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Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality
“ Fundamentals might be the perfect book for the winter of this plague year. . . . Wilczek writes with breathtaking economy and clarity, and his pleasure in his subject is palpable.” — The New York Times Book Review
One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world
In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way--bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before.
Synthesizing basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He excavates the history of fundamental science, exploring what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. Brilliant, lucid, and accessible, this celebration of human ingenuity and imagination will expand your world and your mind.
One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world
In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way--bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before.
Synthesizing basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He excavates the history of fundamental science, exploring what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. Brilliant, lucid, and accessible, this celebration of human ingenuity and imagination will expand your world and your mind.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
1256 people are currently reading
6647 people want to read
About the author
Frank Wilczek
22 books234 followersFrank Anthony Wilczek, born May 15, 1951 is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director of T. D. Lee Institute and Chief Scientist at the Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) and full Professor at Stockholm University.
Wilczek, along with David Gross and H. David Politzer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.
Wilczek, along with David Gross and H. David Politzer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.
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February 7, 2021
Q:
Some things, we must learn. The world is built from a few basic building blocks, which follow strict but strange and unfamiliar rules.
Some things, we must unlearn. (c)
Q:
Quantum mechanics reveals that you cannot observe something without changing it, after all. Each person receives unique messages from the external world. Imagine that you and a friend sit together in a very dark room, observing a dim light. Make the light very, very dim, say, by covering it with layers of cloth. Eventually, both you and your friend will see only intermittent flashes. But you will see flashes at different times. The light has broken up into individual quanta, and quanta cannot be shared. At this fundamental level, we experience separate worlds. (c)
Some things, we must learn. The world is built from a few basic building blocks, which follow strict but strange and unfamiliar rules.
Some things, we must unlearn. (c)
Q:
Quantum mechanics reveals that you cannot observe something without changing it, after all. Each person receives unique messages from the external world. Imagine that you and a friend sit together in a very dark room, observing a dim light. Make the light very, very dim, say, by covering it with layers of cloth. Eventually, both you and your friend will see only intermittent flashes. But you will see flashes at different times. The light has broken up into individual quanta, and quanta cannot be shared. At this fundamental level, we experience separate worlds. (c)
February 7, 2021
In keeping with the trend of having seven this or ten that (Carlo Rovelli has a lot to answer for), physicist Frank Wilzek sets out to give us 'ten keys to reality'. As Wilczek explains in his introduction, the aim is to explore two themes: abundance and seeing things differently, with a childlike curiosity and lack of preconceptions. The author also points out that he aims to offer an alternative to religious fundamentalism. As he notes, many of his scientific heroes were devout Christians, and he 'aims to transcend specific dogmas, whether religious or anti-religious'.
In essence there are two things going on in this book. On the one hand, each of the ten main sections covers a fairly straightforward aspect of physics and cosmology, though not from the viewpoint of a physical theory so much as context such as space, time, natural laws and so on - in this, it will be familiar ground to anyone who has read a popular science physics primer. But the aspect that lifts Wilczek's book is that in covering the basics he both gives us a more grounded sense of place and adds in details that you rarely see elsewhere.
So, for example, we're used to Brian Cox-style popular science that echoes the classic Douglas Adams parody of saying that space is big - really big - so big you are an insignificant little dot. While Wilczek emphasises the scale of the universe compared to a human being, he also points out that, for example, we have more atoms in our bodies than there are estimated to be stars in the visible universe. And as such each of us is also impressively large - the scale works in both directions.
Another example of strikingly original way of looking at things is that in talking about physical laws, Wilczek imagines being a conscious being in the world of a computer game character such as Super Mario, in a world where the rules are unpredictable, and takes us through the implications of being in such a different universe. This is brilliant.
Some of the ten sections are rather thinner than others. I was a bit disappointed by a section on complexity and emergence - so important in reality (as opposed the often very constrained world of physical models), which only runs to eight pages. Nonetheless, each section is readable and enjoyable. There were one or two slightly odd aspects. He tells us that the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old so the 'limiting distance is... 13.8 billion light years' - which is misleading as it ignores the expansion of the universe that means that the equivalent distance is closer to 50 billion light years. He also can over simply - for example by referring to 'u' and 'd' quarks, missing out or where those letters come from and the interesting story behind quark naming, or speaking about quantum spin as if it involves spinning around like a macro object.
Inevitably an overview like this will have masses of simplification and in the end it's a matter of taste what goes and what stays. While I wouldn't agree with all the selections, I found Wilczek's approach genuinely refreshing and this book has so much more going for it that many of these overview titles. It's interesting to compare it with Jim Al-Khalili's World According to Physics. In many ways they're complementary (complementarity is another section in this book, funnily). Al-Khalili gives a far more insightful picture of the physics itself. Wilczek gives us a much more impressive philosophical context for that view of the universe. I think I would recommend reading both - perhaps Wilzeck first to get the context, then Al-Khalili to get the specifics. Together, they provide an ideal physics primer for the curious mind.
In essence there are two things going on in this book. On the one hand, each of the ten main sections covers a fairly straightforward aspect of physics and cosmology, though not from the viewpoint of a physical theory so much as context such as space, time, natural laws and so on - in this, it will be familiar ground to anyone who has read a popular science physics primer. But the aspect that lifts Wilczek's book is that in covering the basics he both gives us a more grounded sense of place and adds in details that you rarely see elsewhere.
So, for example, we're used to Brian Cox-style popular science that echoes the classic Douglas Adams parody of saying that space is big - really big - so big you are an insignificant little dot. While Wilczek emphasises the scale of the universe compared to a human being, he also points out that, for example, we have more atoms in our bodies than there are estimated to be stars in the visible universe. And as such each of us is also impressively large - the scale works in both directions.
Another example of strikingly original way of looking at things is that in talking about physical laws, Wilczek imagines being a conscious being in the world of a computer game character such as Super Mario, in a world where the rules are unpredictable, and takes us through the implications of being in such a different universe. This is brilliant.
