The Quest for Unity: The Adventure of Physics

According to French physicists Klein and Lachi ze-Rey, the desire to find similarities among seemingly disparate phenomena has long formed the backbone of scientific inquiry. To prove their point, the authors survey history--from the ancient Greek fascination with primordial elements to today's search for the Theory of Everything--to demonstrate the integral role of unity to the scientific method. Throughout the book, they exhibit an unusual ability to honor the claims of both holists, who see reductionism as a form of life-denying asceticism, and zealots, who believe the universe can be described in four equations. However, the authors themselves often fail to properly balance the abstract and the specific. Many of the book's sections are too cursory and lack all-important context, so they only make sense to readers already familiar with the field. Typical of this problem is the discussion of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox: the authors rigorously develop EPR in logical and philosophical terms--a novel tack--but the absence of any example of the paradox at work leaves the reader grappling for better understanding. Klein and Lachi ze-Rey do help illuminate the way ideas in physics evolve, but their hit-or-miss execution makes their argument at once unwieldy and incomplete. This small volume is really an extended essay, awkward in its execution despite the provocative ideas on which it touches. (May)