Book Reviewed: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion by Sean Carroll

This book is not a theoretical minimum If you ever regretted not taking physics in college or like to think like a physicist, then this is not the book for you. Author Sean Carroll is a respected theoretical physicist and has authored several books for physics professionals and also for general readers, but this book intended for a lay person to learn mathematical aspects of physics falls too short. There are too many physics equations and limited explanations, and no exercises at the end of each chapter to recapitulate your learning. The entire physics falls within the "classical" or "quantum" frameworks. General Relativity is a physics framework, not a theory, and specific theories could be "non-relativistic" (like Newtonian gravity) or "relativistic" (like Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism). The distinction comes down to how we think about spacetime, the non-relativistic theories feature absolute space and time and instantaneous action at a distance, but the relativistic theories describe spacetime that amalgamates space and time. This places a limit on the speed of signaling. That is, information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. which is 186,000 miles per second. In classical mechanics, a physical system is described by the position and momentum or appropriate generalizations thereof. It is the study of the dynamics at the comic scales, human scales or at the subatomic particle level. I recommend physicist Leonard Susskind’s book “The Theoretical Minimum,” an introduction to classical mechanics for the ardent amateur to learn physics at their own pace. There is a second book by Susskind that teaches quantum mechanics. Susskind’s book is reader-friendly and introduces mathematics in an enjoyable fashion. YouTube also features many videos that help aspiring physicists to learn mathematical aspects of physics.