Some of the ten sections are rather thinner than others. I was a bit disappointed by a section on complexity and emergence - so important in reality (as opposed the often very constrained world of physical models), which only runs to eight pages. Nonetheless, each section is readable and enjoyable. There were one or two slightly odd aspects. He tells us that the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old so the 'limiting distance is... 13.8 billion light years' - which is misleading as it ignores the expansion of the universe that means that the equivalent distance is closer to 50 billion light years. He also can over simply - for example by referring to 'u' and 'd' quarks, missing out or where those letters come from and the interesting story behind quark naming, or speaking about quantum spin as if it involves spinning around like a macro object.
Inevitably an overview like this will have masses of simplification and in the end it's a matter of taste what goes and what stays. While I wouldn't agree with all the selections, I found Wilczek's approach genuinely refreshing and this book has so much more going for it that many of these overview titles. It's interesting to compare it with Jim Al-Khalili's World According to Physics. In many ways they're complementary (complementarity is another section in this book, funnily). Al-Khalili gives a far more insightful picture of the physics itself. Wilczek gives us a much more impressive philosophical context for that view of the universe. I think I would recommend reading both - perhaps Wilzeck first to get the context, then Al-Khalili to get the specifics. Together, they provide an ideal physics primer for the curious mind.
January 14, 2022
Wilczek’s book is a mix of physics and philosophy he draws from his study of physics. It starts out as if it is for the general reader, but parts of the presentation assume the reader is already familiar with physics terms and concepts. There is no math, but I would have been lost at times without prior knowledge of the subjects. It is a unique presentation organizing selected topics around basic ideas he dubs the ten fundamentals. Looking at things from a different point of view is a theme of the book. And it did help me see some issues in a new light. So, although there is little new factually from what is in many other popular physics books, his approach had merit for me and I suspect for others who enjoy this genre.
The sections on space, time and astrophysics are the most accessible, not that general relativity doesn’t present challenges. It’s the quick takes on particle physics and quantum mechanics that are the most demanding. But if you are interested in the quantum properties of elementary particles, which particles have 0, ½ or 1 spin, the relationship between quarks and gluons, QED, QCD, field theory and wave functions then you are in the right place. Wilzcek’s explanations are brief and are used as taking off points for philosophical discussions. He also describes some unusual particles. He covers gravitons, since he treats spacetime as a type of “material.” He is a proponent of axions, a particle he named after a laundry detergent. He believes axions could account for dark matter. Most interesting to me were anyons, quasiparticles that have a memory and may be useful in quantum computing. Quasiparticles are derived from standard particles but are embedded in materials where they take on different properties. Then there are photons that take on mass when they enter a superconductor. Wilczek notes the very presence of a photon with mass denotes a superconductor.
The philosophical parts have their moments but his attempts to build broader themes from the physics didn’t really catch on with me. Let’s take complementarity, Bohr’s explanation for why momentum and position can’t be determined at the same time in quantum mechanics. Wilczek describes this in terms of physics then philosophizes it into a general proposition about people trying to hold and act on contradictory beliefs at the same time. He carries this further and further at one point stating, “The complementarity between humility and self-respect is, I believe, the central message of our fundamentals.” I felt this was stretching the idea too far, but I loved Wilczek's Einstein quote.
The sections on space, time and astrophysics are the most accessible, not that general relativity doesn’t present challenges. It’s the quick takes on particle physics and quantum mechanics that are the most demanding. But if you are interested in the quantum properties of elementary particles, which particles have 0, ½ or 1 spin, the relationship between quarks and gluons, QED, QCD, field theory and wave functions then you are in the right place. Wilzcek’s explanations are brief and are used as taking off points for philosophical discussions. He also describes some unusual particles. He covers gravitons, since he treats spacetime as a type of “material.” He is a proponent of axions, a particle he named after a laundry detergent. He believes axions could account for dark matter. Most interesting to me were anyons, quasiparticles that have a memory and may be useful in quantum computing. Quasiparticles are derived from standard particles but are embedded in materials where they take on different properties. Then there are photons that take on mass when they enter a superconductor. Wilczek notes the very presence of a photon with mass denotes a superconductor.
The philosophical parts have their moments but his attempts to build broader themes from the physics didn’t really catch on with me. Let’s take complementarity, Bohr’s explanation for why momentum and position can’t be determined at the same time in quantum mechanics. Wilczek describes this in terms of physics then philosophizes it into a general proposition about people trying to hold and act on contradictory beliefs at the same time. He carries this further and further at one point stating, “The complementarity between humility and self-respect is, I believe, the central message of our fundamentals.” I felt this was stretching the idea too far, but I loved Wilczek's Einstein quote.
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ —a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
October 12, 2020
This is a book about fundamental lessons we can learn from a study of the physical world...To me, those fundamental lessons include much more than bare facts about how the physical world works. Those facts are both powerful and strangely beautiful, to be sure. But the style of thought that allowed us to discover them is a great achievement, too. And it’s important to consider what those fundamentals suggest about how we humans fit into the big picture.
In his preface to Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek explains that his aim with this book is to “convey the central messages of modern physics as simply as possible” — and as valiant as his efforts seem to be, and as essentially interesting as I find the material, I’m afraid that these “central messages” conveyed “simply” did strain the limits of my comprehension. This might not be exactly the layman’s general interest science book that I hoped it would be, but Wilczek’s writing is straightforward, often engagingly personal, and he is obviously (and contagiously) filled with awe for what he does more perfectly understand about the underpinnings of reality. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
The complementarity between humility and self-respect is, I believe, the central message of our fundamentals. It recurs as a theme in many variations. The vastness of space dwarfs us, but we contain multitudes of neurons, and, of course, vastly more of the atoms that make up neurons. The span of cosmic history far exceeds a human lifetime, but we have time for immense numbers of thoughts. Cosmic energies transcend what a human commands, but we have ample power to sculpt our local environment and to participate actively in life among other humans. The world is complex beyond our ability to grasp, and rich in mysteries, but we know a lot, and are learning more. Humility is in order, but so is self-respect.
