The Lightness of Being

"With a command of both concept and language that few can rival, [Wilczek] weaves witty commentary into eloquent explanations. Heavy on physics but light on math, this book offers an accessible though sophisticated look at the central ideas of modern physics."--SEED "Wilczek successfully documents the great discoveries, ideas, and mysteries of our universe.... [T]he author uses nontechnical language that is devoid of mathematics and theoretical proofs and that is rich in personal reflection and historical context."--Library Journal "Wilczek possesses a compelling writing style.... The beauty of the intellectual leaps, the grandness of the discovery, are palpable. Making the reader feel engaged and conceptually informed is no small feat for a book on advanced science."--St. Petersburg Times "Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against 'the Grid, ' Wilczek's term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections."--Booklist "Wilczek can write with wit, grace, and an uncanny facility for using lightweight language to express heavy-duty ideas."--Physics Today "Want to know what it's all about? Here's a book that candidly tells you what 'it' is. And just about everything you thought about 'it' is wrong. Accessible, charming and cheeky, "The Lightness of Being" reveals a universe where matter is the hum of strange music, mass doesn't weigh, and empty space is a multilayered, multicolored superconductor."--K.C. Cole, author of Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos "Vintage Wilczek--fun, simple and right."--Robert Laughlin, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University "This book is deep, simple and incredibly well-written. Starting from the nature of mass, Professor Wilczek leads the reader to an understanding of the most profound ideas and accomplishments in physics today."--T.D. Lee, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Columbia University "Read Wilczek's book...to share some of the excitement and enlightenment that he and fellow particle physicists experience as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes into operation in Switzerland."--Natural History "Frank Wilczek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, unwraps exciting new ideas.... He contends, with great wit and style, that we are tantalizingly close to unifying the fundamental forces of nature."--Scientific American "Frank Wilczek takes readers on an enjoyable and enlightening voyage that starts with the deep insightsthat won him a Nobel Prize, and moves on to the more speculative realms that physicists are now investigating. This is a colorful and masterful treatment of recent developments in fundamental physics."--Peter Woit, author of Not Even Wrong "Frank Wilczek is one of the most brilliant practitioners of particle physics...He writes as he thinks, with a lightness of touch that can come only to one who is absolute master of his subject."--Freeman Dyson, New York Review of Books "For a safari-like adventure into the world of physics, follow Wilczek's lead. Quirky but knowledgeable, he explores the essence of the matter that makes up the universe -- combining the enthusiasm of someone like Jeff Corwin with the thoughtfulness of a David Attenborough."--Science News "Don't worry, the chapters are short, fun and larded with historical points that offer readers the payoff of understanding all the excitement in the scientific world over Europe's Large Hadron Collider, just getting warmed up in its operations."--USA Today "Bracing....We could scarcely wish for a more knowledgeable guide to subatomic physics than Wilczek....The book is an object lesson in h

Currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT, Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004. His 1989 book, Longing for the Harmonies, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Wilczek's work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing and The Norton Anthology of Light Verse. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.