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Constructing Reality
Questions of the fundamental nature of matter continue to inspire and

engage our imagination. However, the exciting new concepts of
strings, supersymmetry, and exotic matter build on ideas that are well
known to physicists but mysterious and puzzling to people outside of
these research fields.
Covering key conceptual developments from the last century, this
book provides a background to the bold ideas and challenges faced by
physicists today. Quantum theory and the Standard Model of particles
are explained with minimal mathematics, and advanced topics, such
as gauge theory and quantum field theory, are put into context. With
concise, lucid explanations, this book is an essential guide to the world
of particle physics.
john marburger, III, is University Professor of Physics and

Electrical Engineering and Vice President for Research at Stony Brook
University. Previous to this, he has been Science Advisor to the
President of the United States and Director of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy, Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and
President of Stony Brook University. His accomplishments in science
policy and administration have been recognized by numerous awards
and honors.
Constructing Reality
Quantum Theory and
Particle Physics
john marburger, iii

Stony Brook University
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press,

New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107004832
© J. Marburger 2011
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

Marburger, John H. (John Harmen)
Constructing reality : quantum theory and particle physics / John H. Marburger.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-00483-2 (hardback)
1. Quantum theory. 2. Particles (Nuclear physics) I. Title.
QC174.12.M3568 2011
530.12–dc22
2011000398
ISBN 978-1-107-00483-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
1. The nature of things 1

1.1 Nature does not conform to our expectations 3
1.2 Explanation versus description 5
1.3 Physicists keep trying to explain
the “unexplained” 6
Notes 7
2. Matter and motion in space and time 11
2.1 Bernhard Riemann speculates on the empirical nature
of geometry 11
2.2 The work of physics 13
2.3 Newton’s unvisualizable description
of Nature’s action 17
2.4 Maxwell adds fields to the list of things that are 19
2.5 Maxwell’s impact (1): the invariant speed of light 21
2.6 Einstein exposes prejudices about space and time 23
2
2.7 A digression on E = mc 25
2.8 Minkowski stretches a new canvas for the depiction
of Nature 27
2.9 The evolving universe as a tapestry of world-lines in
space-time 29
2.10 Einstein says the laws of motion must not depend upon
ourselves 31
2.11 A new way of thinking about the laws of motion 33
2.12 An “explanation” for gravity 34
2.13 Weyl’s attempt to explain electromagnetism 37
2.14 Reflections on Riemann’s idea of geometry
as physics 40
Notes 41
vi c o n t e n t s
3. Reality large and small 52

3.1 Digression on the quality of knowledge in
a universe of atoms 52
3.2 Maxwell’s impact (2): the mismatch between particles
and fields 56
3.3 Planck postulates a relation between energy
and frequency 57
3.4 The matter wave of de Broglie and Schrödinger 62
3.5 Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen . . . 63
3.6 Max Born’s statistical interpretation 64
3.7 The quantum microscopic world
view: Step 1 67
3.8 Schrödinger’s cat 70
3.9 Waves versus particles 74
3.10 About waves 75
3.11 The “uncertainty principle” 79
3.12 Amplitudes and phases 82
3.13 Quantum phase as a new “dimension”
of Nature, and Weyl’s triumph 85
3.14 Electromagnetism “explained” 89
Notes 91
4. The language of Nature 102
4.1 Mathematical things 102
4.2 Schrödinger’s wave as a set of vector components 108
4.3 The quantum state vector is not of this world 112
4.4 A new perspective on uncertainty and complementarity 114
4.5 More structure for Schrödinger’s wave:
“Intrinsic spin” 117
4.6 Spin is not enough 121
4.7 The positron intrudes 122
4.8 Anti-matter 124
Notes 126
c o n t e n t s vii
5. More is different 132

5.1 The quantum microscopic world view: Step 2 132
5.2 Systems with multiple excitations 133
5.3 Quantum field theory 135
5.4 Guessing equations of motion 137
5.5 “Statistics” 139
5.6 About detectors 143
5.7 The disturbing argument of Einstein, Podolsky,
and Rosen (EPR) 144
5.8 Bell’s inequality 148
5.9 The entangled universe 151
Notes 152
6. The machinery of particle discovery 157
6.1 Maxwell’s impact (3): atomism undermined 158
6.2 Particle spectroscopy 161
6.3 The big machines 163
6.4 Neutrons and neutrinos 165
6.5 More internal “dimensions”? Isospin 166
6.6 Mesons and the range of forces 169
6.7 If isospin were “real” 171
6.8 Symmetries (1): conservation laws 174
6.9 Symmetries (2): groups 177
6.10 Symmetries (3): group representations 181
6.11 The game of particle discovery 183
6.12 Unitarity and renormalization 184
6.13 Spontaneous symmetry breaking 187
Notes 190
7. The Standard Model 197
7.1 Leptons 200
7.2 Quarks 203
7.3 Forces 209
7.4 Electromagnetism and QED 210
7.5 The strong force and QCD 214
viii c o n t e n t s
7.6 The weak force (but no QWD) 221

7.7 Electro-weak unification 224
7.8 Parity violation 226
7.9 CP violation 227
7.10 The problem of mass 229
7.11 A digression on superconductivity 229
7.12 The Higgs mechanism 231
7.13 The Higgs boson(s) 234
Notes 236
8. The proliferation of matter 248
8.1 An abbreviated history of creation 248
8.2 Nucleons and nuclei 252
8.3 The periodic table of elements 255
Notes 259
Epilogue: Beneath reality 262
Appendix: How quantum mechanics
is used 266
Notes 273
References 275
Index 282
1 The nature of things
I wrote this book for my friends who are not physicists, but who are
curious about the physical world and willing to invest some effort to
understand it. I especially had in mind those who labor to make the
work of physics possible – technical workers in other fields, teachers,
science-minded public officials – who read popular accounts but are
hungry for a “next step” that might give them a firmer grasp of this
puzzling material. Physics gives me great pleasure, more from its
beauty than from its usefulness, and I regret that my enjoyment should
depend on the effort of so many others who do not share it. Here I have
tried to ease my sense of guilt by attempting to disclose in ordinary
language what modern physics really is about. Many similar accounts
exist.1 In this one, I attempt to demystify the deep ideas as much as
possible in a nonmathematical treatment. Some mathematical ideas
are inevitable, and these I try to explain. Physics has entered an excit-
ing phase with talk of new dimensions, exotic matter, and mind-
boggling events of cosmic scale. These dramatic ideas rest on a solid
conceptual framework, a product of the last century that is now old hat
for physicists but remains exotic and impenetrable to most others.
This framework, quantum theory and the Standard Model of matter,
is an intellectual achievement of the highest order and essential for
understanding what comes next. My intention here is to provide a
reference and a guide to this known but still regrettably unfamiliar
world.
Different physicists have different interests, but I think most
would agree that the evolution of our field during the twentieth
century stirs deep aesthetic feelings. I will try to explain why this is
so, but cannot guarantee readers will have the same reaction. My
account is not complete, nor faithful to the complex history of these
2 constructing reality
ideas, but attempts a brisk, coherent sketch of the most important

concepts and their links as I understand them. It is unhistorical
because it assigns interpretations to past work of which its creators
could hardly have been aware. It is personal because it presents my
own perspective on the subject, which others may find eccentric.
I mean it to be a useful as well as a provocative guide that focuses
without much ornament on key ideas. Think of it as a quick review of
the conceptual framework of modern physics that requires little prior
technical knowledge. It does require patience and mental effort, and
I recommend reading it sequentially in short segments. After a first
reading, the book may serve as a reference for key concepts. I assume
the reader has experienced high school algebra, but has forgotten its
details. Notes at the end of each chapter support assertions, add
information, and point to further reading. They are written for a
wider range of readers who want more detail. Such readers may
wonder why I chose to present the material this way. After teaching
it for years from a more conventional point of view I realized that the
relatively straightforward logic of the physics is easily overwhelmed
by numerous fascinating historical or mathematical sidelights.
Expert-level accounts let the mathematics carry the argument and
omit the side issues entirely. I put them in endnotes. My overriding
objective is to disclose the interconnectedness and internal logic of
modern physical theory.
To be clear at the outset, my aim is to describe the mainstream
view of Nature as expressed in the Copenhagen interpretation of
quantum theory, and the Standard Model of matter. I have tried very
hard to avoid saying what these theories are like, but rather to say what
they are. This is notoriously difficult for reasons that will become
apparent. I cannot make a difficult subject easy, but at least I can
reduce the amount of special technical knowledge, especially mathe-
matical knowledge, required to penetrate to the core of the matter. It is
not my aim to probe the inadequacies of the Copenhagen interpreta-
tion, but to express it in modern form in the spirit if not in the language
of its guiding author Niels Bohr.
the nature of things 3
The central question is: If we agree that life is more than a

dream, that our consciousness dwells in a universe that includes
things other than itself, then what is the nature of those things?
This vague, possibly meaningless question began, at least in
Western culture, with philosophy in ancient Greece, and passed into
science in the time of Isaac Newton (1642–1727). For many years
thereafter it appeared that the philosophers (some of them) had guessed
correctly that all is made of little particles, atoms, moving in a void
(Leucippus, Democritus, minus fifth century). But in the middle of the
nineteenth century the accelerating scrutiny of Nature began to reveal
a world disturbingly different from what anyone expected.
1.1 nature does not conform to our

expectations
Physics has an aesthetic aspect which, like poetry, depends on lan-
guage and on context. Its context includes both philosophy and the
history of discovery. The language of physics, as Galileo first insisted,
is mathematics.2 Many who have peeked at ideas like Einstein’s rela-
tivity come away shaking their heads, convinced they will never
understand them without mastering mathematics. That is a mistake.
The difficulty of relativity has nothing to do with mathematics. The
same is true of quantum theory. These two pillars of twentieth-century
physics are conceptually difficult not because they are mathematical,
but because Nature is essentially unhuman.
The linguist Noam Chomsky argued that we have a basic seman-
tic structure hardwired in our brains that renders all human languages
deeply similar.3 Such a structure would have evolutionary survival
value only if it resembled the physical environment that challenges
our existence. So perhaps we have a reasonable picture of how the
world works already embedded in our everyday language. The gram-
mar of cause and effect, of action in the course of time, of place and
order, all seem inevitably “natural.” Our bodies too, as well as our
minds, are equipped to see, hear, and feel “real” things. Immanuel
Kant thought Euclid’s geometry must represent reality because
(to oversimplify his argument) it is physically impossible to perceive,

and mentally impossible to conceive, any other kind of geometry.4
This anthropocentric view is unfortunately mistaken. The hard-
wired structures beneath human language and human perception are
not reliable evidence for the deep structure of Nature. Relativity and
quantum theory are parts of this structure for which humans do not
seem to have any built-in instinct. They fail to conform in deep and
important ways to our intuitive preconceptions of how Nature should
work.
The presence of “relativistic” and “quantum” ideas in the frame-
work of science is the best refutation of the postmodernist claim that
this framework has no independent reality, but is rather a product of
social negotiation among disputing scientists.5 On the contrary, the
modern theories emerged painfully from a protracted disputation with
Nature herself, and in the end Nature won. Perhaps we have not yet
captured her subtlety with our imperfect language, but we are singing
to Nature’s tune, and not to some completely arbitrary composition of
the human mind.
Today we have something called the Standard Model which has
pieces like a child’s toy from which all other ordinary matter can be
constructed. Each piece has a name (quarks, leptons, bosons, . . .) and
properties (charge, spin, flavor, . . .) which, together with rules of com-
bination, lead to simple recipes for making nucleons (protons, neu-
trons), chemical atoms (clusters of nucleons clothed with electrons),
and all else. A chart of the Standard Model (below) suggests the familiar
periodic table of elements, of which all chemicals are made.6 Think of
Crick and Watson literally piecing together the structure of DNA with
models made of carefully machined parts simulating groups of atoms.7
We and all about us are made, in a sense to be explained, from the parts
of the Standard Model.
This intuitive picture is appealing, and it is also seriously mis-
leading. The pieces that physicists call “particles” are not like any-
thing called by this noun in ordinary language. The broad canvas of
“space” and “time” on which the Standard Model is portrayed
figure 1.1 A conventional table of Standard Model pieces.