Also in the preface, Wilczek explains that as he “reflected on the material, two overarching themes occurred.” The first theme was abundance (as in the above passage) and the other was the need for humans to be “born again” in order to properly appreciate the universe (meaning to unlearn the separation between the self and the nonself that we all construct as babies). When I first studied Physics in high school, I could picture and work with the planetary model of the atom because it chimes with what is observable out in the universe; likewise, I could comprehend Newton’s explanation for gravity because of course an object falls down to earth because the planet’s mass is greater than that of an apple and exerts a greater force; these early theories of reality make sense to a brain that was trained to deal with the observable universe as filtered through human senses. But Schrodinger eventually replaced Bohr’s planetary model with one based on quantum mechanics, Einstein upended Newton with General Relativity, and modern physicists want to describe reality with mathematical equations instead of something concrete that the human mind can visualise — and I can only follow the math so far (and not leastwise because I resist the idea that all of life and mind and consciousness is an illusion sprung from an accidental area of density in a quantum field).
As for the fundamentals: They include the concepts of abundance (of space and time, matter and energy) and the fact that the universe is made up of very few ingredients, the fact that there are very few fundamental laws that govern them, and that complexity is an emergent quality of the universe’s base reality. So what does this say about humanity’s place in the universe? Early on, Wilczek quotes the ancient Greek philosopher (and first proponent of atomic theory) Democritus as having written in about 400 BC that human sensations are merely conventions, and “in truth there are only atoms and the void.” Turns out, Democritus was only wrong in thinking of atoms as the smallest units of matter.
According to our present best understanding, the primary properties of matter, from which all other properties can be derived, are these three:
Mass Charge Spin
That’s it. From a philosophical perspective, the key takeaways are that there are very few primary properties, and that they are things you can define and measure precisely. And also this: As Democritus anticipated, the connection of the primary properties — the deep structure of reality — to the everyday appearance of things is quite remote. While it seems to me too strong to say that sweet, bitter, hot, cold, and color are “conventions”, it is surely true that it takes quite some doing to trace those things — and the world of everyday experience more generally — to their origins in mass, charge, and spin.
All of matter (including us) is made up of these three properties, but “matter” itself is not the permanent state that we might imagine:
From forces we are led to fields, and from (quantum) fields, we are led to particles. From particles we are led to (quantum) fields, and from fields, we are led to forces. Thus, we come to understand that substance and force are two aspects of a common underlying reality.
And again, what does that mean about us?
Many once mysterious aspects of living things, such as how they derive their energy (metabolism), how they reproduce (heredity), and how they sense their environment (perception), (can now be understood) from the bottom up. For now we understand in considerable detail, how molecules — and ultimately, quarks, gluons, electrons, and photons — manage to accomplish those feats. They are complicated things that matter can do, by following the laws of physics. No more, and no less. These understandings do not subtract from the glory of life. Rather, they magnify the glory of matter.
Ahh, the glory of matter.
Matter, deeply understood, has ample room for minds. And so, also, it can be home to the internal worlds that minds house. There is both majestic simplicity and strange beauty in this unified view of the world. Within it, we must consider ourselves not as unique objects (“souls”), outside of the physical world, but rather as coherent, dynamic patterns in matter. It is an unfamiliar perspective. Were it not so strongly supported by the fundamentals of science, it would seem far-fetched. But it has the virtue of truth. And once embraced, it can come to seem liberating.
So, is there anything special about humans?
A special quality of humans, not shared by evolution or, as yet, by machines, is our ability to recognize gaps in our understanding and to take joy in the process of filling them in. It is a beautiful thing to experience the mysterious, and powerful, too.
I guess that’s something. I did like that Wilczek references many literary works alongside the scientific ones he cites (in particular, he seems to have a love for sci-fi: as with Robert Forward’s Dragon’s Egg or Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John), but the following didn’t quite warm my human heart:
The misery or evil of immortality is a common theme in myth and literature. The intended lesson: When it comes to longevity, be careful what you wish for. Frankly, I think this is sour grapes. The destruction of memory and learning by death is horrifying and wasteful. Extending the healthful human lifespan should be one of the main goals of science.
And I include the following just because it piqued my interest:
There is a quantity, usually written as t, which appears in our fundamental description of how change takes place in the physical world. It is also what people are talking about when they ask, “What time is it?” That is what time is. Time is what clocks measure, and everything that changes is a clock.
Again, I believe that Wilczek achieved what he set out to with Fundamentals, but having not been “born again”, I couldn’t quite get my mind wrapped around everything he laid out here; I seem stubbornly attached to reality as my senses interpret it (I can't help but prefer concepts that are analogous to those things I can see and touch), and more than that, I am stubbornly attached to the idea that there is something special about human consciousness. I do, however, wholeheartedly recommend this book — the ideas are complex but worth trying to understand; this is actually our reality after all.
December 15, 2022
After a slowish start, Wilczek just answered a question I've had since my first physics class: how can a photon be a "massless particle", and still be a high-energy gamma ray? And a question I didn't even know I had: where does all the MASS come from, inside protons & neutrons? Hint: it's not from the proton itself, and those aren't a fundamental particles, something else I didn't know.
Same answer, of course: energy = mass times c-squared! But "the devil is in the details." I still don't really understand how those fast-movng quarks inside the neutrons (etc) can move that FAST, but it works! Else you wouldn't have A-bombs & nuclear power! It's not often a book answers a question I've had for 2/3 of my life!
Good professional review: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outloo...
"With his clear and joyful voice, Wilczek succeeds very well, and for good reason: Your guide is a Nobel laureate who has solved several problems in modern physics, including how the strong nuclear force operates." Which was my lifelong question. Thank you, Dr. Wilczek.
