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jasperburns's review against another edition
5.0
View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.org.
As the title says, this course is understandable for non-scientists! I found it absolutely fascinating. Whenever I hear physicists talk, they often speak with wonder about understanding the fabric of the universe, and it never quite clicked in my head what that meant until listening to this course.
The first half is on the macro, the cosmos, special and general relativity, and on spacetime. Understanding the "what" and "why" time can be warped intrigued me. I specifically enjoyed the discussion of event horizons around black holes—where if we were to watch someone enter a black hole they would slow to look frozen, but from the perspective of traveling into black hole, you would be essentially time traveling forward to the infinite future of Earth. The metaphor of heavy metal balls bending fabric was useful in my head to understand gravity's relationship to time and space. It is also useful to be able to learn the history of physics throughout the course because you get to understand the thought processes physicists went through up-to and after Einstein.
The latter half of the book talked about the micro—about atoms and quarks. I knew about the Bohr and Rutherford models of the atoms, and I'd heard of quarks, but it was nice to have them fully explained. I new the atom was no longer the smallest known constituent particle, and it was interesting to learn about the +2, -1 charges of upquarks and downquarks, and how they combine into neutrons and protons. It was humorous to hear him talk about them wanting to find the Higgs-Boson, and how it was essentially the last missing particle in the "particle zoo," because this course was from 2000, prior to the major world news of its discovery a few years ago.
I wish I could understand more about all this, and this course has likely inspired me to learn more physics. Highly recommend.
View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.org.
As the title says, this course is understandable for non-scientists! I found it absolutely fascinating. Whenever I hear physicists talk, they often speak with wonder about understanding the fabric of the universe, and it never quite clicked in my head what that meant until listening to this course.
The first half is on the macro, the cosmos, special and general relativity, and on spacetime. Understanding the "what" and "why" time can be warped intrigued me. I specifically enjoyed the discussion of event horizons around black holes—where if we were to watch someone enter a black hole they would slow to look frozen, but from the perspective of traveling into black hole, you would be essentially time traveling forward to the infinite future of Earth. The metaphor of heavy metal balls bending fabric was useful in my head to understand gravity's relationship to time and space. It is also useful to be able to learn the history of physics throughout the course because you get to understand the thought processes physicists went through up-to and after Einstein.
The latter half of the book talked about the micro—about atoms and quarks. I knew about the Bohr and Rutherford models of the atoms, and I'd heard of quarks, but it was nice to have them fully explained. I new the atom was no longer the smallest known constituent particle, and it was interesting to learn about the +2, -1 charges of upquarks and downquarks, and how they combine into neutrons and protons. It was humorous to hear him talk about them wanting to find the Higgs-Boson, and how it was essentially the last missing particle in the "particle zoo," because this course was from 2000, prior to the major world news of its discovery a few years ago.
I wish I could understand more about all this, and this course has likely inspired me to learn more physics. Highly recommend.
View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.org.
crzyarrow's review against another edition
5.0
I really liked this lecture series, but I am definitely going to have to listen to it again to fully grasp the material. The first part of series actually gives focus to "classical" physics, which I thought was a very clever way of introducing the material. You never really learn about the history behind physics or why scientists thought the things they did before new theories were developed. I found that part really interesting and it gave the sections about modern physics much more depth in my opinion. When the narrator branches into modern physics he explains why it happened and the thought processes behind the geniuses (particularly Einstein) who developed it.
Later in the series things start to get more complicated (at least for me) when he starts breaking down quantum mechanics. Though I understand what the narrator is saying, I have a really hard time wrapping my mind around a reality based on probabilistic behavior. That's the section that I want to listen to again. There is also a section on string theory, which I do remember watching a video on in high school. The narrator then wraps up the whole series by discussing attempts to combined all laws of physics into one main law and why they have all failed thus far.
The narrator does a fantastic job breaking things down to a non-physicist's level, but these are still some very complex concepts when you dig into them. I did take some physics in high school, but I don't think it was completely necessary to get something out of this course (although it probably made it easier). The narrator is extremely enthusiastic, which makes for a fun listen when it could have been very boring. I think what I liked the most was that he openly and clearly describes the limitations of the various theories and methods of experimentation, which I found fascinating. If you're kind of a nerd and want to learn more about physics this is a good series to listen to.
Later in the series things start to get more complicated (at least for me) when he starts breaking down quantum mechanics. Though I understand what the narrator is saying, I have a really hard time wrapping my mind around a reality based on probabilistic behavior. That's the section that I want to listen to again. There is also a section on string theory, which I do remember watching a video on in high school. The narrator then wraps up the whole series by discussing attempts to combined all laws of physics into one main law and why they have all failed thus far.
The narrator does a fantastic job breaking things down to a non-physicist's level, but these are still some very complex concepts when you dig into them. I did take some physics in high school, but I don't think it was completely necessary to get something out of this course (although it probably made it easier). The narrator is extremely enthusiastic, which makes for a fun listen when it could have been very boring. I think what I liked the most was that he openly and clearly describes the limitations of the various theories and methods of experimentation, which I found fascinating. If you're kind of a nerd and want to learn more about physics this is a good series to listen to.
beckykirk's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. If you've ever wanted to know about physics but were afraid of science then listen to this course! He explains stuff so eloquently that a non-scientist like myself can understand.
stewart42's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent. There are references to diagrams which the audiobook doesn't have. It is slightly dated as it predates the discovery of the Higgs boson, but excellent nonetheless.
kahawa's review against another edition
3.0
In the end this was informative, but I felt like the lecturer 'told' his audience how things are, but didn't 'explain' well how and why they are the way they are. He's super smart and spoke incredibly fast, and I think I needed him to slow down and show me why a particle is how it is before moving on to the next concept. It's also a little dated now (2000), so it wasn't able to include the important results of the large hadron collider and Higgs boson.
kenreid's review against another edition
5.0
Bit dated, refers to past experiments as future ones. Still an excellent foundation building course.
jupiterheathen's review against another edition
4.0
Good course I listened to on Audible. I'm probably going to have to listen again because even though some of the concepts were simplified, I had a hard time visualizing the thought experiments and other fundamental principles featured in the course. The professor was not boring and overall I enjoyed something that was challenging. I understood the overall concepts, but some of the details went way over my head. However, I highly recommend this course.