u c t
No shading: leptons. Light shading: quarks. Dark shading:
d s b G bosons. See Chapter 7 for a different arrangement and
explanations of the symbols.
e Zo
e W
resembles human space and time only in a limited human-scale

domain. Quantum theory, the very framework for the modern descrip-
tion of Nature, is strange almost beyond belief. As these deep awk-
wardnesses became part of physics early in the twentieth century, the
field once again acquired a philosophical dimension. The philosophy is
not much needed to work problems, but it is important for discovery,
and it is essential if we are to make sense, upon reflection, of what it is
that we do today when we “do” physics.
1.2 explanation versus description

Explanation usually means embedding a phenomenon in a more gen-
eral framework that we accept as evident.8 Euclid aimed to reduce
geometry to a short list of self-evident axioms and definitions of
terms. In the same way, physicists aim to reduce complex phenomena
to the action of multiple simple, self-evident, mechanisms. From
Newton onward, however, the simple mechanisms ceased to be self-
evident. They could be described mathematically (the how of the
mechanism), but they could not be related to a simple intuitive prin-
ciple (the why). This is in sharp contrast to Aristotle’s demand that
explanation entail knowledge of the purpose or ultimate cause of a
phenomenon, a demand that remains embedded in our culture because
it is important in human affairs. We tend to explain human action
in terms of motive and objective, but these terms are absent from
modern science. In the generation prior to Newton, Johannes Kepler
(1571–1630) hypothesized a force on the planets to keep them moving
around the Sun, and felt the need to postulate a “soul” that caused it.9
Newton did not care to explain gravity. He simply described its effect.
This unhuman decoupling of explanation from aim, while necessary, is

a psychological impediment for many people. The two are linked by an
anthropocentric bias that must be overcome for science to progress.
Mathematics is not the primary obstacle to understanding
physics. Students beginning to study the subject are nearly always
frustrated because phenomena are not “explained” in a way they
expect. They learn to manipulate formulas that give results for various
situations – swinging pendulums, falling weights – and this suggests
that physics is somehow just mathematical manipulation. Beginners
find it difficult to relate the formulas to something tangible. Terms like
force, potential energy, electric field, are names attached to letters in
equations. But what are these things, really? Knowing math provides
no answer. After more or less experience with the formulas, students
acquire intuitions about the behavior of whatever it is that is called by
these names, but what the names really signify remains elusive.
It turns out, intriguingly, that the lack of “explanation” makes
no difference to how physics is used in applications. No one really
understands quantum mechanics intuitively, but hundreds of thou-
sands of scientists and engineers use it in their daily work. The ability
to analyze the questions quantum theory was designed to answer does
not satisfy our hunger for deeper explanations.
1.3 physicists keep trying to explain

the “unexplained”
Its reticence toward explanation has encouraged a rather lifeless view
of physics. As the nineteenth century turned, some philosophers
embraced positivistic notions about knowledge that discarded con-
cepts that were not rooted in some firm encounter with the common-
sensical “real world.” The success of “physics without explanations”
suggested that attempts to explain were fruitless, and that science
should be rid of such baggage. At its worst, this movement doubted
the existence of atoms because they could not be seen.10 At its best, it
supported Heisenberg’s search for a new atomic mechanics that would
depend only on features of atoms that could be seen.11 Some people
still speak of scientific formulas as if they were no more than concise

summaries of many direct observations, as opposed to statements
about the behavior of abstract features of reality, like force and energy,
that cannot be visualized.12 In this view, physics is just a way of
arranging experimental results systematically, and the elaborate theo-
retical structures are only mnemonic devices for the data.
Physicists themselves, however, and especially those who work
at the frontier, despite all admonitions from philosophers, seem to
believe in the reality of the things their equations describe. They are
encouraged in this belief by the great value it has for discovery. In a
symposium in 1998 at Stony Brook University, philosopher Bas van
Fraasen asked why physicists believe Nature has to obey symmetry
laws. I said that “it wins them Nobel prizes!” Throughout the
twentieth century, physicists’ conviction that abstract entities such
as “fields of force” can be “explained” has been influenced by an
extraordinary chain of events that I will now endeavor to describe.
notes
1. Similar accounts. At the same technical level as this book, the excellent
account by Crease and Mann (Crease and Mann, 1996) follows the
development of modern physics through the contributions of its leading
scientists. A more technical presentation by one such scientist, full of
insights of interest to the nonspecialist, is Abraham Pais’s Inward Bound
(Pais, 1986). Pais has authored important and well-documented biographies
of Einstein, Bohr and others, cited in the References. Helge Kragh’s
Quantum Generations (Kragh, 1999) is a good nontechnical survey that
places the subject in a broader social context. On the interpretation of
quantum mechanics, David Lindley’s Where Does the Weirdness Go?
(Lindley, 1996) is a lucid account for a general audience. Other references are
cited in the notes following each chapter below. The Whole Shebang: A
State-of-the-Universe(s) Report by Timothy Ferris (Ferris, 1998) gives a
snapshot in nontechnical terms of current topics, especially in cosmology,
not covered in this book. All these accounts are broader and more general
than the present work, which focuses narrowly on the Standard Model and
the quantum world view, and not on the sweep of discovery or the state of
knowledge of the entire physical universe. Brian Greene’s The Elegant

Universe (Greene, 1999) is a good popular account of string theory, the
current most promising attempt to resolve incompatibilities between our
current understanding of gravity and the other forces in Nature.
2. Galileo on the language of physics. “Philosophy is written in this grand
book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book
cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language
and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of
mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric
figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word
of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.” Galileo Galilei,
The Assayer (1623), translation by Stillman Drake. Reprinted in Drake
(1957).
3. Chomsky on hardwired linguistic structure. “. . . the child has an innate
theory of potential structural descriptions that is sufficiently rich and fully
developed so that he is able to determine, from a real situation in which a
signal occurs, which structural descriptions may be appropriate to this
signal, and also that he is able to do this in part in advance of any assumption
as to the linguistic structure of this signal.” Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
(Chomsky, 1965).
4. Kant’s view of geometry. “. . . the space of the geometer is exactly the form of
sensuous intuition which we find a priori in us, and contains the ground of
the possibility of all external appearances (according to their form); and the
latter must necessarily and most rigorously agree with the propositions of
the geometer, which he draws, not from any fictitious concept, but from the
subjective basis of all external appearances which is sensibility itself.”
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Kant, 1783).
5. Social status of scientific reality. The sharpest statements of the
postmodernist claim are made by its critics: “ . . . science is a highly
elaborated set of conventions brought forth by one particular culture
(our own) in the circumstances of one particular historical period; thus
it is not, as the standard view would have it, a body of knowledge and
testable conjecture concerning the ‘real’ world. It is a discourse, devised
by and for one specialized ‘interpretive community,’ under terms
created by the complex net of social circumstance, political opinion,
economic incentive, and ideological climate that constitutes the
ineluctable human environment of the scientist. Thus, orthodox science
is but one discursive community among the many that now exist and
that have existed historically. Consequently its truth claims are
irreducibly self-referential, in that they can be upheld only by appeal to
the standards that define the ‘scientific community’ and distinguish it
from other social formations” (Gross and Levitt, 1994). In striving for
clarity, Gross and Levitt have excluded from this statement the
essential socio-political aspects of the postmodernist case that make it
comprehensible. But that is another story.
6. Standard Model wall chart. See the figures in Chapter 7 below. The
Contemporary Physics Education Project website (www.cpepweb.org) has a
popular version that contains more information.
7. The DNA model of Crick and Watson. “The brightly shining metal plates
were . . . immediately used to make a model in which for the first time all the
DNA components were present. In about an hour I had arranged the atoms
in positions which satisfied both the X-ray data and the laws of
stereochemistry. The resulting helix was right-handed with the two chains
running in opposite directions” (Watson, 1968).
8. “Explanation.” What is “evident” may not be familiar. “What scientific
explanation, especially theoretical explanation, aims at is not this intuitive
and highly subjective kind of understanding [reduction to the merely
familiar], but an objective kind of insight that is achieved by a systematic
unification, by exhibiting the phenomena as manifestations of common
underlying structures and processes that conform to specific, testable, basic
principles” (Hempel, 1966).
9. Kepler on the origin of the forces that move the planets. Kepler had inferred
three famous “laws” from careful observations of planetary orbits by his
predecessor Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). I. The planets move in ellipses with
the Sun at one focus. II. A line from the Sun to a planet sweeps out an area as
the planet moves which is proportional to the elapsed time of the
movement. III. The square of the orbital period for any planet is proportional
to the cube of the size of its orbit. Kepler was hard put to explain how the
whole system operated: “. . . I admit a soul in the body of the sun as the
overseer of the rotation of the sun and as the superintendent of the
movement of the whole world.” “. . . the philosophers have commented
upon the intelligences, which draw forth the celestial movements out of
themselves as out of a commentary, which employ consent, will, love, self-
understanding, and lastly command; the soul or motor souls of mine are of a
10 c o n s t r u c t i n g r e a l i t y
lower family and bring in only an impetus – as if a certain matter of

movement – by a uniform contention of forces, without the work of mind.
But they find the laws, or figure, of their movements in their own bodies,
which have been conformed to Mind – not their own but the Creator’s – in
the very beginning of the world and attuned to effecting such movements”
(Kepler, 1618).
10. Doubting the existence of atoms. “However well fitted atomic theories
may be to reproduce certain groups of facts, the physical inquirer who has
laid to heart Newton’s rules will only admit those theories as provisional
helps, and will strive to attain, in some more natural way, a satisfactory
substitute” (Mach, 1893).
11. Heisenberg’s search for a new atomic mechanics. The complete abstract of
Heisenberg’s groundbreaking paper Quantum-Theoretical Re-
interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations reads: “The present
paper seeks to establish a basis for theoretical quantum mechanics founded
exclusively upon relationships between quantities which in principle are
observable” (Heisenberg, 1925).
12. Formulas as summaries of experimental data. This attitude was
frequently expressed by the positivist anti-atomists. See Pullman (1998).
Wilhelm Ostwald’s declaration of 1895 is an example: “To establish
relations between realities, that is to say, tangible and concrete quantities,
that is science’s responsibility, and science fails to meet it when it espouses
a more or less hypothetical image.”
2 Matter and motion in space
and time
2.1 bernhard riemann speculates on the

empirical nature of geometry
Our story begins with curiosity about the precise shape of the Earth,
which is interesting for the direct evidence it could give that Earth
rotates in space. Newton pointed out that the pull of gravity (toward a
center) against the centrifugal force of a spinning Earth (away from the
axis of rotation) will swell the Earth at its equator, distorting it from a
perfect sphere. The effect is small, and at the time no one could look at
Earth from space to check its shape.1
An ancient estimate of Earth’s curvature measured shadows at
noon cast by towers separated by a known distance along a line of
longitude.2 This looks too crude to capture the subtle shape Newton
predicted. Is there a way of using measurements completely confined
to Earth’s surface to infer topographical distortions? The question
caught the fancy of one of the greatest mathematicians of all time,
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), who created a new subfield of geom-
etry to deal with it.3 Gauss developed formulas that related measure-
ments on the surface to the three-dimensional swelling of an object. To
see how this is possible, imagine a dome-shaped mountain encircled by
a road with a second intersecting road that goes straight over the
summit, up one side and down the other. The length of the first road
is the circumference of a circle – that is, pi or π (= 3.14159. . .) times its
diameter – but the length of the second road is longer than the circle’s
diameter (which tunnels through the base of the mountain). So the
ratio of the circumference at the base to the diameter measured on the
surface over the summit is less than π. The deviation of this ratio from
π is a measure of the curvature of the dome. (Not the most useful
measure. See Note 3.) The flatter the dome, the closer the ratio is to π.
figure 2.1 How can you measure the actual

gravity shape of Earth without leaving the surface?
'centrifugal'
force
D figure 2.2 The circumference C

