Physics Book Reviews

What does it mean to be a scientist ? How do I become a scientist ? What makes up the universe around us ? What is the Square Root of Einstein ? The Square Root of Einstein answers all and more of these questions, in a satisfying way.  Written in a warming conversational tone, this extremely entertaining book walks the reader effortlessly through some of the greatest surprises in fundamental physics over the last century: Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, and of course Particle Physics. These earlier chapters coalesces into the final half of the book which describes one of the most perplexing results of the last 20 years: The Double Copy. This book appeals to broad audience of popular science enthusiasts, young and old. For the teenage reader, this book provides a calling and challenge. This book is an accessible call to action towards young readers considering a career (or at the very least a university education) in science, especial...

The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes in Higher Dimensions is an interesting, insightful and intellectually challenging tome, which outlines the theory, advancements as well as open questions surrounding the nature of higher dimension phenomena in gravitational physics.  Black holes in higher dimensions are seldom referenced in many courses (both beginner and advanced) in the study of Einstein gravity. This book fills in this gap in readers' education by gently leading them through each of the topics one by one. Aimed at the graduate level, the text first begins to describe  static black holes in 5D, before extending into more advanced (and perhaps unfamiliar) examples of higher dimensional such as black strings. The text then leads itself to (in detail) outline the generation of such gravitational solutions as well as how to classify such solutions; it then ends with extensions to Einstein-Maxwell gravity theories. Interesting references are scattering throughout the text (a...

There is often a great disparity between s tatistics  textbooks, many of which can be subdivided into two main categories: too little or too hard.  In the case of the former, these texts normally too elementary for the standard of statistics needed for sucessful careers in data science or academica; they also do not prepare the reader adquately for futher studies into advanced topics (e.g machine learning).  The latter case (which almost exclusively covers the more advanced and indeed interesting topics), is ladden with such a high level of mathematical rigour, that it puts off the vast majority of readers. In addition, such books often neglect explanations of how one can implement these techniques, with little emphasis on the practicals of day to day usage. Statistical Methods for Data Analysis negotiates between these two schools of thought, to deliver an enjoyable, instructive and more importantly useful study into both basic and advanced techniques of statistics....

Monte Carlo methods remain till this day some of the most interesting and useful aspects of applied mathematics over the last century. Indeed, Monte Carlo methods are the poster boys for applications of mathematics beyond that of which they were first conceived. The use of  M onte Carlo methods have spread far and wide throughout out the physical sciences as well as to real world setting, predominantly in financial trading and analysis. Indeed, the accelerated influence of Monte Carlo methods owe their success much to the development of computer within the last 70 years. This book is a joy to read cover to cover. Firstly, it is comprehensive in its treatment of the topics covered; containing interesting combination of techniques and encyclopaedic knowledge (on probability and number generators) that is hard to find in just (at an understandable level) one place elsewhere.  The greatest strength of this text, which lends significantly to its overall  comme ndability  ...

 Electromagnetism is often one of the hardest beginner undergraduate course for many students. Depending on the presentation of the material, the course can be either too mathematical in nature, obscuring the actual underlying physics; or contains too little detail of how to perform the calculations needed to appreciate the physical relevance of the phenomena studied.  Electromagnetism - Principles and Modern Applications in this regard is perhaps one of the perfect examples of a first course in electromagnetism. This text sets about first building the intuition needed to describe and evaluate quantities described by vector fields, starting with perhaps most initiative introduction to electrostatics I've seen; before then contextualising these techniques in the description of electrical circuits. This is then followed by a very nice introduction into magnetic fields, before coming to the derivation of the Maxwell equations. The second half of the text then dedicates itself to ...

 Modern Fortran Explained does an admirable job of detailing the cutting edge developments surrounding this legendary program language, over the last 20 years. An appreciated feature of the text is the beautifully woven narrative which presents Fortran from its foundations to its most complex structures. The two new chapters at the end of the book nicely and succinctly describe the additions to the language, whilst remaining authoritative and complete at the same time.  This text is indeed a great reference book for those of us readily familiar with older (and let's face it outdated) versions of Fortran who wish to upgrade our knowledge of the language. To this end, the lengthly appendix at the end of book, which outlines the depreciated features of the language is a great help in realigning the more experienced Fortran programmers abilities with the modern paradigms.  Primarily, I would recommend this text to any Fortran programmer wishing to get with the times.  Mo...