The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything

This was a excellent book. I find the title to be somewhat misleading, but it does fit. The book goes through the history of physics and all of the mathematical discoveries that have lead to string theory and how they all fit together. It is very fascinating to learn the history of all of physics and how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together by some of the greatest physicists. The author also talks about how it cannot be proven and is not definitive, but mathematically it is the best solution we currently have. Very good book.

I thank you Mr. Kaku for sharing your knowledge and special insight into the world of physics. Not a math major myself so the information was shared in a wonderful way that I could understand and now I will look at some of those equations to increase my mathematical understanding. Sincere best wishes and hopefully many more books to come.

This is a great book about the quest for a theory to unify the forces of gravity, the electromagnetic force, and both strong and weak nuclear forces. It carries up back and forth between past investigations and discoveries as well as more recent (and current) ones. It’s done in a cohesive way, as Kaku is wont to do.What is different about this book than others I’ve read from him is that even though I still can’t usually wrap my head around the content, it’s a very quick read. With others, I’ve had to parse through the content and sit with it, but with this I’ve been able to breeze through. The endnotes mostly consist of works cited, but some add on to the information. I really like the figures Kaku includes too.Some of the history involves Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Shrödinger, and many others. Some history with Galileo is wrong, so I took some of the “facts” of the others at arms length--but the gist of the content is what matters. Then we (OK us non-physicists) learn how Newton’s and Maxwell’s equations are actually incompatible with each other; contradictions.Most of advanced science is done with indirect evidence that can be described/explained mathematically. And in fact, the notion “that symmetry is not just frivolous window dressing to a theory, but in fact is an essential feature that indicates some deep, underlying physical principle about the universe” is integral in developing scientific equations and theories.Those are beautiful words (1. <u>Unification</i>; ‘What is Symmetry?’)Here are other notes I jotted down as I read:- Einstein’s 4D Pythagorean Theorem blew my mind. So did his understanding of acceleration and gravity having the same effect on an object, depending on your frame of reference. This allowed him to disprove advanced Newtonian physics, giving rise to quantum theory.- Kaku describe how quanta allow us to know things like the temperature of the sun--and just what quanta are!- Dirac combined Einstein's relativity with Shrödinger’s equation, beautifying the latter (by making it symmetric). He therefore proved that symmetry is fundamental in explaining the universe.- Quantum theory means accepting the fact that observation determines existence, and that we can’t determine the future. This caused an uproar in the 1930s and ‘40s--for what then even is science if pure observation is needed?- There is some very interesting information on the spectrograph.- German physicists fled during WWII, but Hitler wanted German superiority in the guise of nuclear weapons. Thus the Manhattan Project came about.- Einstein believed in a unified field theory but struggled a lot. At some point renormalization theory came about, which I struggled to understand. Yet quantum physics paved the way for X-rays and the Human Genome Project.- Kaku explains how various equations evolved yet maintained symmetry, leading to new and more discoveries.But sometimes symmetry needs to be broken. Physicists realized we needed a so-called God equation that shows how the Big Bang broke the symmetry of particles; an equation that combines the Standard Model (fully developed in the early 2010s) with general relativity.- There are two types of black holes.- A lot of knowledge came from applying quantum theory to gravity, leading to the notions of wormholes and time travel. This also explains how Hawking became a more modern Einstein.- Logic dictates a finite universe. Religion can as well. There is an indication that physics are atheists, but later on Kaku implicitly clarifies that if everyone needs to agree on something, then religion has to be set aside for the moment.- He explains how string [field] theory developed...and its supersymmetry. This might be able to be tested at some point in the future, beyond the LHC. Because with each analysis of string theory, new mathematics is being discovered and developed.

What I love about this book is it led me thru the entire history of physics. I always am interested in the topics of quantum physics and such but there are too many books out there and i don't know where to start. So this book is RECOMMENDED for beginners. I never read a book twice but I definitely read this book many more times.

Prof. Kaku remains true to scientific principles.Written for every person, it is comprehensible by most. A pleasant tour of the most advanced theories.

This book an interesting look at the search for a successful equation to the Theory of Everything. This was Einstein’s failed attempt to solve the mystery of the Universe. Michio Kaku looks examines the history of greatest scientists and how they contributed to this unsolved problem from Newton to Hawking. I am interested in his string theory which seeks to solve the mystery. I enjoyed his theoretical approach. Quantum Theory is fascinating but mind boggling!

This is my absolute favorite book! Not only does world renowned physicist Michio Kaku mention what the purpose of the God Equation is but also how we can get there and what human kind has already done. This book gives me hope that we will find the solution at some point. This is also fairly easy to read if you don’t understand the topic that well. Totally recommend!

Michio Kaku is a renowned theoretical physicist and an excellent popularizer of science and especially physics. I love reading his books including this one. If you have read his other books you will not find much new in this book. On the other hand, it is an easy to read summary of physics, the history of physics, quantum physics and eventually string theory. The focus is on the search for the theory of everything or as some call it “the God Equation”.I found chapter 6 (there are 7 chapters) “Rise of String Theory Promise and Problems” to be very enlightening and honest. He explains string theory very well in layman’s terms and gives us the truth about the hype and the disappointments but also hope regarding where string theory and M-theory might take us. He gives us his view of the promises of string theory and he explains why we should not write it off just because it is difficult to experimentally verify. He convinced me, but it may take time before we will know whether string theory is the path forward.His explanations are lucid, modest and it was a fun read. However, personally I was expecting something a little bit “deeper”, and I don’t think it is his best book, so not five stars from me, but I still enjoyed it.

Book is written more to let promote Kaku than to address a real scientific progress

Nicely explains developments in classical physics and other fields included with it.

muito bom. explica bem os conceitos

Super good book

A good interesting read. Unconvinced by string theory. Way more evidence needed and it still feels like the demand to find a theory for everything is driving a belief beyond reasonable proof.