, and Neutron) on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders There’s also Larry Gonick’s _Cartoon Guide to Physics_ > **[The Cartoon Guide to Physics (Cartoon Guide Series): Gonick, Larry:...](https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Physics/dp/0062731009)** > > The Cartoon Guide to Physics (Cartoon Guide Series) \[Gonick, Larry\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Cartoon Guide to Physics (Cartoon Guide Series) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/3 "2015-10-13T11:36:44Z")
Two books come to mind: - **Why Does the World Exist** - covers the Big Question from a philosophical, religious and physics/science standpoint. Good way to see how the questions you wrestle with in one discipline translate to others. Well written and readable - here is a thread I started on it: [Book: Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=681690) - **The Making of the Atomic Bomb** - best book on this. Covers the physics, history and war strategy / political philosophy related to the Atomic Age. Long, but beautiful written and explained. No better way to learn physics and put it in context. My $.02 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/4 "2015-10-13T12:29:07Z")
You don’t say what areas of physics interest you. The areas I find interesting are cosmology and quantum physics. Stephen Hawking is a good and authoritative read on the former. His most famous works for the general public are the various editions and updates of _A Brief History of Time_ and that might be a good start, though I’ve never read it myself. What I **have** read and highly recommend if you can find it anywhere is the out-of-print _The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe_. This book is a great example of writing economy and packs a tremendous amount of information into a small volume, mainly because it’s a transcript of seven lectures that Hawking gave many years ago that have come to be known as “the Cambridge Lectures”. I also picked up _The Grand Design_, by Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, which is sort of an expanded, illustrated version of the Cambridge Lectures and covers a bit more ground. I personally found it disappointing because it didn’t provide the kind of substantive new insights I was expecting over and above the Cambridge lectures, but to someone who hasn’t read the older book it would be quite worthwhile. Another pretty good one at a relatively basic level with its own unique approach is _A User’s Guide to the Universe_, by Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist. The subtitle “Surviving the perils of black holes, time paradoxes, and quantum uncertainty” pretty much describes what it’s about. The authors promise not to intrude any math into it (I think there is maybe one exception) and it’s written in a folksy, humorous style and illustrated with cartoons throughout, so it won’t appeal to those who find that sort of thing off-putting, but the information content is solid. For example it contains an entertainingly readable classification of the elementary particles, and ditto for its detailed chronology of events after the Big Bang. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/5 "2015-10-13T12:33:59Z")
I agree that the Feynman lectures are excellent, and they’re available [online](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/). For a non-mathematical treatment, I think studying the history of physics can be a big help. I liked _Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat_, by Hans Christian van Baeyer. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/6 "2015-10-13T12:39:52Z")
fwiw, _A Brief History of Time_ is poorly written and unintelligible. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/7 "2015-10-13T13:05:31Z")
That’s surprising, considering the reputation it has, but as I said, I haven’t read it myself. Just wanted to note that I was mistaken in saying the Cambridge lectures book is out of print. There is currently an edition on Amazon under the same title I mentioned. Think of it as an abbreviated, older version of what was fleshed out later as _The Grand Design_. As befits a lecture transcript, it’s a fairly short book with not a single illustration (at least, in my edition) and is a relatively quick read; _The Grand Design_ is more detailed and illustrated. It depends what one is looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/8 "2015-10-13T14:38:32Z")
Feynman is especially good when he drifts into the philosophy of science, which is probably relevant to you. He not only answers question, but often explains why the question itself is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/9 "2015-10-13T15:34:42Z")
Look into college textbooks. Go to your school’s bookstore and grab the Physics 101 and 201 books. They’ll be broad enough to explain a lot of physics, but since they’re entry level classes they’ll be easier to read ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/10 "2015-10-13T16:03:15Z")
Physics is a pretty broad category to want to splash about in. I mean there’s thermodynamics, particle physics, information theory, solid state, plasma, astrodynamics, mechanics, EM, special relativity, general relativity, cosmology, astrophysics… So which aspect of physics are you trying to get a better understanding of? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/11 "2015-10-13T16:29:56Z")
I really like Brian Greene’s books. [The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos](http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Cosmos/dp/0307278123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444753636&sr=8-1&keywords=brian+greene) [The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory](http://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Universe-Superstrings-Dimensions-Ultimate/dp/039333810X/ref=la_B001H6INP0_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444753670&sr=1-1) [The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality](http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Cosmos-Space-Texture-Reality/dp/0375727205/ref=la_B001H6INP0_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444753670&sr=1-2) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/12 "2015-10-13T16:48:01Z")