R is π times the tunnel route d, and
less than π times the over-the-top
d route D. You can measure C and
C D without tunneling, and the
departure of their ratio from π is
related to the radius of curvature
R of the dome.3
It is remarkable that you can determine the shape of the Earth by

making measurements confined entirely to its surface. Gauss’s proce-
dure can in principle infer the shape of each bump and dimple in the
countryside by strictly local measurements, keeping your nose to the
ground, so to speak, without any need of standing back and viewing
the whole scene.
Gauss’s student, Bernhard Riemann (1826–66), built on these
ideas. It occurred to Riemann that our perception of geometry in the
three-dimensional world in which we seem to live might be misleading
as to its true nature, just as casual observations made on a small part of
the surface of the Earth give a mistaken impression of flatness.4 Since
Gauss had shown what to look for in surface measurements to tell us if
we reside on a curved Earth, there might be similar measurements we
can make in the volume of our three-dimensional space to tell us if we
are perhaps living in a world that has distortions to which our poor
human perception is blind. In such a world, some of the geometrical
theorems we learned in school would disagree slightly with actual
measurements.
In retrospect, there are two important insights here. First, that
the axioms of Euclid’s geometry cannot be assumed a priori to
m a t t e r a n d m o t i o n i n s p a c e a n d t i m e 13
represent reality à la Kant, but must be tested by actual measurements

in our world. Second, that the world we live in may have additional
properties, even additional dimensions, beyond our perception that
might make their presence known indirectly. Geometry, in other
words, is part of physics – an empirical science rather than a subject,
as Plato once supposed, whose truths may be perceived by the mind
alone unhindered by gross perception.
Riemann’s ideas had no immediate impact on science because
no one then knew what aspect of reality might be affected by unseen
distortions. Science found little use for the clever mathematical
machinery that led Riemann to his insights. That was to change, but
not before physicists learned much more about nature. Relativity and
quantum mechanics both introduced new geometrical features in our
conception of reality.
2.2 the work of physics

Science has always progressed in gradually expanding islands of under-
standing scattered in the sea of ignorance. The island of physics that
Newton explored involved massive bodies like planets or objects mov-
ing in Earth’s gravity.5 Other disconnected islands in Newton’s time
concerned light, electric force, and magnetic force. Light is what we
see. Electric force makes plastic packing beads stick to our fingers.
Magnetic force directs compass needles, turns motors, and empowers
magnets to attach notes to the refrigerator door.
Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century did a coher-
ent picture of these diverse phenomena begin to take shape, and by
the end of the century a remarkable synthesis had emerged that
swept them all into a single framework: Maxwell’s theory of electro-
magnetism. This synthesis, accomplished in 1864 by James Clerk
Maxwell (1831–79), is a pivotal development in the history of
science.6 Only the discovery of the quantum framework of Nature,
itself stimulated by Maxwell’s theory, has had greater intellectual
impact. Like Newton’s description of gravity, Maxwell’s description
of electricity, magnetism, and light was mathematical and referred
to quantities that could no more be visualized than gravitational

force.
To appreciate the impact of Maxwell’s theory, and the responses
to it, you need to know something more about the aim of physical
theory. It has two parts:7
Motion linked to forces. The first part tells very generally how material
objects – think particles – move when forced. In the pre-quantum
idea of Nature they move simply: if there is no force, particles move
in straight lines with constant speed (the First Law of Motion);
physicists say constant velocity, a concept that includes both speed
and direction. The effect of a force is to accelerate or to deflect this
steady motion. In particular the acceleration (rate of change of
velocity) is proportional to and in the same direction as the force. For
large objects, force can be measured independently – perhaps by the
stretch of a coiled spring – so the statement of the Law really does
relate two distinct phenomena (force and acceleration). Moreover,
the forced acceleration is inversely proportional to a property of the
particle that is best called inertial mass (this is the Second Law of
Motion, the famous F ¼ ma).
Forces linked to matter. The second part tells how forces are related to
the positions and velocities of objects (or of their component
particles), and to properties of the particles that I will call charges.
Thus the electric force exerted by one particle on another is
proportional to their electric charges, magnetic force is proportional
to magnetic charge (physicists call it magnetic pole strength), and
gravitational force is proportional to gravitational charge.8 Because
gravitational charge seems to be proportional to inertial mass,
physicists call this charge gravitational mass. The second part of
physics is obviously linked to the first part, since the forces depend
on where the particles are, and the particles move in response to the
forces. Since the forces are proportional to the charges, it is efficient
to frame the theory in terms of ratios of force to charge. Thus the
electric field is the electric force per unit of electric charge. The
actual force on a charge at some location is then the field at that

location times the magnitude of the charge. Wherever in space you
place a charge, it will feel a force (possibly zero), and the word “field”
captures the pervasive quality of that which causes the force – the
force field. It has a direction as well as a magnitude at each point.
As language evolves it carries forward a legacy of ignorance. Words like

mass and charge have come to refer confusingly to several different
concepts. Here we distinguish two meanings of “mass,” inertial and
gravitational. One has to do with motion in response to any force and
the other to the property of matter that generates specifically the gravita-
tional force. One of Newton’s most important discoveries (prefigured by
Galileo at the tower of Pisa)9 was that the gravitational charge is propor-
tional to the inertial mass that appears in the Second Law of Motion.
This proportionality later became an important clue for Einstein when
he invented an entirely new theory of gravity that encompassed
Newton’s formula and changed forever how physicists view their work.
Physicists do two kinds of work: The work of discovery searches
for all the constituents of Nature and the laws that govern them. Today
this enterprise includes particle physics, which is the search for funda-
mental constituents, and other fields such as nuclear physics, con-
densed matter physics, chemistry, and biology whose scientists
search for new things constructed from the fundamental particles.
Knowing about the constituent parts and their forces does not suffice
to predict all the phenomena that may evolve from them, the possible
arrangements into complex objects being far too numerous.10
The work of prediction nevertheless employs the laws to
attempt to determine how given configurations of matter behave. It
is the basis for all applications of physics, and essential for the first
kind of work. The laws of motion govern, in principle, the behavior
of all phenomena.11 Nature, however, conceals a marvelous richness
beneath the simple rules. New phenomena may be discovered through
observations in the laboratory, or alternatively by scrutinizing logical
consequences of the rules themselves. Theorists do the latter,
experimenters the former, and normally they work together to unravel

the deep implications of the deceptively simple laws of Nature.
Newton’s laws. In pre-quantum physics the Second Law of
Motion gives the acceleration of a particle once the force is known.
Since acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, you can find the
velocity at any time if you know the velocity just at the beginning and
the acceleration throughout the motion. And since velocity is the rate
of change of distance traveled, you can find the distance – or position in
space – at any time given the velocity and the starting position. So the
Second Law contains all the information you need to find the positions
of all the particles all the time given only the force law and the starting
positions and starting velocities. Isaac Newton invented calculus to
solve (among other things) the equations produced by the Second Law.12
This is the material routinely taught at the very beginning of physics
courses in high school or college. It may seem a little cumbersome, but
you would not expect to be able to predict the future without some
effort. That we can predict anything at all about the future is marvelous.
In the work of prediction the description of Nature separates into
two distinct parts, first clearly appreciated by Newton: initial condi-
tions, that prescribe from among the infinite variety of possibilities
one particular contingent arrangement of Nature’s constituent par-
ticles and their velocities; and a law of motion, each of whose incarna-
tions seems miraculously to be valid for and independent of any initial
arrangement whatever. The law captures a universal character of
motion that makes prediction possible.
Newton’s greatest success was to account for the motion of
objects – not only planets, moons, and comets, but also the oceanic
tides and objects falling near the Earth – mutually influenced by the
force of gravity. The other “classical” forces of electricity and magnet-
ism remained somewhat mysterious until the nineteenth century
when a burst of experimental and theoretical activity culminated in
Maxwell’s grand synthesis.
Maxwell’s Laws. Maxwell’s predecessors – most importantly
Michael Faraday – had discovered properties of the electric and
magnetic forces, and Maxwell and others developed mathematical

expressions to summarize their discoveries.13 Maxwell added mathe-
matical terms that he found were necessary to make the formulas
logically consistent. These terms are ordinarily so small that the experi-
ments of Faraday and others would have overlooked them. Small as they
were, the new terms predicted new phenomena (such as electromag-
netic radiation) that were subsequently observed. Like Newton’s law of
gravity, Maxwell’s formulas directly summarize simple experiments
that anyone can perform on electric and magnetic phenomena. Unlike
Newton’s laws, their form has never required revision in the light of
anything we have discovered since. They possess, moreover, to the eye
of the mathematician, a form as beautiful and as natural as a flower.
The physical content of Maxwell’s formulas is easy to state, but
intricate. They are relations among the rates of change in space and
time of electric and magnetic forces in the presence of charges and
currents. Hans Christian Oersted, whose observations were developed
mathematically by André-Marie Ampère (1820), had shown that an
electrical current creates a magnetic field encircling it (1820). Michael
Faraday (1831) showed how a changing flux of magnetic field creates a
concentric circulating electric field in its vicinity. Maxwell (1865)
showed that a changing flux of electric field must have the same effect
on the magnetic field as an electrical current does in order to achieve
consistency with charge conservation, which had been demonstrated
by Benjamin Franklin (1750). The terms flux, current, and circulating
field have precise definitions that can be related to measurements of
distances and forces, so these statements can be translated directly
into mathematical relations among quantities that can be measured in
the laboratory. Among physicists the resulting Maxwell’s equations
are as famous as E ¼ mc2.14
2.3 newton’s unvisualizable description

of nature’s action
The idea of reducing Nature to a small set of elements obeying univer-
sal rules began in minus fifth century Greece. As far as I can tell, no
other ancient culture formed such an objective view of reality.

Mathematics had been applied to astronomical phenomena centuries
before in Assyrian Babylonia, and a somewhat mystical tradition asso-
ciating reality with numbers and geometry extended from Pythagoras
through Plato into medieval times (and may have had a counterpart in
ancient China).15 But mathematics was not seen as essential for the
practical grasp of Nature until the time of Galileo, Descartes, and
Johannes Kepler (sixteenth century). Their successor, Isaac Newton
(seventeenth century), described the force of gravity with an algebraic
formula whose significance could not be grasped in terms of a sensible
picture.
Gravity, according to Newton, obeys a law – the gravitational
force between two distant objects is proportional to the product of
their masses and to the inverse square of the distance between them –
that can be inferred from observable phenomena (the relation is
implicit in Kepler’s laws – see Note 9 in chapter 1), but cannot
otherwise be explained or visualized. Newton claimed gravity exerts
a force across large distances without invoking any cables, rods, or
projectiles crossing the intervening space. Later in the eighteenth
century the actions of static electricity and of magnetism were
found to obey essentially the same law if “masses” are replaced by
“charges.”16 Newton’s unexplained action at a distance went against
the established philosophical grain, and against our instincts as well.17
“Force” is whatever stretches an ordinary helical spring. How can we
visualize such an action without any material link? How can we
explain an invisible force like gravity? Newton himself admitted the
absurdity of action at a distance, but carried on.
Mechanically inclined people can repair machinery by taking it
apart to “see how it works.” The transmission of action through the
gearing of a steam engine, or the tubing of a hydraulic system, or even
the wires and components of an electric circuit, follows a logic of
visualizable spatial relationships. Teachers exploit this visualizability
to explain technical ideas. But the operation of Newton’s forces is not
apparent to the eye. To be sure, clever investigators, notably Michael
figure 2.3 Faraday’s lines of magnetic

force corresponding to a North–South
dipole. A North magnetic pole will
experience a force tangent to one of the
lines pulling it toward the South pole.
The lines can be made visible by placing
N S a horseshoe magnet under a card scattered
with iron filings.
Faraday (1791–1867), found ways to depict them. But Faraday’s field

lines, and more intricate machinery invented by Maxwell to picture
electromagnetism, are simply not to be seen in Nature.18 They truly
are human inventions to aid the imagination. Iron filings will align
themselves with the “lines” of a magnetic field, but the field itself is
presumed to exist without the filings. And how does the “force field”
exert its influence on the filings? There are no mechanical hooks or
strings we can point to that transmit the force from the magnet to the
particles of iron. Who has not wondered at the invisible spring between
toy magnets that resist our efforts to press them together? Science
“explanations” can never remove the sense of mystery surrounding
this disembodied force.
2.4 maxwell adds fields to the list

