God's Equation by Amir Aczel

Amir Aczel wrote God’s Equation following the 1998 announcement of studies that indicated that we live in an open universe that will continue expanding without end. This is in contrast to theories that the universe might be closed, with gravity eventually pulling everything back in to a great collapse, or stable, with the universe continuing to expand at an ever slower rate. He attempts to show for a lay audience how these discoveries were built on the work of Albert Einstein and complex forms of geometry.

It is complex. Aczel does not dive too deep into the math. Most of his intended audience wouldn’t understand it—it is beyond any math I’ve mastered. It is rooted in Einstein’s general theory of relativity and his field equation, which describes it mathematically. Many people are familiar with E=mc². It is simple and it is fairly easy to understand what it is describing. The field equation may look fairly simple when written out, but behind it is very complex math that has complex ramifications.

I think a lay person could read this book and have no better understanding of the physics and math of our expanding universe than he did before. I’m not sure that understanding complex physics is the great value of the book anyway.

To me, the value of the book is the way it shows how science works. Aczel demythologizes the process, especially in relation to Einstein, without devaluing it or the accomplishments of leading scientists. For instance, the myth of Einstein is that he came up with the theory of relativity in an instant due to his extraordinary genius and it instantly revolutionized science.

The reality is that, even though Einstein was way ahead of his contemporaries, it took him years of effort and false starts to develop general relativity. He had help and input from other physicists and mathematicians. His work was met with skepticism. It took many years for Einstein and others to flesh out the ramifications of his theory, and for astronomers and other experimental scientist to confirm them.

Another bit of demythologizing is that Einstein wasn’t good at math. He simply wasn’t interested in math for its own sake, so he didn’t put in the effort as a student except to the degree he found it useful. Though Einstein came up with ideas with imagination that did not always depend on math, the fleshing out of his theories into sound physics required a lot of math. He applied himself diligently to mastering it, and it was quite advanced.

A physicist will seek more technical books on the subject of cosmology. Arguably a book that is nearly 20 year old may be a bit dated, too. However, I think it is still interesting history and how our understanding of the world is developed over time with imagination, diligence, debate, testing and the effort to many people.

Amir Aczel also wrote:

Chance

Descarte’s Secret Notebook

Why Science Does Not Disprove God

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison 

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

Planck by Brandon R. Brown

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

Aczel, Amir D. God’s Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999.

Planck by Brandon R. Brown

German physicist Max Planck was one of the most famous and well-respected scientists of his day. His work formed the foundation of quantum mechanics and is still relevant to physics today. He lived through both world wars, and these resulted in tragedy for his family.

Planck is a brief biography of the man by another physicist, Brandon R. Brown. Brown focuses his book on the last years of World War II, but from there reaches far back to his subject’s birth in 1858 and forward a little to his death in 1947. It is interesting that Brown did not choose to take a chronological approach given that entropy and the irreversibility of time were subjects of great interest to Planck. Perhaps he wants to readers to be somewhat unsettled, no doubt the way Planck must have been unsettled by events of his lifetime and the conclusions younger scientists drew from his own theories.

Brown presents Planck and as a flexible thinker who contributed to physics and accepted new theories at an age when most of his contemporaries were ready to shut the books on what could be learned. Apparently what most of us like to think of as middle-aged (at worst) is ancient for a physicist. His own work on thermal radiation established fundamental concepts of quantum theory, though he didn’t use the term “quanta.” When a young Albert Einstein proposed his special theory of relativity, Planck quick promote and build on it. He was slower to come around to general relativity (as wild as it is to us, it was insane to many in that time), and both men suffered philosophical heartburn from the quantum mechanics served up by the generation that came up under them.

Planck was very loyal to his country. His brother Hermann died in the Franco-Prussian War, and the family became intensely patriotic. At the start of World War I, he was hopeful that the war might strengthen and unify Germany. His oldest son, Karl, died at Verdun, and Germany fell on hard times.

Things were more complex when the Nazis took power. At times, his reputation as the nation’s most prominent scientist gave him leeway to resist anti-Semitic policies. At other times he acquiesced, hoping that the excesses of Nazi policies would be smoothed out or even reversed by the necessities of governing and the needs of the nation. He was so hopeful he even encouraged Jewish colleagues to stay. The Nazis saw no need for moderation, so Planck’s influence quickly waned. His son, Erwin, became involved in a resistance movement that hoped to topple the Nazis. He was implicated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Though the Planck family appealed to every ear in and around the Nazi regime that might have sympathy, Erwin was convicted and eventually hanged. (Planck survived his first wife and four of his five children).

Brown doesn’t judge Planck too harshly, though some might. He had no love for the Nazis, but perhaps too much love for Germany, its scientific achievement, and its international standing, may have made him reluctant to boldly oppose them. This led to a break in his relationship with Einstein, though the younger eminence spoke very kindly of Planck even many years later. Because of he refused to embrace the Nazis, and he was well-liked by many foreign scientists, the Allies gave him a place in rebuilding the German scientific establishment after the war. The British, French, and Americans reorganized scientific institutes into the Max Planck Society, which is still active in supporting all manner of scientific endeavor.

I think the book is approachable for most adult readers who may have an interest in Planck or his times. Brown does not get so deep so deep into the science that he loses readers; he tries to explain it in a way that will make sense to a general audience. The structure of the book may make it difficult for a young reader to follow.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison 

Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Brandon R. Brown. Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.