The author talks about his new book and his life in physics: https://www.quantamagazine.org/frank-...
Nice interview, nice photos, interesting life and work. I enjoy his regular science columns at the WSJ.
If you like Wilczek's column at the WSJ (and elsewhere) you will likely like his book too. For me, 3.5 stars, rounded up. As you will see, other's opinions differed!
Same answer, of course: energy = mass times c-squared! But "the devil is in the details." I still don't really understand how those fast-movng quarks inside the neutrons (etc) can move that FAST, but it works! Else you wouldn't have A-bombs & nuclear power! It's not often a book answers a question I've had for 2/3 of my life!
Good professional review: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outloo...
"With his clear and joyful voice, Wilczek succeeds very well, and for good reason: Your guide is a Nobel laureate who has solved several problems in modern physics, including how the strong nuclear force operates." Which was my lifelong question. Thank you, Dr. Wilczek.
The author talks about his new book and his life in physics: https://www.quantamagazine.org/frank-...
Nice interview, nice photos, interesting life and work. I enjoy his regular science columns at the WSJ.
If you like Wilczek's column at the WSJ (and elsewhere) you will likely like his book too. For me, 3.5 stars, rounded up. As you will see, other's opinions differed!
February 22, 2022
Cateva precizari:
- campurile, si nu particulele, sunt componentele fundamentale ale materiei in fizica moderna
- particulele fundamentale sunt apanaje ale acestor campuri (fotonic, electronic etc)
- particulele fundamentele sunt puncte in spatiu-timp fara dimensiune, forma sau structura, insa descrise prin trei proprietati simple: masa, sarcina si spin.
- "materia obisnuita" din care suntem alcatuiti si pe care o intalnim in biologie. chimie si geologie e alcatuita din doar cinci particule fundamentale: foton, electron, cuarc up, cuarc down si gluon.
- campurile, si nu particulele, sunt componentele fundamentale ale materiei in fizica moderna
- particulele fundamentale sunt apanaje ale acestor campuri (fotonic, electronic etc)
- particulele fundamentele sunt puncte in spatiu-timp fara dimensiune, forma sau structura, insa descrise prin trei proprietati simple: masa, sarcina si spin.
- "materia obisnuita" din care suntem alcatuiti si pe care o intalnim in biologie. chimie si geologie e alcatuita din doar cinci particule fundamentale: foton, electron, cuarc up, cuarc down si gluon.
January 27, 2021
I read this book based upon a good review in the Wall Street Journal. I consider my knowledge of science to be above average. However, I found this book to be chaotic and frustrating. It almost seemed like trying to follow the author's stream of consciousness. He brought up all kinds of things that are related, but didn't make connections among them. I also felt like there were times that I knew he was using English, but nothing he said made any sense. Maybe I'm just a dolt, but I wouldn't recommend the book.
March 27, 2021
Compact statements about the universe and ultimately what it means to the part of the universe that has become self-aware to such a degree where we can take a stand on our own understanding about the universe and ask what makes up the universe itself?
A compact statement from within this book: the universe is made up of the void and atoms, or in other words space-time and things, and even more compactly things at their fundamental nature must have three properties, mass, charge, and spin. Everything that is a thing is made up of fundamental particles which have those three properties.
This book was made up of such fundamental assertions which related our current understanding with how to really think about the four fundamental forces of nature with fields and matter such that the zoo of particles seemed to make sense at least for how long I was reading this book.
I have no idea how somebody would review this book negatively. Though I do think the book misfires on its main theme of one must be ‘born-again’ and see the world with new eyes as a child does, but where the book really succeeds is in giving the reader the connections that are inherent with modern day physics such that the reader can deconvolve QED, QCD, gravity and weak forces and the particles that constitute the universe and understand at a level that anyone can appreciate. My only criticism would be a picayune criticism and that is when he referred to Soren Kierkegaard as a ‘mystic and a philosopher’, the author did that when he mentioned Niels Bohr was influenced by Kierkegaard. That just seemed so different from how I would have described Kierkegaard.
Overall there was a complete package of how one should consider our current best understanding about the universe and what it is and provides clever ways to think about the void and the atoms, or space-time and matter.
A compact statement from within this book: the universe is made up of the void and atoms, or in other words space-time and things, and even more compactly things at their fundamental nature must have three properties, mass, charge, and spin. Everything that is a thing is made up of fundamental particles which have those three properties.
This book was made up of such fundamental assertions which related our current understanding with how to really think about the four fundamental forces of nature with fields and matter such that the zoo of particles seemed to make sense at least for how long I was reading this book.
I have no idea how somebody would review this book negatively. Though I do think the book misfires on its main theme of one must be ‘born-again’ and see the world with new eyes as a child does, but where the book really succeeds is in giving the reader the connections that are inherent with modern day physics such that the reader can deconvolve QED, QCD, gravity and weak forces and the particles that constitute the universe and understand at a level that anyone can appreciate. My only criticism would be a picayune criticism and that is when he referred to Soren Kierkegaard as a ‘mystic and a philosopher’, the author did that when he mentioned Niels Bohr was influenced by Kierkegaard. That just seemed so different from how I would have described Kierkegaard.
Overall there was a complete package of how one should consider our current best understanding about the universe and what it is and provides clever ways to think about the void and the atoms, or space-time and matter.
December 30, 2021
Not a good read - there are some good explanations but many sentences, especially when the author tried to extend physics content, make little sense.
March 11, 2021
This book is anything but it’s title. I have also read Jim Al Kalili’s book and felt it developed theories from the bottom upwards which is much more useful to a non-physicist like me.
I found Wilzcek’s book chaotic and his thinking tangential. Jumping into grand theories without the use of analogies or metaphors to explain them well. Then suddenly summarising and attempting to link the theories to everyday technology without a bridge.
A disordered, chaotic and frustrating read indeed.