Yeah, Brian Greene’s books are excellent for relativity and string theory, for the lay person. _Hidden Reality_ is not important for your purposes, probably - it’s a bunch of fun what-ifs about multiverses. But you haven’t said what sort of physics you need. If it’s Newtonian, I swear _[The Cartoon Guide to Physics](http://www.amazon.com/The-Cartoon-Guide-Physics-Series/dp/0062731009)_ is a great primer to fill in gaps in understanding. If it’s Einstein-ian or quantum, then back to Brian Greene. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/13 "2015-10-13T17:03:47Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Yeah, Brian Greene’s books are excellent for relativity and string theory, for the lay person. _Hidden Reality_ is not important for your purposes, probably - it’s a bunch of fun what-ifs about multiverses. > > But you haven’t said what sort of physics you need. If it’s Newtonian, I swear _[The Cartoon Guide to Physics](http://www.amazon.com/The-Cartoon-Guide-Physics-Series/dp/0062731009)_ is a great primer to fill in gaps in understanding. > > If it’s Einstein-ian or quantum, then back to Brian Greene. I enjoyed the Cartoon Guide! As for Hawking’s book, I sure found it unintelligible. I could’ve sworn this has been discussed on the SDMB with a few folks feeling this way. If folks want to speak up for it, I would be interested in hearing. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/14 "2015-10-13T17:11:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > He not only answers question, but often explains why the question itself is wrong. You mean in the “all models are wrong, some are useful” sense, right? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/15 "2015-10-13T17:23:15Z")
The o.p. doesn’t note the areas of physics about which he is interested. The ‘sexy’ stuff (today) is in quantum mechanics and cosmology, but the problem with reading popular books on the topic is that many authors–even respected physicists–don’t clearly distinguish between accepted theory and unsubstantiated hypothesis, especially when it comes to highly speculative areas such as M-theory/superstring theory or interpretations of quantum mechanics. It is also basically impossible for someone not educated in physics to distinguish between validated theory, reasonable speculation, and errant noodling when it comes to quantum mechanics. I think it is good to first gain at least a good conceptual grounding in the basics of both classical and modern physics before trying to read on metaphysical interpretations. To that end, Leonard Susskind’s _The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics_ and (though I haven’t yet read it) his _Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum_ will help a non-specialist get up to speed with the least amount of pain in understanding the basic concepts from mechanics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, and basic quantum theory. They don’t entirely meet the o.p.'s criteria of avoiding equations but the math that is presented is reasonable simple and explained conceptually, versus standard textbooks that follow the “calculation is explanation” pedagogy. Jim Al-Khalili’s _Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed_ is also a fantastic book for the layman on quantum mechanics which provides simple (insofar as possible) explanations of quantum mechanical phenomena which demystify the supposed paradoxes, and as a bonus, has really beautiful illustrations. Feynman is good as well, but realize that his eponymous _Lectures_ were notes from his three quarters of lectures to Caltech undergrads; as such, they start from the basics and build with the kind of practical demonstrations he loved to use for illustration but are fairly dense. There are also a small number of errors (none significant in a conceptual fashion). Once you’ve gotten past that, you might consider reading on the history of physics to get some notion for how the field has evolved, and thus, why certain bits of nomenclature or concepts are the way they are. This is something most physics students (even at the graduate level) have only a cursory exposure to, which is unfortunate because there is a lot of insight to be had into why certain ideas and terms have stuck despite giving a completely wrong impression to the uninitiated, e.g. the supposed paradox of particle-wave duality. There are many, many great books about the history of physics and major personalities associated with it, but George Gamow’s _Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Qnatum Theory_ is probably the best explanation for this particular area which has led to a lot of the metaphysical discussion owing to its completely non-intuitive and apparently stochastic nature. Gamow’s book is quite old and available in an inexpensive Dover edition, but covers the development of quantum theory up to Yukawa and Fermi. Beyond that, and you start getting into quantum field theory, which is the basic modern theory of quantum mechanics; the typical reference is Feynman’s _QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter_, which gives a very general conception of quantum electrodynamics (the relativistic theory of electron-photon exchange that governs all chemical-type behavior) but the manner illustrated in the book isn’t they way physicists really think about or use QED models, and I find it of limited utility. I’m still working my way through _Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur_ by Lancaster and Blundell; it will definitely violate your “minimal equations” rule, but there is enough explanation that you can probably get the general concepts out of it. I also like Tony Zee’s _Quantum Mechanics in a Nutshell_, but it is intended as a text for upper division undergraduate or introductory graduate courses and so it delves heavily into the