Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World (Hardcover)
Description
From one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, a rousing defense of the role of science in our lives
The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven’s Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science.
There could be no better guide than Lisa Randall. The bestselling author of Warped Passages is an expert in both particle physics (the study of the smallest objects we know of) and cosmology (the study of the largest). In Knocking on Heaven’s Door, she explores how we decide which scientific questions to study and how we go about answering them. She examines the role of risk, creativity, uncertainty, beauty, and truth in scientific thinking through provocative conversations with leading figures in other fields (such as the chef David Chang, the forecaster Nate Silver, and the screenwriter Scott Derrickson), and she explains with wit and clarity the latest ideas in physics and cosmology. Randall describes the nature and goals of the largest machine ever built: the Large Hadron Collider, the enormous particle accelerator below the border of France and Switzerland—as well as recent ideas underlying cosmology and current dark matter experiments.
The most sweeping and exciting science book in years, Knocking on Heaven’s Door makes clear the biggest scientific questions we face and reveals how answering them could ultimately tell us who we are and where we came from.
About the Author
Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University, where she is Frank J. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science. Her work has made her among the most cited and influential theoretical physicists today, and has been featured in Discover, the Economist, Newsweek, Scientific American, and many top-ranked scientific journals. She has been one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” and Rolling Stone’s “RS100: Agents of Change,” and her first book, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2005. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. When not solving the problems of the universe, Randall can be found rock climbing, skiing, or contributing to art-science connections. Her libretto for Hypermusic Prologue premiered at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2009.
Praise for Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World…
“Science has a battle for hearts and minds on its hands . . . against superstition and ignorance on one flank, and against pseudo-intellectual obscurantism on the other. How good it feels to have Lisa Randall’s unusual blend of top flight science, clarity, and charm on our side.”
-Richard Dawkins
“Randall’s lucid explanations of . . . the frontiers of physics—including her own dazzling ideas—are highly illuminating, and her hearty defense of reason and science is a welcome contribution. . . . Read this book today to understand the science of tomorrow.”
-Steven Pinker
“Beautifully written. . . . An impressive overview of what scientists (of any kind) get up to, how they work and why science is an inherently creative endeavor.”
-Times Higher Education (London)
“Startlingly honest [and] beautifully written. . . . Randall’s calm authority and clarity of explanation are exemplary. . . . Like being taken behind the curtain in Oz and given a full tour by the wizard.”
-NewScientist.com
“Valuable and engaging. . . . Randall’s generous cornucopia of ideas, her engaging style, and above all her deep excitement about physics make this a book that deserves a wide readership.”
-American Scientist
“[V]ery accessible, readable, and appealing to a broad audience. . . . Randall’s passion and excitement for science and physics is infectious and welcome in our digital age.”
-New York Journal of Books
“[Randall’s] eloquent book details the trials and tribulations of the [Large Hadron Collider], from conception to implementation, and takes us on a grand tour of the underlying science.”
-Nature
“The general reader’s indispensable passport to the frontiers of science.”
-Booklist (starred review)
“Written with dry wit and ice-cool clarity. . . . Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a book that anyone at all interested in science must read. This is surely the science book of the year.”
-Sunday Times (London)
“Full of passion and jaw-dropping facts. . . . A fascinating account of modern particle physics, both theoretical and practical.”
-The Independent on Sunday
“I didn’t think it was possible to write a complex, detailed look at the world of physics that the non-scientist could understand, but then Lisa Randall wrote this amazing, insightful, and engaging book and proved me wrong.”
-Carlton Cuse, award-winning producer and writer of Lost
“Lisa Randall does a great job of explaining to the non-physicist the basic science approaches of modern physics and what the latest experiments might reveal. . . . This is a must read to appreciate what is coming in our future.”
-J. Craig Venter, Ph.D.
“A deep and deeply wonderful explanation of how science—and the rest of the known universe—actually works.”
-Daniel Gilbert, bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness
“Lisa Randall is the rarest rarity—a theoretical physics genius who can write and talk to the rest of us in ways we both understand and enjoy. This book takes nonspecialists as close as they’ll ever get to the inner workings of the cosmos.”
-Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University
“Randall’s witty, accessible discussion reveals the effort and wonder at hand as scientists strive to learn who we are and where we came from.”
-Publishers Weekly
“[A] whip-smart inquiry into the scientific work being conducted in particle physics. . . . [Randall] brings a thrumming enthusiasm to the topic, but she is unhurried and wryly humorous. . . . [Knocking on Heaven’s Door] dazzles like the stars.”
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[Randall is] one of the more original theorists at work in the profession today. . . . She gives a fine analysis of the affinity between scientific and artistic beauty, comparing the broken symmetries of a Richard Serra sculpture to those at the core of the Standard Model.”
-New York Times Book Review
“Randall manages to transform . . . experiments at distant and unfamiliar scales into crucial acts in a cosmic drama.”
-Daily Beast
“Explores some of the biggest ideas in contemporary physics and how they undergird such everyday matters as risk assessment, logic and even our understanding of beauty.”
-Time magazine