I found Wilzcek’s book chaotic and his thinking tangential. Jumping into grand theories without the use of analogies or metaphors to explain them well. Then suddenly summarising and attempting to link the theories to everyday technology without a bridge.
A disordered, chaotic and frustrating read indeed.
Want to read
February 19, 2022TBR quote Frank Wilczek Nobel laureate physicist, mathematician "cast a wide net don't try to understand everything before you understand anything, pay attention to the foundations learn calculus soon as possible, be curious and have fun"
January 21, 2021
tries too hard to be accessible
February 21, 2024
I have to agree with NYT book review that Wilczek (a Nobel prize winner) “writes with breathtaking economy and clarity”. For example, the explanation of dark matter and dark energy is clear enough (to us laymen) and omits the complexity that will confuse us. He summarizes the current understanding of physics: vast space-time, a few fundamental particles, a few well tested physical laws, and plenty of matter/energy form our universe. He even manages to cover free will and did a fantastic job at it!
February 28, 2021
Mediocre. Although the author's column in the WSJ is very good, this book did not have a well-defined audience. I would NOT recommend this book to anyone
Read
March 20, 2022I got top grades in physics in college but found this book rather a slog. Too many books out there that appeal to me more to persist.
August 27, 2021
Beautiful.
Fundamentals, is one of those books where the most difficult themes from Cosmology and Theorethical Physics are mentioned but you get the feeling is not so difficult to understand.
Wilczek explains in a general way main or "fundamental" concepts that let human beings explain the world and nature. He mentions them, starting from ancient greeks, to Newton and Einstein, and also briefly mentions the Standard Model for Elementary Particles. The book does not get difficult by explaning every single thing related to elementary particles but concepts that let people understand the concept behind the math.
I'd recommend it to people with a background reading these kind of books.. sometimes it feels like we need a more detailed explanation to comprehend it as a whole.
There are amazing things concerning this book, specially when he starts talking about Dark Matter, Dark Energy and AI.
Fundamentals, is one of those books where the most difficult themes from Cosmology and Theorethical Physics are mentioned but you get the feeling is not so difficult to understand.
Wilczek explains in a general way main or "fundamental" concepts that let human beings explain the world and nature. He mentions them, starting from ancient greeks, to Newton and Einstein, and also briefly mentions the Standard Model for Elementary Particles. The book does not get difficult by explaning every single thing related to elementary particles but concepts that let people understand the concept behind the math.
I'd recommend it to people with a background reading these kind of books.. sometimes it feels like we need a more detailed explanation to comprehend it as a whole.
There are amazing things concerning this book, specially when he starts talking about Dark Matter, Dark Energy and AI.
July 1, 2021
This is another way to look at the elephant.
The blind men had different ideas about the elephant. And the Universe is a very big elephant. So it's natural that today's physicists have different ideas about the nature of reality.
I enjoy the works of Carlo Rovelli, Brian Greene, and Lisa Randall, all of whom cover this same territory -- from elementary particles to galaxies, and from the beginning to the end of time.
I found Helgoland by Rovelli particularly compelling with its concept that everything is connected to everything. But the works of these four articulate physicists are complementary. As Wilczek notes (p. 218), "Different, even incompatiable, ways of analyzing the same thing can offer valid insights." Don't settle for one. Read them all.
I take issue with Wilczek's basic and unfounded assumption that "one finds the same sorts of substances, organized in the same sortsof ways, spread uniformly over the visible universe, in vast abundance." p. 22 And again on p. 109"... we conclude that the same laws operate upon the same basic materials everywhere in the universe and throughout its history."
He's a Platonist, with with faith in the power of "ideas." "To experience the deep harmony between two different universes -- the universe of beautiful ideas and the universe of physical behavior was for me a spiritual awakening." p. 76. He glories in the fact that at major junctures in the advance of science, the big new idea has come before the evidence that "proves" it.
It will be interesting to see if the pace of discovery speeds of slows when computer intelligence starts making discoveries by brute force, without the guidance of ideas, unfettered by notions of beauty and simplicity.
Nevertheless, this book is well-populated with well-stated, inspiring insights, such as:
"Can we consider 'empty space' itself to be a material, whose quasiparticles are our 'elementary particles.'?" p 90
"...the division of experience into internal and external worlds comes to seem superficial." p. 226
The blind men had different ideas about the elephant. And the Universe is a very big elephant. So it's natural that today's physicists have different ideas about the nature of reality.
I enjoy the works of Carlo Rovelli, Brian Greene, and Lisa Randall, all of whom cover this same territory -- from elementary particles to galaxies, and from the beginning to the end of time.
I found Helgoland by Rovelli particularly compelling with its concept that everything is connected to everything. But the works of these four articulate physicists are complementary. As Wilczek notes (p. 218), "Different, even incompatiable, ways of analyzing the same thing can offer valid insights." Don't settle for one. Read them all.
I take issue with Wilczek's basic and unfounded assumption that "one finds the same sorts of substances, organized in the same sortsof ways, spread uniformly over the visible universe, in vast abundance." p. 22 And again on p. 109"... we conclude that the same laws operate upon the same basic materials everywhere in the universe and throughout its history."
He's a Platonist, with with faith in the power of "ideas." "To experience the deep harmony between two different universes -- the universe of beautiful ideas and the universe of physical behavior was for me a spiritual awakening." p. 76. He glories in the fact that at major junctures in the advance of science, the big new idea has come before the evidence that "proves" it.
It will be interesting to see if the pace of discovery speeds of slows when computer intelligence starts making discoveries by brute force, without the guidance of ideas, unfettered by notions of beauty and simplicity.
