Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics.

WILCZEK, Frank and Betsy Devine.

$225.00

Item Number: 62094

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.

First edition of this “uncommon and uncommonly good exposition of contemporary quantum physics” (Kirkus Reviews). Octavo, original boards. Signed by Frank Wilczek on the title page with a small drawing. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Karl Steinbrenner.

Devoted to sharing their own delight and awe before the fundamental mysteries of the cosmos, Frank Wilczek (winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics) and science writer Betsy Devine also have a serious purpose: to reveal to the lay reader how a heightened perception can respond to timeless themes of the physical universe. For example, they show that even the most exotic theories always confirm that physical laws are precisely the same throughout the universe, and they explain how we have learned that the most massive molten stars and the tiniest frozen particles are in physical harmony. In their descriptions of the workings of the half-known universe, Wilczek and Devine bring all of us face to face with the beauty of eternal order and the inevitability of rational ends and beginnings. "Occasionally, there comes along a popular science book that both scientists and non-scientist can read with pleasure and profit, and this is one" (The New Yorker).