of things that are
Maxwell’s formulas for electromagnetic forces differed in an essential
way from Newton’s formula for gravity. Newton’s gravitational force
is just a postulated cause of acceleration that occurs whenever massive
objects (read “gravitationally charged objects”) are present. They move
toward each other as if they were being pulled by an invisible elastic
band. Newton did not know how gravity worked, and thought it
was fruitless to speculate. His force formula was indeed just a concise
summary of the observed facts of objects moving around on Earth and
in the Solar System.
When Maxwell and others examined the formulas that summar-

ized the experiments on electricity and magnetism, they found that
they imply a time lag between the motion of one electric charge and its
influence on a second distant charge. For example, one charged particle
might be induced to vibrate, causing the force field it produces to do
the same and thus influence the other particle to vibrate too. But the
second action follows the first after a delay. Newton’s gravitational
law, by contrast, implies that a change in distance between two masses
translates immediately into a change in the force between them,
with no time lag. A time lag is puzzling for the following reason:
The first particle is losing energy and momentum, the second gaining
it. All observations of Nature had shown that energy is conserved –
neither gained nor lost in physical processes (the First Law of
Thermodynamics). If so, where is the energy that is lost by the first
particle before the second particle picks it up? Maxwell’s answer: in the
electric and magnetic force fields themselves.
This is a new thing. Maxwell shared Faraday’s conception of the
electromagnetic fields as real “stuff,” capable of carrying properties
previously found only in connection with massive particles. The two
important properties energy and momentum are themselves non-
intuitive abstract quantities that pop up out of the mathematics of
Newton’s Second Law. But Newton’s Second Law is about the motion
of particles, the building blocks of Nature. By the end of the nineteenth
century most physicists believed in the actual physical existence of
atoms.19 If there is anything “really out there,” i.e., outside our minds,
then most felt that it should be made of atoms: hard little balls. And
here was Maxwell saying that forces too can have properties normally
associated with tangible particles. In particular, they can carry energy
and momentum. The profound effect of Maxwell’s work was to add to
the list of stuff of which the universe is made. Before Maxwell, it was
the atoms of Democritus, moving in void. After Maxwell, it was atoms
and fields of force, whatever they are. Let us call the fields of Maxwell
dynamic fields to distinguish them from the lifeless field of gravity
that Newton postulated.
We identified two basic parts of physics work, one for the motion
of particles (Laws of Motion), the other for the forces among them
(Force Laws). Maxwell’s work tended to put the second on par with
the first. For electromagnetic phenomena, the forces result from
dynamic fields that need their own laws of motion. According to this
view, Maxwell’s formulas are not only a description of how electro-
magnetic forces arise from charged particles, but also a sort of Law of
Motion for electromagnetic fields themselves. Physics work still has
two aims: finding laws of motion for every kind of stuff there is, and
then solving them to analyze the motion of the stuff. In the reduction-
ist world of Newtonian/Maxwellian physics, everything that is is
moving stuff.
Physicists use the word field to refer to something that exists at
every point in space, just as a field of grass ideally has a blade at “every
point” of turf. The measure of the “something” – like the height of the
grass blade – is said to be a function of the location in space.20 Before
Maxwell, you could hope that someday a computer could be made
large enough to solve Newton’s equations for every atom in existence
and thereby predict the future from present knowledge. After Maxwell,
the number of equations becomes unmanageably large because the
electromagnetic fields have to be computed from initial conditions at
every point in space. If space is as Euclid imagined, there is an infinity
of points even in the smallest volume. If fields are “stuff,” then pre-
dicting them would seem to require infinite computing power. But
perhaps in real space there is not an infinity of points – that is, of places
where events can be observed – in each small volume. The small-scale
structure of actual space cannot be determined a priori. It is a question
of physics to be answered by Nature herself, and not by the imagina-
tion of mathematicians or philosophers.
2.5 maxwell’s impact (1): the invariant

speed of light
Maxwell’s work won immediate and universal acclaim as a profound
contribution to the understanding of Nature. But it created conceptual
crises that have not yet been completely resolved. Attempts to

overcome the problems caused by introducing dynamic fields into
the stuff of reality led first to Einstein’s theories of relativity and then
to quantum theory. Both are needed for our story. Each is in itself an
heroic epic, worthy of a Homer or a Milton. My account will be too
short, but just long enough, I hope, to make the case for these new
theories.
There is first of all the problem of the speed of light. If a time lag
occurs between a change in motion of an electric charge (the cause) and
the response of a second distant charge to the resulting change of
electric field (the effect), then the ratio of separation to time lag is the
speed at which the effect propagates from the cause. Maxwell’s equa-
tions predicted a value for this speed that turned out to be the same as
the then known speed of light (about 186,000 miles or 300 million
meters per second) to within experimental accuracy.21 The implica-
tion was that light waves are waves in the electric and magnetic fields.
This hypothesis was not confirmed directly until Heinrich Hertz
demonstrated electromagnetic waves with the same speed, but much
longer wavelengths than light, generated and detected by electric cir-
cuits.22 Oscillating charges in a circuit produce radiation at the oscil-
lation frequency, which is why airlines ask their passengers to turn off
electronic devices during take-offs and landings, for fear of interference
with the avionics.
Imagine light spreading out ahead of the glowing nose cone of a
speeding rocket. We might expect it to move faster than 186,000 miles
per second because it adds its own speed to the rocket’s. But Maxwell’s
equations do not say this. They make no reference to the speed of the
object emitting the light. They give a speed independent of the motion
of the source. Perhaps this is what we should expect if space were filled
with a vast ocean of some exotic fluid in which light waves propagate
(scientists called it the ether). Then if we move ourselves through this
fluid we expect to see changes in the light speed depending on whether
we move along or against the wave direction. But Maxwell’s equations
make no reference to the speed of the observer either. Our failure to see
V c c V
figure 2.4 (Left) We might expect light to go faster when emitted by a

moving source. (Right) If light is a wave in a medium, it should appear
to go faster when an observer is moving toward it in the medium.
Neither occurs. Measurements of light speed give the same result
regardless of how the source or the observer moves.
an effect in this case could be because the speed of waves in the ether is
just so fast that we do not notice the small changes from our own slow
motion. Earth itself, however, moves about its axis and the Sun fast
enough for its effect on light speed to be easily observable with optical
interference techniques. After many careful measurements, no dev-
iation from 186,000 miles per second has ever been detected.23 No
matter how fast either the light emitter or the light observer moves,
the speed of light appears to be the same.
It is impossible to visualize any mechanical setup that is consis-
tent with these observed facts. You can try thinking of light as particles
shot out from the source, or as waves traveling through a fluid. Neither
picture leads to a light speed that remains unchanged when viewed
from moving frames. Maxwell’s formulas accurately describe a Nature
that operates in a nonvisualizable way. This is the first crisis perpe-
trated upon science by Maxwell’s theory.
2.6 einstein exposes prejudices about

space and time
In the human world speeds are relative: standing still on an airplane
looks from the ground like moving fast. In Nature, however – very
accurately expressed by Maxwell’s formulas – at least one speed is
apparently not relative in this sense, but absolute. The speed of light
does not change when we measure it from a moving platform. An
object viewed as moving at light speed from an airplane looks like
moving at the same light speed from the ground.
There is nothing complicated about how we add the velocity of a

moving object to the velocity of a moving observer to get a total
apparent velocity (velocity entails both speed and direction. To keep
things simple imagine the added velocities are parallel). If this process
does not work for light or any other substance, there is something very
deeply wrong with our thinking. At the turn of the century, this prob-
lem boggled the minds of the most brilliant and experienced scientists.
To account for the constancy of light speed, they postulated strange
effects of the ether on the properties of objects moving through it.
But these effects were utterly obscure. Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
cut through the confusion with a proposal that was perfectly consis-
tent with the philosophical trend since Newton, but which was
received with skepticism and incomprehension by many scientists.
Einstein advocated that we simply accept the fact that the speed
of light is constant in any frame of reference moving with its own
fixed velocity, and that we change the rules for adding velocities to
accommodate that fact. He did not try to explain why light speed does
not depend on reference frame velocity, he just assumed it is so, à la
Newton, and moved on.24
Speed is just the ratio of distance traveled to time elapsed. We
think of time as having absolute significance independent of the speed
of any reference platform. You would expect the duration of one second
displayed on the watch of an airplane passenger to be the same whether
the watch was viewed by the passenger or by an observer in a tower
glancing through a window as the plane zooms past. And you would
also expect the length of the airplane to be the same whether it is
measured by the passenger or from the stationary tower. If these
assumptions are true, however, we arrive inevitably at the simple
rule for combining velocities that says the observer should measure a
different light speed than the passenger, which contradicts Maxwell’s
empirically based laws.
By accepting the fact that light speed is constant in any frame,
Einstein forced a change in how we regard distance and time viewed
from relatively moving frames. The mathematics is at the level of high
school algebra: Find the simplest rule transforming distances and

times from the passenger’s frame to the observer’s so that light speed
is the same in both. Einstein himself provided a simple derivation in a
popular account he wrote.25 The result is that both sizes (distances)
and durations (times) change when transformed from one frame to
another. The stationary observer sees the airplane shrink in the direc-
tion of motion, and observes the watch to tick more slowly than his
own watch. The formulas that relate durations and distances in one
frame of reference to another moving with respect to it are called
Lorentz transformations because H. A. Lorentz had derived them
prior to Einstein from an entirely different, and much more restrictive,
point of view.26
Time dilation is important in experiments performed with large
accelerators because it stretches the brief lifetimes of unstable but
rapidly moving particles, like muons (Chapter 7), into durations long
enough to measure. Neither spatial contraction nor time dilation are
noticeable when the objects are moving slowly. They have to be mov-
ing near the speed of light, or as physicists say, relativistically.
2.7 a digression on e ¼ mc 2
What I most want to describe in this chapter is how we came to believe
that efforts to explain the simple relations we find in Nature would
bear fruit. The thread of this account is knotted with many apparently
unrelated discoveries that eventually contributed to a remarkable
larger pattern. I vividly recall my first impression of Darwin’s Origin
of Species where descriptions of empirical observations are piled one
upon another to create an overwhelming sense of a powerful under-
lying principle at work. Reading the history of twentieth-century
physics creates a similar impression. The side-effects, as it were, of
the search for meaning in Nature mount up to reinforce a conviction
that we are on the right track. Of all such discoveries, that of Einstein’s
famous formula was among the deepest, and the least expected.
Newton’s Second Law of Motion is about accelerations in
response to forces. Acceleration means changing velocity. If the
velocity of a particle changes, the relative velocity of the frame in

which it is at rest is changing with respect to our “laboratory” frame.
So if distances and times have to be transformed whenever relative
velocities change, the law of motion too must be altered to accom-
modate Einstein’s new ideas. Once again the problem is not mathe-
matically difficult, although it helps to have a little calculus. Suffice it
to say that the necessary changes to Newton’s formulas can be found
easily. Once again, it is not the mathematics that impedes understand-
ing, it is the strangeness of the result. The old familiar Second Law of
Motion appears as an approximation to the new one, valid when the
object it describes is moving slowly compared with light.
I mentioned earlier that energy is not something you can observe
directly in the natural environment. It is a quantity derived in physical
theory through purely mathematical operations on Newton’s Second
Law. The formula for energy can be evaluated from measurable proper-
ties like masses and velocities. Therefore, if the Second Law is changed
to accommodate the constancy of light speed, then the definition of
energy will change too. That is, the concept of energy is linked to the
law of motion. When Einstein examined the relativized Second Law,
he found a new expression for the kinetic energy of a particle that did
not reduce to zero when the particle was standing still! The algebraic
term in the energy formula that remains when all motion ceases is the
famous E ¼ mc2. Here m is the inertial mass of the particle and c (for
celerity) is the speed of light that shows up in Maxwell’s equations.
Energy is significant because it is conserved, i.e., unchanged
during movements described by the law of motion. Einstein’s new
formula says that the sum of mc2 and the ordinary kinetic energy
(approximately one half the mass times the square of the velocity or
½mv2) is constant in the absence of forces. This means that if the mass
of the object were somehow diminished, then the speed of the object
must receive a kick so as to conserve the sum – a BIG kick because
the value of c, and therefore of mc2, is so large. In this way Einstein
accounted for the origin of the enormous energies associated with
radioactive decay, a complete mystery until then (1905).27
Einstein’s famous discovery is deeply satisfying because it is so