Nevertheless, this book is well-populated with well-stated, inspiring insights, such as:
"Can we consider 'empty space' itself to be a material, whose quasiparticles are our 'elementary particles.'?" p 90
"...the division of experience into internal and external worlds comes to seem superficial." p. 226
January 25, 2021
More elementary than expected
This is a beautifully written book, though more elementary than I expected. No math! No math at all! The author does a good job of presenting the standard model and the Big Bang model as simply as can be done, and highlights how elegantly they, together, explain much of what we know about the universe. If you've never read anything at all about quantum mechanics or the origin of the universe, this would be a good place to get the big picture. But the book was flawed, for me, by occasional forays into philosophy. Wilczek is a proponent of strict materialism. This means that for him, physics explains not just the physical world, but all that exists. So, humans are nothing more than random collections of elementary particles obeying the laws of quantum mechanics. When you think, "I'm going to move my hand," the "I" is just an illusion. There is no "you," there are just atoms, energy, and time. The writings of Shakespeare? Just the accidental output of random clicks on a keyboard, if you keep pecking at the keyboard long enough. There are enormous philosophical and mathematical problems to this viewpoint, but they are simply ignored, and the author's strict materialism presented as the mature, adult viewpoint. It is a little condescending. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read, especially the view of the atom that replaces protons and neutrons with quarks and gluons. Science has come a long way from my high school and college days! It's fun to look back at the journey.
This is a beautifully written book, though more elementary than I expected. No math! No math at all! The author does a good job of presenting the standard model and the Big Bang model as simply as can be done, and highlights how elegantly they, together, explain much of what we know about the universe. If you've never read anything at all about quantum mechanics or the origin of the universe, this would be a good place to get the big picture. But the book was flawed, for me, by occasional forays into philosophy. Wilczek is a proponent of strict materialism. This means that for him, physics explains not just the physical world, but all that exists. So, humans are nothing more than random collections of elementary particles obeying the laws of quantum mechanics. When you think, "I'm going to move my hand," the "I" is just an illusion. There is no "you," there are just atoms, energy, and time. The writings of Shakespeare? Just the accidental output of random clicks on a keyboard, if you keep pecking at the keyboard long enough. There are enormous philosophical and mathematical problems to this viewpoint, but they are simply ignored, and the author's strict materialism presented as the mature, adult viewpoint. It is a little condescending. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read, especially the view of the atom that replaces protons and neutrons with quarks and gluons. Science has come a long way from my high school and college days! It's fun to look back at the journey.
September 23, 2023
READ THIS BOOK!!!! frank wilczek treats physics gently, thoroughly, and poetically. he goes into detail but always brings it back to the progression of science or the ways in which we ordinarily interact with the world. his explanations were confident and he stressed that we know a lot, but he also was not hesitant to note places where we lack knowledge or don't know the answers. his writing is also eloquent and beautiful. the ending of this book has changed my view of the universe and my place in it irrevocably-- he concludes with a thought that's not unfamiliar, but comes to it through physics in a way that is beautiful, logical, and compassionate. this book literally made me cry. a PHYSICS book that made me cry. if anyone else feels like physics is your spirituality (as in the search for meaning in your life is guided by your search for knowledge and understanding of our universe), then seriously read this book.
January 24, 2021
Masterpiece
A difficult, and beautiful book with a huge scope. Wilczek is brilliant and it takes work to keep up. However, the payoff is worth it. I will be thinking about this text for many years to come.
A difficult, and beautiful book with a huge scope. Wilczek is brilliant and it takes work to keep up. However, the payoff is worth it. I will be thinking about this text for many years to come.
March 15, 2021
extremely disappointing -- seemed more like a rambling memoir, than a book about science. And the section trying to explain the difference (or perhaps the similarity, who knows?) between particles and fields was HORRIBLE!
May 24, 2021
Фізика та філософія разом, дуже глибока книга, багато авторських роздумів та несподіваного погляду на фундаментальні засади реальності. Не дуже підійде для розваги та первинного просвітництва. Але при тому читається дуже легко, все викладено інтелектуально, але не "академічно".
Read
November 20, 2021Схоже що матерія і математика "на папері" це одне й те ж саме
February 8, 2022
Libro fantástico. Explica de una forma amena aquello difícil de entender.
July 31, 2021
"A human being is part of a whole, called the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us. "
Albert Einstein
This book released in January 2021, and i think it will be a best seller in few months
The past is never dead. It’s not even past. The cosmic past is never dead. It leaves relics, which we can observe today. The cosmic past is not even past. Thanks to the finite speed of light, when we receive light from far away it carries the past to us. with the past we began to understand our world and Yesterday’s sensation is today’s calibration tomorrow’s background
So we come to reconsider the division of experience into internal and external worlds. The fundamentals of science have taught us a lot about what matter is. We know that matter is built up from a few kinds of building blocks, whose properties and behavior we understand in detail. And we know, from direct experience, that scientists and engineers can use such knowledge to make impressive creations. my Phone allow me to communicate instantly with friends around the globe, and tap into humanity’s accumulated knowledge.
We have learned, too, that the special objects we recognize as other people, are made from the same sort of matter as the rest of the world. Many once-mysterious aspects of living things, such as how they derive their energy (metabolism), how they reproduce (heredity), and how they sense their environment (perception), we can now understand from the bottom up. Because we now understand, in considerable detail, how molecules —and ultimately, quarks, gluons, electrons, and photons—manage to accomplish those feats. They are complicated things that matter can do, by following the laws of physics. No more, and no less.
Frank has divided reality into 10 fundamentals:
The first five fundamentals have described the basic ingredients of physical reality: space, time, fields, laws, and dynamic complexity. They addressed “what there is.”
The next two fundamentals addressed to “how it got this way.” however i found the explication difficult and dedicated to only Physicians.
The last three chapters are what am really looking for, a plenty of visiones , definitions and perspectives...
Frank Wilczek try to find harmony between art and science, philosophy and science, religion A and religion B and religion + science. He often go back to Plato, to Saint Augustine, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell—to converse with great minds, and to practice thinking differently.
