The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces

Frank Wilczek

mar 2009 · Distribuido por Basic Books

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A Nobel-prize winning physicist takes on the essential question: what are we made of?

Our understanding of nature's deepest reality has changed radically, but almost without our noticing, over the past twenty-five years. Transcending the clash of older ideas about matter and space, acclaimed physicist Frank Wilczek explains a remarkable new discovery: matter is built from almost weightless units, and pure energy is the ultimate source of mass. He calls it "The Lightness of Being." Space is no mere container, empty and passive. It is a dynamic Grid-a modern ether- and its spontaneous activity creates and destroys particles. This new understanding of mass explains the puzzling feebleness of gravity, and a gorgeous unification of all the forces comes sharply into focus.The Lightness of Being is the first book to explore the implications of these revolutionary ideas about mass, energy, and the nature of "empty space." In it, Wilczek masterfully presents new perspectives on our incredible universe and envisions a new golden age of fundamental physics.

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Frank Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004. His 1989 book, Longing for the Harmonies, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Wilczek's work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing and The Norton Anthology of Light Verse. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.