The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything
Michio Kaku
When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories--relativity and the quantum theory. more
225 pages, Hardcover
First published Doubleday
4.1
Rating
6080
Ratings
684
Reviews
Michio Kaku
31 books 6464 followers
(Arabic: ميشيو كاكوRussian: Митио Каку
Chinese: 加來道雄)
Dr. Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist at the City College of New York , best-selling author, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics of science.
He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011).
Dr. Michio is the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory), and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory.
Kaku was a Visitor and Member (1973 and 1990) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and New York University. He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.
Community reviews
Political AestheticsMichio Kaku wants to convince those of us who are not physicists that the cosmos is composed of very small vibrations. He starts with establishing the ancient pedigree of this idea and ends up explaining why these vibrations are the basis for not just Einstein’s famous E = m x c squared, but also a unified theory of the four ‘forces’ of gravity, the strong and weak atomic forces, and electromagnetism. For Kaku, String Theory rules; he thinks it might even replace theology. What I find most interesting about Kaku’s exposition is not the strength of the evidence he presents but the criterion he uses for evaluating this evidence, namely symmetry. In more technical terms, if an equation is “invariant under transformation,” Kaku considers it “beautiful,” and therefore scientifically superior to equations that are less symmetrical. more
When physicist Leon Lederman wanted to call his book on the elusive Higgs boson 'The Goddam Particle' his publisher objected and instead made it The God Particle. This usage has cropped up a couple of times since in popular science, notably The God Effect on quantum entanglement, and now Michio Kaku is applying it to the concept of a so-called Theory of Everything - a mechanism that pulls together the fundamental forces of nature including gravity. There is no certainty that such a theory is possible, but if it did exist, it would provide the foundation of physics. Even so, it seems unlikely that it would honour the claim in the book's publicity that it would 'fulfil that most ancient and basic of human desires - to understand the meaning of our lives'. Kaku has worked on string theory - the theory he believes will give us that theory of everything - since the 1960s and is strongly invested in it. more
20th book for 2021. A very superficial overview of the history of physics—with the last chapter giving a superficial overview of the field of string theory. A final chapter discusses God in light of modern physics. A waste of time if you've read any other popular book on physics. This mercifully short book feels like it was written for the money. more
Michio Kaku's out of control. —Eric WeinsteinMultiverse as the harmonizer of world faiths:"the multiverse idea allows one to combine both the creation mythology of Christianity with the Nirvana of Buddhism into a single theory that is compatible with known physical laws. ". more
Oddly philosophical. And very soothing in the time of COVID-19 and political insurrection. When weighed against the eons, our problems seem smaller. Highly recommended, even for those, like me, who are not physics-literate. more
Too ConfusingI always pick up books about quantum physics if God is in the title, but I never understand them. Even though I find quantum physics fascinating, it is still a waste of time, as if I should be doing something else. Here is a little of what I got out of the God thing: Einstein believed in a God, but not a personal God. Just a creator. He wrote a letter that went up for auction after he died. more
4. 5/5 (quizá hasta 5, tengo que pensarlo)Este libro funciona como un resumen desde los inicios de la física e incluso de la ciencia, pasa por los grandes descubrimientos, como las leyes de Newton, la relatividad y la física cuántica, hasta el estado actual de las teorías y los experimentos detrás. "El universo es una sinfonía. Y la mente de Dios, de la que Einstein escribió de manera tan elocuente, es música cósmica que resuena por todo el espacio-tiempo"Todos sabemos que la física es un campo complicado, sobre todo si se habla de la relatividad y la física cuántica, porque parece algo más cercano a la filosofía que lo que comúnmente entendemos como ciencia. Sin embargo, el autor llevó todo a un lenguaje coloquial y sencillo de entender sin caer en tecnicismos complicados, pero, a la vez, no perdió el tono serio y preciso detrás. more