Albert Einstein
This book released in January 2021, and i think it will be a best seller in few months
The past is never dead. It’s not even past. The cosmic past is never dead. It leaves relics, which we can observe today. The cosmic past is not even past. Thanks to the finite speed of light, when we receive light from far away it carries the past to us. with the past we began to understand our world and Yesterday’s sensation is today’s calibration tomorrow’s background
So we come to reconsider the division of experience into internal and external worlds. The fundamentals of science have taught us a lot about what matter is. We know that matter is built up from a few kinds of building blocks, whose properties and behavior we understand in detail. And we know, from direct experience, that scientists and engineers can use such knowledge to make impressive creations. my Phone allow me to communicate instantly with friends around the globe, and tap into humanity’s accumulated knowledge.
We have learned, too, that the special objects we recognize as other people, are made from the same sort of matter as the rest of the world. Many once-mysterious aspects of living things, such as how they derive their energy (metabolism), how they reproduce (heredity), and how they sense their environment (perception), we can now understand from the bottom up. Because we now understand, in considerable detail, how molecules —and ultimately, quarks, gluons, electrons, and photons—manage to accomplish those feats. They are complicated things that matter can do, by following the laws of physics. No more, and no less.
Frank has divided reality into 10 fundamentals:
The first five fundamentals have described the basic ingredients of physical reality: space, time, fields, laws, and dynamic complexity. They addressed “what there is.”
The next two fundamentals addressed to “how it got this way.” however i found the explication difficult and dedicated to only Physicians.
The last three chapters are what am really looking for, a plenty of visiones , definitions and perspectives...
Frank Wilczek try to find harmony between art and science, philosophy and science, religion A and religion B and religion + science. He often go back to Plato, to Saint Augustine, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell—to converse with great minds, and to practice thinking differently.
October 31, 2022
I am not an expert- far from it, so please read this review as a collection of loose ramblings by a complete non-expert who loves to read research on the topic.
This text is rather uneven. Some of it contains extreme fundamentals and oversimplifications, and some of it is newer and more interesting, especially in the second part. There are things that I really like about the text, and things I found as inexcusable omissions.
I like how Wilczek encompasses us, humans, as an integral part of the universe. We are not separate from the universe, just the opposite, by ‘observing the world, we participate in making it’ (Chapter 10). We also contain multitudes of cells more abundant than the stars in galaxies, and by sheer number of thoughts and physiological processes that go on in us during a lifetime we rival the universe in complexity. This wonder is one of the better messages of the book.
A very clear presentation on of the elementary particles is another feature of the book that I found very well done. But this one is not without reservations. Oversimplification is most probably to blame here. At the very beginning, Wilczek says he is not going to present hypothetical knowledge as truth in the book, and yet, he does just that. He presents both graviton and axion (elementary particles of respectively gravity and dark matter) as if they were reality and fact, without any qualifications. Moreover, he uses the royal ‘we’ to present them, as if all physicists agreed on them. It’s even more inexcusable from a specialist on elementary particles with a Nobel prize bagged for the work on them. He should have qualified the statements on them. It should have said that by all accounts they are still hypothetical! Nowhere in the text does he say that this is his view of reality, and not the only one around.
Another inexcusable, in my opinion, omission is presenting ‘locality’ as the only fundamental feature of the universe. Nowhere in the text is it said that experiments on the elementary particles suggest that ‘non- locality’ is ALSO its fundamental feature with which we have to contend. It’s interesting because the 2022 Nobel prize in physics was given just for that - proving that non-locality exists. I understand that Wilczek is presenting the standard model here, it he should at least mention that there are others that people are working on.
So, as Wilczek says in the footnotes, ‘‘But if relativity , quantum mechanics , or locality is wrong , we've got a lot of unlearning to do , because those principles work well and explain a lot.’
And so we do, but you wouldn’t know it by just reading his book.
This text is rather uneven. Some of it contains extreme fundamentals and oversimplifications, and some of it is newer and more interesting, especially in the second part. There are things that I really like about the text, and things I found as inexcusable omissions.
I like how Wilczek encompasses us, humans, as an integral part of the universe. We are not separate from the universe, just the opposite, by ‘observing the world, we participate in making it’ (Chapter 10). We also contain multitudes of cells more abundant than the stars in galaxies, and by sheer number of thoughts and physiological processes that go on in us during a lifetime we rival the universe in complexity. This wonder is one of the better messages of the book.
A very clear presentation on of the elementary particles is another feature of the book that I found very well done. But this one is not without reservations. Oversimplification is most probably to blame here. At the very beginning, Wilczek says he is not going to present hypothetical knowledge as truth in the book, and yet, he does just that. He presents both graviton and axion (elementary particles of respectively gravity and dark matter) as if they were reality and fact, without any qualifications. Moreover, he uses the royal ‘we’ to present them, as if all physicists agreed on them. It’s even more inexcusable from a specialist on elementary particles with a Nobel prize bagged for the work on them. He should have qualified the statements on them. It should have said that by all accounts they are still hypothetical! Nowhere in the text does he say that this is his view of reality, and not the only one around.
Another inexcusable, in my opinion, omission is presenting ‘locality’ as the only fundamental feature of the universe. Nowhere in the text is it said that experiments on the elementary particles suggest that ‘non- locality’ is ALSO its fundamental feature with which we have to contend. It’s interesting because the 2022 Nobel prize in physics was given just for that - proving that non-locality exists. I understand that Wilczek is presenting the standard model here, it he should at least mention that there are others that people are working on.
So, as Wilczek says in the footnotes, ‘‘But if relativity , quantum mechanics , or locality is wrong , we've got a lot of unlearning to do , because those principles work well and explain a lot.’
And so we do, but you wouldn’t know it by just reading his book.
