The Evolution of Physics

This is a book on the advancement of physics written by the master, Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. It begins with the early mechanical notion of the material world, how it gets transformed by the relativistic views and concludes with the understanding of the quantum nature of the universe. But quite surprisingly this physics book is completely devoid of any mathematics and is based purely on logic. Thus while on one hand it is quite appealing to en masse, on the other the philosophical flavour of the articles can be immensely appreciated by readers who are more tuned to traditional scientific articles. Only certain experimental results are quoted and based on these the book offers explanation to the fundamental theories governing the physical world. It explains the old laws, their successes and limitations, introduction of new laws and how they get modified with time. Starting from the laws of absolute motion and theory of corpuscular nature of light and ending with relativity and wave-particle duality of electrons and light, it doesn’t leave any corner of science unexplored. True, these articles do not reflect the actual models through equations and it doesn’t mean that reading these one can immediately start unraveling the apparently complex domains of the modern science but these help us to think in an unconventional way of the universe and prepare a philosophical background for the inquisitive minds.

As a whole this is a really enjoyable read and once more we are left mesmerized by the simplicity of the explanations that once had seemed much more complex, though personally I feel a bit of mathematics could have been incorporated for an even easier read.