surprising and it is based on such fundamental ideas. It came from the
decision to accept as Nature’s law the constancy of light speed in
Maxwell’s theory, and to embed that constancy in Newton’s Laws of
Motion. Einstein was not working on nuclear theory or radioactivity.
Neither he nor Maxwell performed experiments themselves to achieve
their results. All they did was try to work out logical kinks the math-
ematical form of the theory threw into sharp relief. At the outset the
mathematical formulas simply summarized the accumulated results
of mechanical and electrical experiments. The purely intellectual
work required to smooth out the kinks placed the theoretical structure
far ahead of experimental observations, many of which were therefore
predicted before they were measured. With respect to the new relativ-
istic ideas, experiment has been trying to catch up ever since. For
quantum mechanics, the other revolution in twentieth-century sci-
ence, the roles of theory and experiment were reversed. Experiment
rapidly outstripped theory. But that is part of the second set of con-
sequences of Maxwell’s revolutionary theory and the subject of the
next chapter. Let us return to the story of the revolution in our ideas of
space and time.
2.8 minkowski stretches a new canvas

for the depiction of nature
Newton introduced forces acting at a distance without explanation,
more or less as shorthand for observations on moving planets. Maxwell
showed that the electric and magnetic force fields must be as real
as massive particles. Einstein said Maxwell’s and Newton’s formulas
together imply that space and time do not act the way we always
thought they did. He (and others) found rules for how to go from
distances and times in one moving frame of reference to another. Just
as the concept of energy had to be changed to accommodate the con-
stancy of light speed, every other concept – momentum, force, electric
and magnetic fields, mass densities, etc. – also had to be systematically
re-examined and reformulated to deal correctly with relative motion.
That is, the formulas had to be changed that related one quantity to
another. The whole body of ideas came to be called the special theory
of relativity. Our old notions of what is real were transformed into
weird concepts that do not match the structures of space, time, and
tangibility built into everyday language.
When the mathematician Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909)
contemplated these results shortly after Einstein set them forth in
1905, he saw a familiar pattern. The new concept replacing time played
a role in the formulas very similar to the new concept replacing dis-
tance. Furthermore, the way durations and distances changed in going
from one moving frame to another closely resembled the way horizon-
tal and vertical locations change when the reference frame is rotated.
If a window-washer’s platform tilts, the window near the low end
appears to be higher to a worker on the platform. The platform has
rotated, and the location of the window with respect to it has changed
in a definite way. Minkowski noticed that the relativistic transforma-
tion formulas were like the formulas describing the window from the
tilted perspective of the worker. But in the special theory of relativity,
one dimension of the “space” is time and the others are the usual
dimensions of length, width, and height. This is the origin of the idea
that time is a fourth dimension. The analogy is very close. It makes
itself most evident when the equations are expressed in the language
that Bernhard Riemann had advocated for investigating the empirical
properties of space.28
The four-dimensional language Minkowski advocated for
describing events in space-time gives Maxwell’s formulas their sim-
plest mathematical form. Calculations are easier when expressed in
this language, and results of calculations are easier to interpret. It is as
if before Einstein’s idea, and Minkowski’s language for it, physicists
were writing down the formulas in the wrong framework, using the
wrong variables and getting clumsy looking mathematical expressions
as a result. The new “space” and “time” appear to provide the most
natural framework for the description of evolving fields and particles.
When relative speeds are slow compared to light speed, these new
concepts behave like the old familiar space and time of Newton, and in
this regime the new formulas give results that differ negligibly from
the old.
The idea of time as a fourth dimension passed quickly into
popular culture and language, perhaps too quickly. Today we use the
word dimension to speak of the number of quantities required to
specify something. For example, we may need to ask questions in
seven categories to get a good idea of a person’s intelligence, in which
case we might speak of intelligence as having seven dimensions. We
speak of the dimensions of a spreadsheet for accounting, and of the
parameter space of a machine like a robot arm whose actions need to
be programmed. This popular use of the words dimension and space is
somewhat misleading when it comes to the four dimensions of rela-
tivistic space-time. Time behaves much more like a true geometrical
dimension than the dimensions of experimental psychology or com-
plex machinery. Time and space play such similar roles in the formulas
of physics that they mix together when they are transformed to
account for the motion of the observer who measures them.29 That is
not to say, however, that time and space are completely interchange-
able. The geometrical language favored by Minkowski does single out
one among the four dimensions as time-like, the others, of course,
being space-like.
2.9 the evolving universe as a tapestry

of world-lines in space-time
Imagine a movie, taken from above, of dancers on a ballroom floor. We
shall think of them as the atoms which, according to pre-quantum
views, comprise our universe. Now take the film and cut the frames
apart and stack them one above another, leaving a little space between
each layer. The whole stack becomes a record of the dance in its
entirety. If threads were passed through the consecutive positions of
each dancer, from one layer to the next, they would make an intricate
pattern, like a tapestry. The threads would weave among themselves as
the dance progresses from one frame to the next, but the whole dance
would be contained within the single fabric.
This is how Minkowski envisioned reality: as a pattern of threads –
he called them world-lines – traced by each atom within the four-
dimensional space-time in which the course of all that exists is
manifest. Space is the dance floor, time is the dimension that extends
from one frame to the next. The entire volume of space-time encom-
passes all history as well as all places, so omniscience amounts simply to
knowing this pattern of threads. At least it would if all there was to
know were the positions of atoms. We are aware since Maxwell’s time
that we also have to know the values of the electric and magnetic fields
at each point and each instant, which seems a vast complication. But for
the moment let us focus upon the histories of the atoms.
The first important feature of this picture is that the threads are
not broken. They do not begin or end, because atoms in this view
are the atoms of Democritus, assumed to be immortal. We should
be slightly uncomfortable with this idea, because there is no way
we could tell if atoms flickered in and out of existence very briefly
between frames, for unobservably short times. But even in the more
sophisticated post-quantum view of Nature, what we call atoms today
are remarkably, if not infallibly, permanent. The atomic threads in the
grand tapestry of Existence seem to pass unbroken through countless
incarnations in the course of time.
The second important feature of Minkowski’s vision is that the
dance proceeds according to a remarkably simple set of rules, namely
Newton’s Second Law of Motion (suitably modified à la Einstein to
account for finite light speed). How is the Second Law embedded in the
fabric of world-threads? Look at Figure 2.5. If there were no force on an
atom, its world-line would be straight. Forces cause world-lines to
bend. A world-line pointing straight up along the time dimension
represents an atom standing still. A world-line straight but tilted
represents an atom moving with constant speed in some direction.
But an atom accelerating under forces threads a curved world-line,
and the more the acceleration the greater (sharper) the curvature.
figure 2.5 World-lines in space-time.

The particle represented by curve A is
standing still, B is moving with constant
t4 velocity, and C is accelerating in a
wandering pattern. The planes are labeled
t3 with the times at which snapshots of the
particles are taken.
t2
t1
B
C
A
There is something arbitrary about the distribution of atoms

within the space part of space-time. The dancers at some point in
their performance may seem chaotically arranged. But with the pas-
sage of time a harmony appears. Some dancers avoid each other, others
mingle intimately, and a viewer who knows the rules of the dance can
always anticipate what will happen next, however the dancers may be
arrayed. The rules of motion are reflected in the eternal pattern of
world-lines embedded in the space-time picture of the universe.
2.10 einstein says the laws of motion must

not depend upon ourselves
Einstein insisted that Newton’s Second Law be altered to account for
the independence of light speed from the arbitrary but steady velocity
of a moving reference frame. (Notice that changing frames amounts to
tilting the planes in Figure 2.5.) This program of special relativity
(special because the reference frame speed must be constant, not accel-
erating) swept through all the theories of particle motion and gave
them a new and simpler form. Einstein’s vision, however, went far
deeper than simply reconciling the new features of Maxwell’s formulas
with the old Newtonian mechanics. He believed the rules governing
the dance of atoms should be entirely free of any merely contingent
features. In particular, he believed the rules should not depend upon
where or when or from what perspective they happen to be observed.
(In Figure 2.5 you may choose the planes labeled t1, t2, . . . to be tilted,
warped, or bumpy like rumpled tissues – the world-lines would be
the same.)
This is not so easy to arrange. A surveyor will typically express
distances and times relative to arbitrary points of reference, like
the prime meridian, or Greenwich mean time. These choices clearly
depend upon who draws the maps. Einstein wanted the rules of motion
to depend only upon relative distances, which we might call separa-
tions, and relative times or durations. Similarly, motions are usually
measured with respect to a platform the observer defines to be sta-
tionary, such as the (daily rotating!) surface of the planet Earth. So
Einstein wanted the rules to depend only on relative velocities, as
well as relative distances and times. This is why the whole program
is called the theory of relativity. It is a systematic effort to eliminate
the point of view of the observer completely from the laws of motion.
The special theory of relativity managed to adjust the laws of motion
known at the time – Newton’s and Maxwell’s – to be independent of
the position, orientation, historical moment of time, and any constant
speed, of the observer.
But an observer could be moving with a nonconstant speed,
jumping up and down for example, or accelerating in some other
complicated way like the deck of a tossing ship. And this causes
trouble in the theory. Newton’s Law is a rule specifically about accel-
erations. Unlike uniform motion, which we cannot detect, we can
always “feel” accelerations (except – and this is a clue – when we are
falling). That is the basic experience the Second Law itself summarizes.
How can we separate “real” forces from the merely apparent forces
inflicted by our own personal, arbitrary, motion?
These apparent forces are familiar. As an automobile (frame of
reference) speeds around a curve, the passengers sense a force pulling
them to the outside of the curve. They call it centrifugal force, but
there is nothing there to pull them. They are only feeling the effect of
the First Law of Motion, which declares the tendency of bodies (theirs)
to move in a straight line. As the auto’s path is curving, the passengers’
straight trajectories would pass right through its side if they were not
pulled along with the auto by friction against the seat and by the seat
belts. We attribute the sensation of being pulled outward to a fictitious
“centrifugal force.” The real force, pulling us in a curve along with the
car, is the pressure of the seat belts upon our bodies.
Distinguishing real from apparent forces seems hopeless so long
as we express the Rules of the Dance (equations of motion) in terms of
the observed acceleration. According to Einstein’s program, therefore,
some other formulation of the Second Law of Motion must be found
that does not refer to accelerations. This seems an absurdly radical
idea, given that the whole point of Newton’s Law is to relate acceler-
ations to forces. Einstein persisted because he was convinced that the
deep truths of Nature do not depend in any way upon how we choose to
view them. This is the motivation for the general theory of relativity.
2.11 a new way of thinking about

the laws of motion
I will not recount the historical steps Einstein followed to his goal. (See
chapter 4 of Pais, 1982). But Minkowski’s vision of the grand tapestry of
world-lines in a four-dimensional space-time, and Riemann’s idea that
the geometry of our space might be curved without our knowing it,
were both essential. What we are looking for, after all, is a way to
describe the arching world-lines of the dancing atoms that is independ-
ent of an observer’s possibly bouncing reference frame. We have seen
that acceleration is in this respect a bad criterion for detecting “real”
forces. What else can we use to distinguish the “intrinsic” and not
merely “apparent” curvature of world-lines? Gauss’s work on surface
curvature suggests a possibility.
Imagine drawing with a crayon on the surface of a globe. We can
scribble any path we like, but we can never draw a perfectly straight
line because the underlying globe itself is curved. The straightest
thing we can make is part of a great circle like a meridian or the
equator. This is a path with the least possible curvature, namely that
of the globe itself. Einstein’s grand insight was that perhaps the
observer-independent curvature of world-lines can be regarded as that

of the underlying geometry of the space-time in which the world-lines
are inscribed. And that the apparent curvature we introduce by our
(observer’s) jumping about is like the arbitrary scribbling departures
from the straightest path we can possibly draw between two points on
a globe.
According to this picture, what governs the underlying Rule of
the Dance is not the apparent world-line curvature related to acceler-
ation, which depends on the state of the observer, but the intrinsic
curvature of the underlying space-time “globe” on which the world-
lines wander. That intrinsic curvature must arise from or somehow
signal the presence of charges such as gravitational mass or electricity
that in Newton’s picture produce forces. Any other curvature we
happen to observe is just a result of our own (observer’s) particular
movements, like the artificial centrifugal force. Thus the two-part
scheme of physics that relates acceleration to forces and the forces to
the charges and disposition of matter is not a good one. Rather we want
a scheme that bypasses force and acceleration and directly relates the
distribution of charges to the underlying geometry of space-time.
Newton’s Second Law would become a statement about world-line
geometry, not about forces and accelerations. That rule, if we could
find it, would be the ultimate Rule of the Dance.
Einstein failed to find such a rule that applied to all forces. But he
did find a more limited rule that applied specifically to the force of
gravity, and that in itself was an extraordinary accomplishment.
2.12 an “explanation” for gravity

