..., almost like finding a long lost and cherished childhood toy. I remember my Apple II days, programming assembler, writing routines to directly address the disk drives. Then my project for the computer science class we had in High School (Germany 1984), where I had gotten my hands on a disassembly of the entire ROMs and from that figuring out how the mathematical formula interpretation worked (simulated stack and all). Finally, a year later, getting my hands on the schematics and figuring out how the video logic actually worked.
Only once did I feel that powerful again in my life, when I recreated that feeling in 1996 by designing, building and programming an embedded 68000 computer for a piece of medical diagnostic equipment. Designed the system, built the prototype, debugged the hardware, routed the PCB (by hand, we had no money), wrote a round-robin multitasking system in assembler and finally the actual application as well. Still have a copy.
That, and the discovery of sex:)
I respectfully disagree - I do not think this is a good book, because it is not really usable to the reader. I see two possible reader segments:
- For the physics interested general reader without a graduate degree in theoretical physics it is IMHO impossible to draw value from any of the later chapters, because: a) the math is really hard, and b) his treatment of the math is actually insufficient: unless you already know it, the book is not deep enough to follow from chapter to chapter. Anybody who has studied mathematics knows that you need practice on a subject before you go to the next level of application. Thus, this type of reader will be excited by the first chapters (which are very good), will get the general gist of the early middle section and then completely lose everything, as no plausible physical concepts are explained - it's just the math, so you need to understand it
- For the person with graduate physics background it's a fun book (my wife gave it to me as a present to remind me of my past - I did my PhD in String Theory), but not really deep. You know the physics content already, each chapter serves as a useful reminder of the math you used to do - but not well enough for you to start it again - you have to go back to the textbooks for that. In the end you also have to put up with his ranting against string theory (not that his alternatives solve any of the problems he assigns to ST).
However, I have to say it is an incredibly cool coffee table book and will certainly take over Hawking's 'Brief History of Time' of 'most unread book'.
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..., almost like finding a long lost and cherished childhood toy. I remember my Apple II days, programming assembler, writing routines to directly address the disk drives. Then my project for the computer science class we had in High School (Germany 1984), where I had gotten my hands on a disassembly of the entire ROMs and from that figuring out how the mathematical formula interpretation worked (simulated stack and all). Finally, a year later, getting my hands on the schematics and figuring out how the video logic actually worked. Only once did I feel that powerful again in my life, when I recreated that feeling in 1996 by designing, building and programming an embedded 68000 computer for a piece of medical diagnostic equipment. Designed the system, built the prototype, debugged the hardware, routed the PCB (by hand, we had no money), wrote a round-robin multitasking system in assembler and finally the actual application as well. Still have a copy. That, and the discovery of sex :)
- For the physics interested general reader without a graduate degree in theoretical physics it is IMHO impossible to draw value from any of the later chapters, because: a) the math is really hard, and b) his treatment of the math is actually insufficient: unless you already know it, the book is not deep enough to follow from chapter to chapter. Anybody who has studied mathematics knows that you need practice on a subject before you go to the next level of application. Thus, this type of reader will be excited by the first chapters (which are very good), will get the general gist of the early middle section and then completely lose everything, as no plausible physical concepts are explained - it's just the math, so you need to understand it
- For the person with graduate physics background it's a fun book (my wife gave it to me as a present to remind me of my past - I did my PhD in String Theory), but not really deep. You know the physics content already, each chapter serves as a useful reminder of the math you used to do - but not well enough for you to start it again - you have to go back to the textbooks for that. In the end you also have to put up with his ranting against string theory (not that his alternatives solve any of the problems he assigns to ST).
However, I have to say it is an incredibly cool coffee table book and will certainly take over Hawking's 'Brief History of Time' of 'most unread book'.