Hey, I don’t claim to be a physics wiz, and the string theory with all its multiverses and time travel sounds a bit sus to me. I will need to see some actual evidence that supports it. But reading this book was fun. Universe is a wondrous thing. And so is science. more
Former English major or not, I have a penchant for - a gravitational pull toward, rather - the physics of the universe. I love to read about it. To sink into its theoretical orbit. Though I may not always be able to fully wrap my mind around the minutiae of how it all works with fermions and bosons, with spin or half spin, with theories postulating a ten or eleven dimension multiverse (my brain explodes trying to imagine such a thing), I know there are few writers out there who can break down the science into shrewd, digestible atoms of information for me better than Michio Kaku. The man is a down-to-earth wizard when it comes to flushing out cosmology. more
More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Greeks asked a simple question: What is the world made of. In setting out to provide an answer using only the tools of logic and reason—and guided by careful observation—the Greeks set humanity on an epic journey spanning thousands of years to uncover the secrets and fundamental composition of the universe. The Greeks suspected that—behind all the complexity and apparent diversity of nature—the universe is composed of a smaller set of simpler elements that obey natural, rather than supernatural, laws. Since then, philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have sought the holy grail of all science—the long-coveted theory of everything that can explain the universe in its entirety, from the smallest subatomic particles to the largest galaxies and beyond. This incredible story of scientific discovery and human ingenuity is the topic of physicist Michio Kaku’s latest book, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything. more
33rd book of 2023. There a number of poor reviews for this book, mostly down to the marketing of the book and false expectations. This book was published in 2021 and ‘promised’ a certain degree of new knowledge in string theory and physics in general. There is a joke that there is never news in physics. I went into this book expecting essentially the same things I’ve already read about. more
Very disappointed with the book. I was looking for new insights into string theory beyond what was described in Brian Green’s book from a decade ago. Two thirds of this book is a history of physics. The last third had little or no new insights into string theory. I wonder if this is a commentary on the field’s progress. more
GOD IS A CONSTRUCT. JUST LIKE PHYSICSAll that Michio Kaku says about physics is quite well-informed. After all, he is a physicist. The question we have in the front section of our mind all the time is “Why does Michio Kaku look for the God Equation. What does God have to do with physics. more
The book does what it says on the tin: it describes the history and current state of research for the Holy Grail of Physics: The Theory of Everything. This attempts to unify the two fundamental theories: Einstein’s general relativity, which describes gravity and the motion of the stars and objects in the universe; and quantum theory, which describes our world at the atomic level. Both are successful in their area - and are irreconcilable with each other. Many theoretical physicists worked on this problem, including Enstein, Stephen Hawking, and the author, Michio Kaku. Kaku starts with a history of major breakthroughs, each discovering a fundamental force of physics: Newton - gravity and mechanics; Faraday and Maxwell - electromagnetics; Einstein - relativity of space and time; Bohr, Schrodinger, et. more
An ultimate theory that explains the cosmos Is there such a thing as the God Equation. Physicists rarely speak of consciousness in working physics theories. They don’t even consider God as a part of physical laws that operate independently on matter and energy in spacetime. In fact, no one believes that a single tidy equation codifies the operations of the cosmos. General relativity explains physics at larger cosmic scale. more
Putting 'god' on a scientific work is totally misleading. I don't know why Science Popularizer use 'god' i. e 'Higgs Particle as God Particle', 'Spirit Particle', now 'God Equations'. Keep science as science and god as God. It's meaningless to mix together if don't know the bridge between them or fill the gap between them. more