Einstein found a way to relate the motion of fields and particles,
responding to gravity alone, to the intrinsic geometry of four-
dimensional space-time. The idea is that the straightest possible
lines in this geometry are the world-lines actually traced by the par-
ticles and the geometry is determined by the placement of gravita-
tional charges. Thus planets fall freely along the straightest paths in a
geometry distorted by the massive influence of the Sun. Who would
ever have thought such a description were possible? To judge by his

correspondence at the time, even Einstein was amazed. It might have
been no more than a mathematical curiosity, except for one thing. The
resulting world-lines differ from what Newton’s laws predict, even
when the laws are modified by special relativity. That is, Einstein’s
general theory of relativity, applied to the effects of gravity, predicted
observable departures from Newton’s Laws. Which theory better fits
the facts?
One of the departures had already been observed, and the lack
of agreement with Newton’s Law was a puzzle for planetary astronomy
at the turn of the century. This was the orbit of the planet Mercury
which, being close to the Sun and subject to a stronger gravitational
force than any other planet, is more sensitive to small deviations
from Newton’s Laws of Gravity and Motion. In Einstein’s theory, the
“straightest” planetary path does not exactly close upon itself to make
a Keplerian ellipse, but overshoots to trace a rosette, which resembles a
slowly rotating ellipse. The rate of rotation predicted by Einstein’s
theory (43 seconds of arc per century) agreed exactly with the astro-
nomical observations of Mercury after correcting for the influence of
the other planets.30
Another consequence of Einstein’s idea is that not only planets
should follow paths whose curvature derives from a space whose
geometry is distorted by matter. Anything that moves freely through
such a space should execute a curved world-line – even a light ray
which, being massless, would remain straight according to Newton’s
Law of Gravity. A light ray curved by the Sun’s influence on the
geometry it traverses would produce a shift in the apparent location
of a star near the Sun, observable during an eclipse. Accurate measure-
ments have confirmed the effect.31
In this new theory of gravitation, Einstein took over the mathe-
matical work of Riemann to describe the space-time geometry.
Applications of the theory normally proceed in two steps, analogous
to the two steps in Newtonian physics. First use the distribution of
matter and energy (gravitational charge) to calculate its effect on the
geometry of space-time. Then use that information to predict the paths

of particles (world-lines) launched with particular initial conditions.
This step is purely geometrical, the paths being the analogues of
straight lines (called geodesics) in the distorted space-time. Since
the program of special relativity had already shown that masses are
related to energy (through E ¼ mc2), it is necessary to use not only the
distribution of mass, but the distribution of all forms of energy to
determine the space-time geometry. Electric and magnetic fields,
mass and kinetic energy, including the energy of motion we associate
with heat, all produce distortions in the space-time geometry. If we
demand the effects of this distortion to propagate at or less than light
speed, then the distortion itself must carry energy by the reasoning I
described earlier to attribute energy and momentum to the electro-
magnetic fields. And this energy too must add further to the distortion,
which makes the theory nonlinear. Where energy is highly concen-
trated the two steps must be joined together, the motion of matter-
energy being tightly coupled to the dynamical distortion of space-time.
Gravity holds sway over huge distances, and Einstein did not
fail to consider that his theory might give information about the shape
of the entire cosmos. If the average energy density in our universe is
great enough, the geometry of the whole thing could be curved in such
a way that the “straightest” paths of particles could eventually close
on themselves as they do on the surface of a globe. When applied to the
cosmic geometry, the simplest solutions of the new equations were
disappointing to Einstein because they implied a dynamic expansion
of space itself wherein otherwise fixed objects would appear to be
moving with respect to each other. This was long before Edwin
Hubble and other astronomers found that indeed the galaxies do appear
to be receding (at about 20D km/s where D is the distance of the galaxy
from Earth in millions of light years). This is but one of numerous
tempting byways that threaten to draw us away from the main path of
our story.32
To summarize: Einstein’s grand picture explains the force of
gravity as an effect of matter and energy upon the geometry of space.
It gives an intuitive flavor to the unexplained cause of acceleration that

Newton invoked in his Law of Gravity. And it launched a new odyssey
of discovery in which physicists attempted to explain all forces by
distortions in Nature’s geometry.
Skepticism about how much has been “explained” is justified.
Energy is a rather abstract idea, and its equivalence to, or effect upon,
the curvature of space-time is hardly obvious. What is remarkable is
first, that the scheme is so close to what Riemann had imagined and
second, that Einstein was not guided primarily by experiment, but by
essentially philosophical considerations. He discovered a theory of
gravitation more accurate than Newton’s by insisting that the laws
of motion not depend on arbitrary choices made by the observer. Such
fruitfulness of merely philosophical speculation was entirely unex-
pected, and it changed forever the way physicists approached their
subject.
It needs to be said that Einstein’s philosophical approach was
not uniformly well received by a scientific establishment steeped
in positivistic, and therefore experimentally oriented, methods of
research. Einstein’s Nobel Prize was for work having nothing to do
with relativity, and it was a long time coming. In the increasingly anti-
Semitic atmosphere of Germany between the World Wars, Einstein’s
methods were scorned, and Heisenberg himself, who was otherwise
acceptable to the authorities, was criticized for teaching them.33
2.13 weyl’s attempt to explain

electromagnetism
As the success of Einstein’s scheme emerged, physicists and mathe-
maticians who appreciated it began looking for ways to fit in electro-
magnetism, at that time the only other known fundamental force in
Nature. It was awkward to have one kind of “Rule of the Dance” for the
response of particles to gravity, and a completely different one for the
response to electromagnetism. If gravity is the result of an intrinsic
curvature of space-time, perhaps some other geometrical property of
this new four-dimensional world could be identified with electric and
figure 2.6 The sides of a small right triangle in curved

c
a space obey c2 ¼ g1a2 + g2b2. In flat space, g1 ¼ g2 = 1
(Pythagoras’s Theorem). The g’s define the metric of the
b space.
magnetic forces. Thus began the quest to reduce all forces to geometry.
The first idea of how to do this came from the mathematician
Hermann Weyl (1885–1955).34
Curvature is not the most fundamental property of, nor the best
way to describe, the geometry of a multi-dimensional space. It can be
derived from a more convenient set of quantities collectively called
the metric of the space, a concept already employed by Riemann.35
The numbers defining the metric are coefficients in the analogue of
Pythagoras’s Theorem that relates the square of a distance traveled to
the squares of projections of the distance along the coordinate axes of a
reference frame. This sounds rather technical, but the fact that it can
be framed in a single sentence suggests that “metric” is not an unduly
exotic concept. It relates the distance traveled in some direction to
corresponding advances along other directions, just as the hypotenuse
of a right triangle can be described as resulting from advances along the
two perpendicular legs (Figure 2.6). Curvature is related not to the
absolute numbers of the metric, but to how the numbers change as
you move about in the space. In Einstein’s theory, these numbers play
the role of (and for weak gravity are actually proportional to) the
Newtonian quantity called gravitational potential.
Weyl pointed out that we are free not only to choose the coor-
dinate axes, but also the measuring scale we use to determine lengths
at each point. Imagine the state of measurement before the nations
agreed on a standard meter. There was, so to speak, a French meter, a
Swiss meter, and an Italian meter. The numerical stature of an interna-
tional traveler would grow or shrink at border crossings – a truly
artificial effect. But suppose there was an effect that really did change
the lengths of things as you moved about (Figure 2.7). Then you would
want to distinguish that real intrinsic effect from the artificial one of a
changing standard – a changing gauge. In any case, you would want the
figure 2.7 The size of an object at a

point in space could be regarded as a
feature of the geometry of the space,
analogous to “curvature.” In a space
that is “flat” with respect to this
feature, the size would not change.
law of motion to be gauge-invariant: The law should represent reality,

no matter what gauge you arbitrarily chose to describe it.
There is no evidence that things change length as they wander
from place to place, even in four-dimensional space-time. But in 1918
Weyl worked through the mathematics anyway, and found something
interesting. A length scale that changes from place to place can influ-
ence the paths of particles just as surely as the changes in curvature
that Einstein related to the distribution of energy. In Weyl’s theory the
scale would vary in the presence of electric charge. He found rules for
the force intrinsically associated with the changing gauge (the ana-
logue of the gravity force associated with changing coordinate sys-
tems). And these rules were identical to Maxwell’s formulas!
Weyl, more a mathematician than a physicist (but brilliant in
either field), was ecstatic. He sent his discovery off to Einstein, claim-
ing to have geometrized electromagnetic theory, and asking him to
sponsor its publication. Impressed but skeptical, Einstein sent the
work along to be published, but added a note calling attention to its
unphysical consequences. The problem was that in space-time a
change in length entails a change in duration. Moreover, the changes
contemplated by Weyl were not uniquely fixed at each point, but
depended upon the path of an object through space. So, remarked
Einstein, the oscillation periods of radiating atoms would depend on
their histories, and the optical spectra of the elements would blur,
contrary to observation.36
Weyl’s failure, however, was productive. For one thing, mathe-
matical physicists began to realize that the form of Maxwell’s
equations does closely resemble formulas that arise in the geometry
of curved spaces. The idea may not have worked out, but it made the
point that Einstein had not exhausted the possibilities. Unfortunately,

the metric itself – at least in the four space-time dimensions of
Minkowski – did not harbor any additional parameters on which
to build a better geometrical explanation of electromagnetism.
Furthermore, science was soon to discover the nuclear forces which
would require explanations of their own. Things were about to get
complicated.
Despite these difficulties, Einstein and co-workers continued to
explore other routes to geometrical explanations of all the forces of
Nature. None of these attempts at a unified field theory bore fruit.
Little progress occurred until the revolution of quantum theory had
been completed. So now we must turn our attention to this extraordi-
nary development.
2.14 reflections on riemann’s idea

of geometry as physics
To Riemann goes the credit for realizing that the geometry of our world
may be distorted beneath our notice. Einstein saw that Maxwell’s
equations implied the need to change our idea of space and time, and
launched the program of special relativity. The mathematical form of
the result suggested to Minkowski that the proper world was one of
four, not three, dimensions. Then Einstein applied Riemann’s idea to
the geometry of four-dimensional space-time, and identified the dis-
tortion of geometry, about which Riemann had speculated, with the
intrinsic curvature of world-lines of particles accelerating (falling
freely) under the influence of gravity. This concept replaced (for the
action of gravity) Newton’s idea of relating acceleration to force, and
the force to the positions and masses of the gravitating matter. Einstein
found explicit formulas that related the local curvature of space-time
to the distribution of energy arising from the masses, charges, and
motions of the components of matter, including Maxwell’s dynamic
fields, and worked out the details for various observable phenomena,
particularly the orbit of the planet Mercury, and the bending of star-
light by the Sun.
The new theory, conceived by untangling the logic of the formulas

