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A review by lauraborkpower
Why Does E=mc2 and Why Should We Care by Jeffrey R. Forshaw, Brian Cox
3.0
It's appropriate that this is the last book I read during 2013: I came into the reading year with a flerph by way of Joseph Citro's Lake Monsters (flerph = lazy raspberry) and I've gone out with a fizzle.
Now, to be fair, this fizzle is not because of Cox and Forshaw's book, which is interesting and very well read. The fizzle is because this book is so very over my head, and because I made the mistake of pausing for about a week when I was a couple of hours into it. That meant that all of the math formulas and physics the authors had laid the foundation for in the first few chapters were well and good out of my head. And then, once I picked it back up, I never really caught back up with the material.
The history of physics and math did stick, as did some of the early principles, like the impossibility of absolute time and motion. And what did stick was, in all truthfulness, so super cool. But either Cox and Forshaw gave me more credit than I deserved by saying that readers needed only a rudimentary knowledge of math, or I did myself the worst disservice by listening to this instead of reading a hard copy. I'll try to re-read this, which will be easy since it's short, and since Forshaw, who narrates this book, sounds quite a bit like Neil Gaiman, and that is very nice to listen to.
Now, to be fair, this fizzle is not because of Cox and Forshaw's book, which is interesting and very well read. The fizzle is because this book is so very over my head, and because I made the mistake of pausing for about a week when I was a couple of hours into it. That meant that all of the math formulas and physics the authors had laid the foundation for in the first few chapters were well and good out of my head. And then, once I picked it back up, I never really caught back up with the material.
The history of physics and math did stick, as did some of the early principles, like the impossibility of absolute time and motion. And what did stick was, in all truthfulness, so super cool. But either Cox and Forshaw gave me more credit than I deserved by saying that readers needed only a rudimentary knowledge of math, or I did myself the worst disservice by listening to this instead of reading a hard copy. I'll try to re-read this, which will be easy since it's short, and since Forshaw, who narrates this book, sounds quite a bit like Neil Gaiman, and that is very nice to listen to.