June 12, 2022
The book does an amazing job of telling a coherent and beautifully organized account of how modern physics understands the universe. While reading the book, at every stage, I was awed by the depth and beauty of what we have been able to achieve in a matter of a few hundred years of science. Born with extremely limited ability to sense the world around us, being stuck in one corner of an unremarkable galaxy, and gifted with a tiny mass of tissue we call the brain, we could create such a detailed and far-reaching view of the universal laws. What we created are not just fanciful stories but rigorous descriptions of the reality that are incredibly self-consistent and can withstand the onslaught of millions of experimental observations. Any person who ignores this feat of human intellect is missing out on one of the most profound things we can experience. Unfortunately, a huge fraction of humanity, perhaps most of us, chooses to remain poor and ignorant, and let this spectacle pass us by.
The only thing I had a hard time accepting is when the author tries to justify the coexistence of the spiritual view and the scientific view in terms of the principle of complementarity. I would not try to explain this view in the small space of this note but would love to have a conversation with someone who can defend this view.
The only thing I had a hard time accepting is when the author tries to justify the coexistence of the spiritual view and the scientific view in terms of the principle of complementarity. I would not try to explain this view in the small space of this note but would love to have a conversation with someone who can defend this view.
June 12, 2021
I want to thank Frank Wilczek for ending his book with my favorite Einstein Quote:
‘A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self.’
I first read saw this quote in a book on Chan Buddhism and that says more about the spirit of this book than it does ‘Exploring Chan’.
Thanks also for clearly explaining the cosmological constant and complementarity (I can’t think of a worse name for a fascinating concept).
‘A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self.’
I first read saw this quote in a book on Chan Buddhism and that says more about the spirit of this book than it does ‘Exploring Chan’.
Thanks also for clearly explaining the cosmological constant and complementarity (I can’t think of a worse name for a fascinating concept).
April 23, 2021
This is a book by a Nobel prize winning physicist offering ten keys to help in understanding the world in a manner consistent with the current frontier is physics. Our typical approach’s to living in the world and thinking on the basis of common sense wisdom is helpful to us for addressing everyday concerns but fail when considering natural phenomena the range outside of our normal experiences. Professor Wilczek offers ten “fundamentals” upon which we can build a view of nature consistent with what we have been learning about the universe lately - which is quite a lot. I moved away from science earlier in my education and early career so I will not attempt to present examples - not even about “quarks” - the book is far more effective in talking about science to a general audience than I could ever be.
It is an increasing problem today that important changes in society, economics, and government policies depend on an appreciation of contemporary science that a large majority of readers lack. If you want an example, just look up research on the pandemic and vaccines to fight it. There is, of course, no requirement that everyone studies science. Nor is there sufficient public support or sufficient resources to make such improved education feasible. But how can we have a constructive debate on how society can and should operate when a large portion of the population fails to appreciate even the basic mechanics of the world? This is not only true for big time physics but also for finance and securities markets, medicine, data sciences, and communications. “Rule by experts” is not the answer, but at least a minimally informed public seems to be necessary society to work as planned and for the center to hold.
...but I digress...
“Fundamentals” is one of the latest additions to the genre of works trying to explain some really complicated science to a broader less informed public in a way that both educates and entertains. We all know other examples of the genre, for example Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”. If I include economics among the sciences, one could add Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (and its recent follow-up) to the list. These books have been around for a while. Two of my favorites from the 1970s are “Godel, Escher, Bach” by Douglas Hofstadter and “The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian Jaynes. All of these have been part of the annual competition for best unread and unreadable coffee table book. The one exception to this characterization would be Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (2011), which summarizes and translates but which also contributes to further discussions.
I hope Professor Wilczek’s book finds a broad and persistent market. It is interesting, accessible, and well written. It is also fairly short and one can work through it quickly. It deserves more than to be a coffee table book. I hope the author produces more work like this and strongly recommend the book.
It is an increasing problem today that important changes in society, economics, and government policies depend on an appreciation of contemporary science that a large majority of readers lack. If you want an example, just look up research on the pandemic and vaccines to fight it. There is, of course, no requirement that everyone studies science. Nor is there sufficient public support or sufficient resources to make such improved education feasible. But how can we have a constructive debate on how society can and should operate when a large portion of the population fails to appreciate even the basic mechanics of the world? This is not only true for big time physics but also for finance and securities markets, medicine, data sciences, and communications. “Rule by experts” is not the answer, but at least a minimally informed public seems to be necessary society to work as planned and for the center to hold.
...but I digress...
“Fundamentals” is one of the latest additions to the genre of works trying to explain some really complicated science to a broader less informed public in a way that both educates and entertains. We all know other examples of the genre, for example Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”. If I include economics among the sciences, one could add Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (and its recent follow-up) to the list. These books have been around for a while. Two of my favorites from the 1970s are “Godel, Escher, Bach” by Douglas Hofstadter and “The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian Jaynes. All of these have been part of the annual competition for best unread and unreadable coffee table book. The one exception to this characterization would be Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (2011), which summarizes and translates but which also contributes to further discussions.
I hope Professor Wilczek’s book finds a broad and persistent market. It is interesting, accessible, and well written. It is also fairly short and one can work through it quickly. It deserves more than to be a coffee table book. I hope the author produces more work like this and strongly recommend the book.
July 24, 2021
An excellent overview of the fundamental elements of reality. Wilczek gave brief but fairly comprehensive descriptions of the fundamentals of reality, giving each a short chapter. He first talked about space and explained not only how large the universe is but also the incomprehensible amount of space in the very small subatomic scale. He next talked about time, a concept that is difficult to explain but something that has the same degree of scale as space. His next chapter was on the ingredients of reality which, in spite of the enormity of types of matter that exist, can be explained by electrons, photons, quarks and gluons. In this chapter he talked about "holes" that are a class of quasi-particals that I had never heard of before but evidently are used in transistors and electronics in general. The next chapter was about the laws of nature and then the next chapter, to complete the fundamentals, is about the abundance of matter and energy. The last half of the book explains how everything came together and how complexity emerged. He then talks about some of the concepts that are yet to be explained and some of the mysteries that still exist. There's an awful lot of information in this fairly small book but very nicely presented by Wilczek.
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