Finding Nature's Deep Design

A Beautiful Question

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist argues that beauty is the fundamental organizing principle for the entire universe 
 
In this scientific tour de force, world-class physicist Frank Wilczek argues that beauty is at the heart of the logic of the universe. As the quest to find the beauty embodied in the universe has connected all scientific pursuit, from Pythagoras to Einstein, Wilczek shows us just how deeply intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our understanding of the cosmos. A Beautiful Question is a mind-expanding book combining the age-old human quest for beauty with the age-old human quest for truth.

A truly beautiful book ... Why do physicists call their theories beautiful? Immerse yourself in this book, wallow in it, sit back and relax as you wander through it, and you'll soon understand.

Richard Muller, author of Physics for Future Presidents

Anyone who wants to see how science and transcendence can be compatible must read this book. Wilczek has caught the winds of change, and his thinking breaks through some sacred boundaries with curiosity, insight, and intellectual power.

Illuminating ... A fresh perspective on modern scientific thinking from an expert with a flair for jargon-free exposition ... Wilczek writes A Beautiful Question with bracing pizzazz ... Contains more beef than many a finely written scientific potboiler.

The first book I've read in which I've felt that almost vertiginous sensation of peering through layers of theories down to the true nature of the universe ... At times this is a challenging text, but it is well worth the effort. Wilczek is admirably clear in his explanations.

It's rare that scientists as brilliant as Wilczek give us a glimpse of what goes on inside their heads ... Expect to come away pretty dazzled.

[A] searching and earnest book ... The book of a love-struck physicist ... A Beautiful Question is a meditation.

A Beautiful Question is both a brilliant exploration of largely uncharted territories and a refreshingly idiosyncratic guide to developments in particle physics.

Wilczek's sheer pleasure in the beauty of mathematics is the engine and joy of this book ... [A] rewarding read ... There is a lot of food for the mind here, but also some for the eye.

Born in New York, Frank Wilczek studied at the University of Chicago and gained his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University. Frank won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a twenty-one-year-old graduate student. His writing has featured twice in Best American Science Writing and his exposition of modern physics, Longing for the Harmonies was named New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Frank is currently Herman Feshbach Professorship of Physics at MIT. He lives in Massachusetts, with his wife, Betsy Devine.

Big Questions, Real Answers

The Lightness of Being

What's the meaning of it all? Or rather: what exactly is 'it'? Here Frank Wilczek, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and legend, examines the very nature of reality itself, showing how almost everything we think we know about 'it' is wrong. 
 
The Lightness of Being is an engaging tour de force, revealing a universe where matter is the hum of strange music, mass doesn't weigh, and empty space is a multilayered, multicoloured superconductor. Physicists' understanding of the essential nature of reality changed radically over the past quarter century. And Frank Wilczek has played a lead role in establishing the new paradigms. Transcending the clash and mismatch of older ideas about what matter and space is, Wilczek presents some brilliant and clear syntheses. Extraordinarily readable and authoritative, The Lightness of Being is the first book to unwrap these exciting new ideas for the general public. It explores their implications for basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of Nature. 
 
Pointing to new directions where great discoveries in fundamental physics are likely, and providing a visionary context for the experiments in CERN, he envisions a new Golden Age in physics.

Born in New York, Frank Wilczek studied at the University of Chicago and gained his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University. Frank won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a twenty-one-year-old graduate student. His writing has featured twice in Best American Science Writing and his exposition of modern physics, Longing for the Harmonies was named New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Frank is currently Herman Feshbach Professorship of Physics at MIT. He lives in Massachusetts, with his wife, Betsy Devine.

Frank Wilczek

Ten Keys to Reality

One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world 
 
In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way--bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before. 
 
Synthesizing basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the universe: time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He excavates the history of fundamental science, exploring what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. Brilliant, lucid, and accessible, this celebration of human ingenuity and imagination will expand your world and your mind.

Frank Wilczek

Fundamentals

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