mathematics, which is unavoidable if you actually need to work problems. On the relativity front there are a large number of good books that illustrate the basic principles, but I think it is best to start with the source and read Einstein’s _Relativity: The Special and General Theory_ first. It’s a translation but done by Einstein himself, and its less than a hundred pages. There are books with better illustrations, and if you really want to understand general relativity the math is unavoidable, but special relativity is fully accessible to anyone with basic algebra and a willingness to accept that nature behaves in ways that seem to violate intuition when you approach the speed of light, and that time and space are part and parcel of the same cloth. Once you get through most of that, you can start on the metaphysics with sufficient grounding to separate the wheat from the chaff (or at least know when someone is speculating versus talking from validated theory). I’ve been reading Alyssa Ney’s and David Albert’s compiliation _The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics_ occasionally, which discusses current thinking about the nature of quantum mechanics and the ontology and limitations of the ‘wave function’ approach. It draws no conclusions (as there is not sufficient distinction between interpretations to reach such) but offers some interesting discussion that won’t be found in any textbook on physics. I also enjoy David Bohm’s writing, but you have to be very careful to separate is explantion from speculation, especially when he starts talking about “implicate and explicate orders”. In the end, you have to bear in mind that pretty much anything we can say about quantum mechanics that responds to the question of “How?” or “Why?” is purely speculative. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/16 "2015-10-13T17:31:22Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > As for Hawking’s book, I sure found it unintelligible. I could’ve sworn this has been discussed on the SDMB with a few folks feeling this way. If folks want to speak up for it, I would be interested in hearing. I wouldn’t call it unintelligible per se, but it was clearly not written for a popular audience. Despite not being light on actual math, he assums a pretty firm understanding of general relativity that is at least at the upper division undergraduate level. Ditto with Roger Penrose; if you want to understand what he is talking about (and I often wish now that I didn’t) you really have to have a firm grasp in the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and cosmology, and where he veers sharply to the left without announcing a turn. His _Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe_ is one of the densest combinations of fundamentals, history, philsophy, and speculations I’ve ever read, but he also goes off on some wild tangents without telling the reader, “Nobody else but me and two or three other people believe that this might be true.” Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/17 "2015-10-13T17:50:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Snarky\_Kong** : > > You mean in the “all models are wrong, some are useful” sense, right? Possibly, though I’d have to see that in context to be sure. I was thinking of things like the analogy of springs for magnetism: Some people sometimes ask about things like considering a magnetic field as being “like a spring”. But that’s exactly the wrong way to go about it, since the magnetic field is by far the more fundamental phenomenon. We really ought to be asking how a spring results from the interactions of electromagnetic fields. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/18 "2015-10-13T18:21:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Possibly, though I’d have to see that in context to be sure. I was thinking of things like the analogy of springs for magnetism: Some people sometimes ask about things like considering a magnetic field as being “like a spring”. But that’s exactly the wrong way to go about it, since the magnetic field is by far the more fundamental phenomenon. We really ought to be asking how a spring results from the interactions of electromagnetic fields. I think you meant it in a different sense then. The sense I usually hear it is that all the mathematical manipulations we do are approximations to some deeper underlying truth. Or at least another deeper, more accurate approximation. I’ve seen Feynman talk about something, but not it’s not quite right because the approximation neglects something or other, and then elaborates on when that thing would be important. > **[All models are wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong)** > > All models are wrong is a common aphorism and anapodoton in statistics. It is often expanded as "All models are wrong, but some are useful". The aphorism acknowledges that statistical models always fall short of the complexities of reality but can still be useful nonetheless. The aphorism originally referred just to statistical models, but it is now sometimes used for scientific models in general. > The aphorism is generally attributed to George E. P. Box, a British statistician, although the unde... ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/19 "2015-10-13T18:44:20Z")
[In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat) is a very readable account of quantum physics; the theory behind it, and the implications thereof. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535/20 "2015-10-13T19:08:43Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > Look into college textbooks. > > Go to your school’s bookstore and grab the Physics 101 and 201 books. They’ll be broad enough to explain a lot of physics, but since they’re entry level classes they’ll be easier to read Our introductory physics textbook was [Fundamentals of Physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics) by David Halliday and Robert Resnick, [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-good-books-about-physics-please/734535.md?page=2)