that described natural phenomena easily accessible to experiment, pre-
dicted new phenomena that were subsequently observed. This untan-
gling was not a routine, mechanical process, but a series of creative acts
that involved ideas and beliefs about how the universe “really” operates
beneath its superficial aspect. The key idea was to ignore the particular
accidental arrangement of matter in space, and focus on how that
arrangement changes with time. Rules governing change, according to
Einstein, should not depend on the arbitrary perspective of an observer.
Philosophy creeps into physics through the imperative should. Does
Nature truly obey this imperative? Subsequent discoveries revealed
the need for a much deeper account of the relation between Nature
and her observers. Quantum mechanics meets this need, and introduces
entirely new features in Nature’s intrinsic geometry.
At this point we leave the story of gravity behind. Einstein’s
geometrical theory changed how we think about force and motion,
but its elegant and surprising framework could be adapted to electro-
magnetism only by introducing exotic new features for which there
was no other motivation at the time, and the theory provided no
insight at all into quantum phenomena. Physical thought during the
ensuing decades produced a new framework – an entirely new lan-
guage – with which to analyze the microworld. Within that framework
a new theoretical structure evolved in parallel with, but apart from,
Einstein’s theory. Only toward the end of the twentieth century did
radical new ideas emerge about how the two might be related, and the
unification of gravity with the other forces in Nature is a chief aim of
fundamental physics in the new century. My business here is not with
these latest speculations, but with that new quantum language – old
now to experts – in whose terms physicists believe all future theories
must be framed.
notes
1. The shape of the Earth. Newton’s idea is stated as Theorem 16 “That the
axes of the planets are less than the diameters drawn perpendicular to the
Another random document with
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toward stern.
Coat and Feather.—Coat as straight and flat as
possible, silky in texture, of sufficient denseness to
afford good protection to the skin in thorny coverts,
and moderately long; feather long and ample,
straight or very slightly wavy, heavily fringing ears, back of fore legs,
between toes, and on back of quarters.
Tail.—Strong, and not carried higher than level of back.
THE SPANIEL (IRISH WATER).
T. A. Carson’s, Kingston, Ontario.
Musha.
Origin.—This cannot be traced, yet it is supposed to have a

decided cross of the poodle.
Uses.—Retrieving wounded game from the water.
* Scale of Points, Etc.
Value.
Head, jaw, eyes, and topknot 20
Ears 5
Neck 5
Body 10
Fore legs 10
Hind legs 10
Feet 5
Stern 10
Coat 15
General appearance 10
Total 100
General Appearance.—A strong, somewhat leggy dog.
Head.—Skull medium length, rather broad; very little stop Muzzle
long, and broad to end. Eyes dark brown, and very intelligent. Ears
long, and covered with curls.
Neck.—Long, slightly arched, and muscular.
Body.—Fair-sized; barrel well rounded and ribbed up.
Nose.—Liver-colored, large, and well developed.
Shoulders and Chest.—Shoulders long and oblique;
chest deep, but not very wide.
Back and Loins.—Back strong and flat; loins strong,
fair length, and a trifle arched.
Hind Quarters.—Long; hocks well
let down, and stifles straighter than
in other varieties of spaniels.
Stern.—Strong at root, and tapering to a fine
point; the hair on it must be quite short, straight,
and close-lying.
Legs and Feet.—Legs well boned and quite straight, somewhat long.
Feet rather large.
Coat.—All over little curls, hard, but not woolly. The topknot of
long hair should fall over the eyes in a peak, and legs should have as
little feather on them as possible.
Color.—A rich, dark liver. White on toes or breast a defect, but not
a disqualification.
Negative Points.
Value.
Feather on stern 10
White on chest 5
THE SPANIEL (JAPANESE).
W. J. Burkhardt’s, 1301 Broadway, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Jingo.
Origin.—A native of Japan, where it is also called the “sleeve-dog,”

on account of being carried there by the “swells” of that country.
Uses.—Simply a pet dog, and extremely intelligent.
Value.
Head—size and shape of skull 10
Shortness of face and muzzle 10
Width of muzzle 5
Eyes 10
Ears 10
Coat and markings 15
Size and symmetry 20
Legs and feet 10
Tail 10
Total 100
Head and Neck.—Head large, broad; slightly rounded skull; neck
short, and moderately thick. Eyes large, dark, lustrous, rather
prominent, wide apart. Muzzle strong, wide, very short from stop to
nose; jaws upturned; teeth not to be shown; nose very short, the
end wide with open nostrils, and same color as markings. Ears small,
V-shaped; well feathered, set high, and wide apart; carried forward.
Body.—Compact, squarely built, cobby, the body and legs forming
a square.
Legs and Feet.—Bones of legs small, slender, well
feathered. Feet small, cat-like; the feather
increasing the length, never the width.
Tail.—Carried over back in tight curl; profusely
feathered.
Coat.—Profuse, long, straight, rather silky, free
from wave, not too flat.
Color.—Black, red, or white; parti-colors with white ground
preferred. Blenheim markings are most showy. In variation of
markings the colors must remain distinct.
Weight.—Four to nine pounds; the smaller, the better.
THE SPANIEL (SUSSEX).
Rowland P. Keasbey’s, 874 Broadway, New York.
Coleshill Rufus.
Origin.—It is impossible to trace this origin.

Uses.—Hunting pheasants, and sometimes for its fur.
Scale of Points, Etc.
Value.
Head and jaw 15
Eyes 5
Ears 5
Neck 5
Body 15
Fore legs 10
Hind legs 10
Feet 5
Stern 5
Coat and feather 10
Total 100
General Appearance.—Rather massive and muscular,
but with free movements and nice tail action.
Head.—Moderately long, massive, with depth in
proportion; skull broad, and forehead prominent.
Eyes hazel, fairly large, and languishing, not showing haw overmuch.
Ears thick, fairly large, lobe-shaped; set moderately low, but
relatively not so low as in black or other spaniels; carried close to
head, and furnished with wavy hair.
Neck.—Muscular, and slightly arched.
Body.—Long, with well-sprung ribs; fair depth
behind shoulders.
Nose.—Liver color; muzzle large and square; lips
somewhat pendulous; nostrils well developed.
Shoulders and Chest.—Shoulders oblique; chest deep and wide.
Back and Loins.—Back level and long; loins broad.
Hind Quarters.—Strong; thighs muscular, and hocks low down.
Stern.—Docked from 5 to 8 inches; set low; not
carried above level of back.
Legs and Feet.—Legs short and strong; immense
bone, and a slight bend in forearm. Feet large,
round, and moderately well feathered, with short
hair between toes.
Coat.—Body-coat abundant; flat or slightly waved, with no
tendency to curl; moderately well feathered on legs and stern, but
clean below hocks.
Color.—Dark golden liver; not a light ginger or snuff color, but of a
rich bronze tinge, not puce.
Weight.—From 35 to 45 pounds.
SPANIELS (TOY)—BLENHEIM, KING
CHARLES, PRINCE CHARLES, AND
RUBY.
(From Modern Dogs.)
Ruby Spaniel. Prince Charles Spaniel.
Origin.—Shrouded in mystery. The King Charles spaniel derives its

name from the second monarch of that name, and the Blenheim
from the family seat of the Duke of Marlborough. The colors were
originally black, tan, and white for the first breed, and orange or red
and white for the second.
Uses.—Essentially pet dogs, though at one time the Blenheim was
used for hunting birds.
King Charles, Prince Charles, and Ruby.
Value.
Symmetry, condition, and size 20
Head 15
Stop 5
Muzzle 10
Eyes 10
Ears 15
Coat and feathering 15
Color 10
Total 100
Blenheim.
Value.
Symmetry, condition, and size 20
Head 15
Stop 5
Muzzle 10
Eyes 5
Ears 10
Coat and feathering 15
Color and markings 15
Spot 5
Total 100
Head.—Well domed, and in good specimens
absolutely semi-globular, sometimes even extending
beyond the half-circle, and absolutely projecting
over eyes, so as nearly to meet upturned nose.
Eyes.—Set wide apart, with eyelids square to line
of face, not oblique or fox-like; large, lustrous, very
dark in color, so as to be generally considered black; their enormous
pupils, which are absolutely of that color, increasing the description.
KING OF THE BLENHEIMS
Mrs. F. Senn’s, 278 West Eleventh Street, New York.
Stop.—Well marked as in bulldog, or even more so, some good

specimens exhibiting a hollow deep enough to bury a small marble.
Nose.—Short, well turned up, without any indication of artificial
displacement; color of end black, and both deep and wide, with
open nostrils.
Jaw.—Lower jaw wide, leaving plenty of space for tongue and for
attachment of lower lips, which should completely conceal teeth;
also turned up or “finished,” so as to allow of its meeting end of
upper jaw, turned up in a similar way.
Ears.—Long, so as to approach the ground; in an average-sized
dog they measure 20 inches from tip to tip, and some reach 22
inches; set low on head; heavily feathered. In this respect the King
Charles is expected to exceed the Blenheim, and his ears
occasionally extend to 24 inches.
Size.—The most desirable size is about 10 pounds.
Shape.—In compactness of shape these spaniels almost rival the
pug, being decidedly cobby, with strong, stout legs, broad back, and
wide chest.
Coat.—Long, silky, soft, and wavy, but not curly. In the Blenheim
there should be a profuse mane, extending well down in front of
chest. Feather well displayed on ears and feet, where it is so long as
to give appearance of their being webbed; also carried well up the
backs of the legs. In the King Charles, feather on ears is very long
and profuse, exceeding that of Blenheim by an inch or more. The
feather on tail (which is about 3½ or 4 inches) should be silky, and
from 5 to 6 inches in length, constituting a marked flag of a square
shape, and not carried above level of back.
DUKE OF CHESTER
Mrs. F. Senn’s, 278 West Eleventh Street,

New York.
King Charles Spaniel.
Color.—Varies with the breed. The King Charles is a rich, glossy

black and deep tan, without white; tan spots over eyes and on
cheeks, and the usual markings on legs, are also
required. The Blenheim must on no account be
whole-colored, but have a ground of pure, pearly
white, with bright, rich chestnut or ruby-red
markings evenly distributed in large patches; ears
and cheeks red; a blaze of white extending from
nose up to forehead, and ending between ears in a crescentic curve;
in center of this blaze there should be a clear spot of red, size of a
sixpence. The tricolor, or Charles the First spaniel, should have the
tan of the King Charles, with markings like Blenheim, in black
instead of red, on a pearly white ground; ears and under the tail
should also be lined with tan. The tricolor has no spot, that beauty
being peculiarly the property of the Blenheim.
The only name by which the tricolor, or black, white, and tan, in
future shall be recognized, is Prince Charles.
That in future the all-red toy spaniel be known by name of Ruby
spaniel; the color of nose to be black. The points of the Ruby to be
same as those of King Charles, differing only in color.
Black-and-tan spaniels with markings of white shall be entered in
Prince Charles class, and red spaniels with white markings must go
into Blenheim class.
THE TERRIER (AIREDALE).
F. H. F. Mercer’s, Ottawa, Canada.
Weaver.
Origin.—Probably a cross of otter-hound and some of the large

breed of terriers. Most numerously found in the valley of the Aire
and about Bradford, England.
Uses.—A gamy vermin-dog.
Value.
Head 20
Ears 8
Neck, shoulders, and chest 12
Back and loins 15
Hind quarters and stern 5
Legs and feet 15
Coat and color 20
Weight 5
Total 100
Head.—Skull flat, moderately narrow, tapering
slightly to eyes, free from wrinkle. No perceptible
stop or indentation between skull and muzzle,
except in profile. Jaw long and powerful, free from
flews, rather deep, and moderately square at end.
Nose black; nostrils large. Mouth level; teeth large
and sound. Eyes small, bright, dark in color, with terrier expression.
Ears V-shaped, moderate in size and thickness; carried forward as in
a fox-terrier; free from long, silky hair.
Neck.—Fair length, gradually widening to shoulders; well carried;
free from throatiness.
Shoulders and Chest.—Shoulders fine, long, and sloping; chest
deep, muscular, but neither full nor wide.
Back and Loins.—Back short, straight, and strong; ribs well sprung
and rounded; loins broad and powerful, and well ribbed up.
Hind Quarters.—Strong, powerful, thick through hams; good
muscular second thighs, and stifles fairly bent; no tendency to cow-
hocks.
Stern.—Stout and docked; set on rather high, but not raised to a
right angle with back.
Legs and Feet.—Legs straight and well furnished with bone. Feet
round and close, with a good thick sole.
Coat.—Rough or broken; dense and wiry in texture; free from lock
or curl.
Color.—Dark grizzle back from occiput to end of tail, extending
also down sides of body, with dark markings on side of skull; rest of
body a good tan, darker on ears than elsewhere.
Weight.—Dogs, 40 to 45 pounds; bitches, 35 to 40 pounds.
Disqualifications.—A Dudley nose; white on throat, face,
or feet; white on any other part of body objectionable; a
thoroughly bad mouth, i.e., minus a number of teeth, and
others cankered; undershot; partial blindness
objectionable.
THE TERRIER (BEDLINGTON).
(From Modern Dogs.)
Origin.—Supposed both by conformation and color to have sprung

from the Dandie Dinmont and otter-hound. The breed is not an old
one, by any means.
Uses.—A gamy vermin-dog.
* No scale of points adopted.
Head.—Skull narrow, deep, and rounded, high at
occiput; covered with silky tuft or topknot. Jaw long,
tapering, sharp, and muscular; little or no stop; lips
close-fitting, and no flew. Eyes small and deep set.
The blues should have dark eyes; blue and tans,
dark, with amber shade; livers, sandies, etc., light brown. Nose
small. Blues, and blue and tans, have black noses; livers and
sandies, flesh-colored. Teeth level. Ears moderately large, filbert-
shaped; carried well forward; flat to cheek; thinly covered, and
tipped with fine, silky hair.
Legs.—Of moderate length, not wide apart, straight, with good-
sized, rather long foot.
Tail.—Thick at root, tapering; slightly feathered; 9 to 11 inches
long, and scimitar-shaped.
Neck and Shoulders.—Neck long, deep at base, and
rising well from shoulders, which should be flat.
Body.—Long, flat-ribbed, deep, not wide in chest;
slightly arched back, well ribbed; light quarters.
Coat.—Hard, with close bottom, and not lying flat
to sides.
Color.—Dark blue, blue and tan, liver, liver and tan, sandy, and
sandy and tan.
Height.—Fifteen to sixteen inches.
Weight.—Fifteen to twenty-five pounds.
THE TERRIER (BLACK-AND-TAN).
Rochelle Kennels, New Rochelle, N. Y.
Broomfield Sultan.
Origin.—This breed was until very recently known as the

Manchester (England) terrier, and was probably brought into
existence by the operatives of that city.
Uses.—A gamy vermin-dog, and a nice companion.
Value.
Head 20
Eyes 10
Ears 5
Legs 10
Feet 10
Body 10
Tail 5
Color and markings 15
General appearance (including terrier quality) 15
Total 100
Head.—Long, almost flat, narrow, level, and
wedge-shaped, without showing cheek muscles;
well filled up under eyes; tapering, tightly lipped
jaws; level teeth. Ears, if cropped, must stand
perfectly erect; if uncropped, small, thin, and V-
shaped, hanging close to head above eyes. Eyes
very small, sparkling, and dark, set fairly close together, and oblong
in shape. Nose perfectly black.
Neck and Shoulders.—Neck fairly long, tapering from shoulders to
head, free from throatiness, slightly arched; shoulders sloping.
Chest.—Narrow but deep.
Body.—Moderately short; powerful loins; ribs well sprung; back
slightly arched at loins, falling again at joining of tail to same height
as the shoulders.
Legs.—Perfectly straight, set well under body, fair length.
Feet.—More inclined to be cat- than hare-footed; black toe-nails.
Tail.—Moderately short, thick where it joins body, tapering to a
point, not carried higher than the back.
Coat.—Close, smooth, short, and glossy, not soft.
Color.—Black and mahogany tan, distributed distinctly over body.
On head, tan to the nose; nasal bone jet black; bright spot on each
cheek and above each eye. Under jaw and throat are tan; hair inside
ear of same color. Fore legs tan to knee, with black lines up each toe
and black mark above the foot. Inside hind legs tan, divided with
black at hock-joint. Under tail tan, and each side of chest is tanned
slightly.
THE TERRIER (BOSTON).
Squantum Kennels, Atlantic, Mass.
His Nibs.
Origin.—The parents of this breed were Hooper’s Judge (a cross

from an English bulldog and an English terrier) and Burnett’s Gyp, “a
white bitch.” The American Kennel Club has now recognized this as a
distinct breed. The origin as given dates back to about 1870.
Uses.—Purely a toy dog, of very affectionate disposition and
equable temper.
Value.
Skull 12½
Ears 5
Eyes 5
Stop 2½
Muzzle 12½
Neck 5
Body 15
Elbows 2½
Fore legs 4
Hind legs 4
Feet 2
Tail 10
Color 7
Coat 3
Total 100
General Appearance.—The general appearance is that of a smooth,
short-coated, compactly built dog of moderately low stature. The
head should indicate a high degree of intelligence and be in
proportion to the dog’s size; body rather short and well knit; limbs
strong and finely turned; no feature being so prominent that the dog
appears badly proportioned; all conveying an impression of
determination, strength, and activity. Style of a high order, and
carriage easy and graceful.
Head.—Skull large, broad, and flat, without
prominent cheeks, and forehead free from wrinkles.
Stop well defined, but indenture not too deep. Eyes
wide apart, large and round, neither sunken nor too
prominent; color dark and soft. The outside corner
should be on a line with cheeks as viewed from the
front. Ears small and thin, situated as near corners
of skull as possible; rose-ear preferable. Muzzle moderately short,
wide, and deep (without wrinkles). Nose black and wide, with a well-
defined straight line between nostrils. Jaws broad, square, and even,
with short, strong teeth; chops wide and deep, not pendulous,
completely covering teeth when mouth is closed.
Neck.—Rather short and thick (without loose skin), and quite well
arched.
Body.—Set moderately low, deep and quite broad at chest, well
ribbed up; back quite short, not roached; loins and quarters strong.
Elbows.—Set quite low, standing neither in nor out.
Fore Legs.—Rather wide apart, straight, and well muscled.
Hind Legs.—Rather straight; quite long from stifle
to hock (which should turn neither in nor out); short
and straight from hock to pastern. Thighs well
muscled. Hocks not too prominent.
Feet.—Small, nearly round, and turned a trifle
outward; toes compact and arched.
Tail.—Moderate in length, set on low, with a moderate downward
carriage, fine and tapering, devoid of fringe or coarse hair.
Color.—Any color except black, mouse, or liver; brindle and white
evenly marked, and whole brindle, are colors most preferred.
Coat.—Fine in texture, short, bright, and not too hard.
Weight.—Light-weight class, 15 to 25 pounds; heavy-weight class,
25 to 35 pounds.
Disqualification.—Docked tail.
THE TERRIER (BULL).
F. F. Dole’s, New Haven, Conn.
Gully the Great.
Origin.—This is admittedly a cross between the bulldog and the

English terrier.
Uses.—Formerly as a fighting dog. Present uses are for vermin,
and as a companion it has no superior, being kind, gentle, and
exceedingly honest and loyal.
* The Various Parts of the Head, Body, Etc.
Scale of Points by Rawdon B. Lee.
Value.
Head, including skull, muzzle, lips, jaws, and teeth 25
Eyes 10
Ears (badly cropped or otherwise) 5
Neck and shoulders 15
Back 10
Legs and feet 15
Coat 10
Stern 10
Total 100
General Appearance.—The general appearance of the bull-terrier is
that of a symmetrical animal, an embodiment of agility, grace,
elegance, determination, and good nature.
Head.—Long, flat, and wide between ears, tapering to the nose,
without cheek muscles; slight indentation down face, without a stop.
Jaws long and very powerful; large black nose, and open nostrils.
Eyes small and very black. Lips should meet as tightly as possible,
without a fold. Teeth regular in shape, and meet exactly, any
deviation being a great fault. Ears always cropped for the show-
bench, and should be done scientifically and according to fashion.
Neck.—Long, slightly arched, nicely set into shoulders, tapering to
head, without any loose skin.
Body.—Shoulders strong, muscular, slanting; chest wide and deep;
ribs well rounded.
Back.—Short, muscular, but not out of proportion.
Legs.—Fore legs perfectly straight, well-developed muscles; not
“out at shoulder,” but set on racing lines; very strong at pasterns.
Hind legs long, muscular, with good, strong, straight hocks, well let
down.
Feet.—Resembling those of the hare.
Color.—White.
Coat.—Short, close, stiff to the touch, with fine gloss.
Tail.—From 10 to 12 inches long, set on very low;
thick where it joins the body, tapering to a fine
point; carried at an angle of about 45 degrees,
without curl, and never over the back.
Weight.—About 30 pounds.
THE TERRIER (CLYDESDALE OR
PAISLEY).
Clydesdale Loris.
Origin.—Both are often considered as one breed, and supposed to

be of Skye extraction.
Uses.—A vermin-dog, but better as a pet.
Value.
Head 15
Ears 10
Body 15
Coat 20
Color 10
Tail 10
Legs and feet 5
Style and general appearance 15
Total 100
General Appearance and Style.—The general appearance is that of a
long, low dog with plenty of style, having a rather large head in
proportion to its size, and with a coat that looks like silk or spun
glass.
Head.—Skull slightly domed, very narrow between ears, gradually
widening toward eyes, and tapering very slightly to nose; covered
with long, silky hair, perfectly straight, without curl or waviness, and
extending well beyond nose, plentiful on sides of head, joined by
that from the ears, giving head a very large and rather heavy
appearance. Muzzle very deep and powerful, tapering very slightly to
nose, which should be large and well spread over the muzzle, always
black. Jaws strong; teeth perfectly level. Eyes rather wide apart,
large, round, moderately full, but not prominent; brown, and
expressive of great intelligence.
Ears.—This is a most important point. They should be as small as
possible, set on high, carried perfectly erect, covered with long, silky
hair, which should hang in a beautiful fringe down side of head,
joining that on jaws. (Well-carried, finely fringed ears are one of the
greatest points of beauty.)
Neck.—Rather long, very muscular, well set into the shoulders,
covered with same class of hair as the body.
Body.—Very long, deep in chest, well ribbed up;
back perfectly level.
Coat.—Very long, perfectly straight, free from curl
or waviness; very glossy and silky in texture (not
linty), and without any pily under coat.
Color.—Dark blue to light fawn, the various shades of blue—dark
blue for preference, but without any approach to blackness or

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Quantum reality theory and philosophy 1st Edition

Elementary Particle Theory Volume 1 Quantum Mechanics

Nuclear and particle physics 2nd Edition Brian Martin

Angular momentum in quantum physics theory and

Elementary Particle Physics 1st Edition Yorikiyo

Weak interactions and modern particle theory Howard

The Pinch Technique and its Applications to Non Abelian

Constructing Grounded Theory 2nd Edition Kathy Charmaz

Questions of the fundamental nature of matter continue to inspire and

john marburger, III, is University Professor of Physics and

john marburger, iii

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press,

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First published 2011

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Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

1. The nature of things 1

3. Reality large and small 52

5. More is different 132

7.6 The weak force (but no QWD) 221

ideas, but attempts a brisk, coherent sketch of the most important

The central question is: If we agree that life is more than a

1.1 nature does not conform to our

(to oversimplify his argument) it is physically impossible to perceive,

figure 1.1 A conventional table of Standard Model pieces.

resembles human space and time only in a limited human-scale

1.2 explanation versus description

This unhuman decoupling of explanation from aim, while necessary, is

1.3 physicists keep trying to explain

still speak of scientiﬁc formulas as if they were no more than concise

knowledge of the entire physical universe. Brian Greene’s The Elegant

lower family and bring in only an impetus – as if a certain matter of

2.1 bernhard riemann speculates on the

figure 2.1 How can you measure the actual

D figure 2.2 The circumference C

It is remarkable that you can determine the shape of the Earth by

represent reality à la Kant, but must be tested by actual measurements

2.2 the work of physics

to quantities that could no more be visualized than gravitational

actual force on a charge at some location is then the ﬁeld at that

As language evolves it carries forward a legacy of ignorance. Words like

experimenters the former, and normally they work together to unravel

magnetic forces, and Maxwell and others developed mathematical

2.3 newton’s unvisualizable description

other ancient culture formed such an objective view of reality.

figure 2.3 Faraday’s lines of magnetic

Faraday (1791–1867), found ways to depict them. But Faraday’s ﬁeld

2.4 maxwell adds fields to the list

When Maxwell and others examined the formulas that summar-

2.5 maxwell’s impact (1): the invariant

crises that have not yet been completely resolved. Attempts to

figure 2.4 (Left) We might expect light to go faster when emitted by a

2.6 einstein exposes prejudices about

There is nothing complicated about how we add the velocity of a