The God Equation is too short and too vast to be of use to almost any reader type. The book offers almost nothing new for any reader who has gone through even a small number of popular books on twentieth-century physics. The wiki- (if not tweet-) length descriptions of monumental discoveries from Newton to Wheeler via Maxwell, Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, and others are without any new lights compared to their most common versions available everywhere. The author makes no attempts at coming up with new ways of looking at the past discoveries to cement the concepts better in the minds of the well-read. For the completely uninitiated, the book is likely to prove too monotonous. more
ما هي المعادلة التي تربط كل قوانين الفيزياء معا؟ وهل هي موجودة في الأساس؟ لماذا عيي العلماء من اكتشافها الى الآن؟ يأخذنا الكاتب في رحلة تاريخية تتناول الاكتشافات الكبيرة في عالم الفيزياء وكيف اكتشف العالم ارتباط الواحد منها بالآخر. كتاب شيق ويسهل فهم هذه القوانين عندما ترى ارتباطها بالكون والإنسان. more
عندما اكتشف نيوتن قانون الجاذبية ، وحد القواعد التي تحكم السماوات والأرض. منذ ذلك الحين، وضع الفيزيائيون قوى جديدة في نظريات أعظم من أي وقت مضى. لكن ربما يكون التحدي النهائي هو تحقيق توليفة هائلة من النظريتين المتبقيتين - النسبية ونظرية الكم. سيكون هذا بمثابة تتويج لإنجاز العلم، وهو اندماج عميق لجميع قوى الطبيعة في معادلة واحدة رائعة لفتح أعمق الألغاز في العلم: ماذا حدث قبل الانفجار العظيم؟ ما الذي يقع على الجانب الآخر من الثقب الأسود؟ هل هناك أكوان وأبعاد أخرى؟ هل السفر عبر الزمن ممكن؟ لماذا نحن هنا؟لقد كرس أينشتاين حياته للبحث عن نظرية ثورية واحدة من شأنها أن تربط كل القوى في الكون معًا ، ولكنه لم يعثر عليها أبدًا. كما قام بعض أعظم العقول في الفيزياء بالبحث كذلك، من ستيفن هوكينج إلى براين جرين. more
This is a highly disappointing book that fails to deliver on its promises. The book is marketed as a comprehensive exploration of the theory of everything in physics, but instead provides a lackluster history of physics with little new information. The use of the word "god" in a scientific context is misleading and mixes science with religion without providing any meaningful bridge between the two. The book offering nothing new to those who have read even a few popular books on physics. The explanations are too short, especially for the complex concepts in quantum physics and string theory, which are supposedly the highlight of the book. more
RTCWhat a ride. Between reading this and the rest of my Scifi schedule, I went on a deep dive on the Beyond Ideas Channel and watched Michio Kaku talk turkey about the 10th dimension. As one does when they have a weird interest in the Kardashev Scale and try to find work leaning in that direction. This book has been such an enriching learning experience for the science nerd in me. I mean yeah I got a bit lazy with most theory after I got my degree and bolted straight into the workforce but it's so good to stretch the muscles hidden in the skull you know. more
⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ⭑ ✫ (4,5 estrellas)La obra de divulgación científica de Michio Kaku es un repaso de los avances de la física a través de los tiempos hasta llegar a la actual y novedosa teoría de cuerdas y membranas, lo cual lo hace en sus primeros 6 capítulos. En esta parte no aprendí nada nuevo a lo que venía leyendo de Stephen Hawking, con algún que otro agregado. Son capítulos interesantes para quien nunca incursionó en este tipo de libros. Sin embargo, su capítulo final y más personal, el 7º “la búsqueda del sentido del universo” es tal vez el que más me gustó por sus conclusiones personales, que las encontré muy parecidas a lo que opino del tema del sentido de todo. Es tal vez su capítulo más sincero y filosófico. more
A funny little book. If you can read it and understand the content, then you don’t really need to read the book. Conversely, if you can’t follow the references to / summary of the theories of, Newton, Einstein, Planck, et. al. , and the progression through relativity to quantum mechanics to string theory, then reading the book by itself is futile. more
2. 5 que redondeo a 3. En este libro, en teoría, se busca introducir la teoría de cuerdas como una teoría del todo, y mostrar cómo ésta, unificando gravedad y cuántica, nos permitiría entender y describir todo lo que nos rodea. Empieza con un repaso de toda la historia de la física, básicamente, pasando por Newton, Maxwell, y Einstein, de manera poco clara, en mi opinión, y tirando de ejemplos archiconocidos (la relatividad con una membrana elástica y una bala de cañón, por ejemplo). Aun así, hay cosas buenas, como la introducción de las ecuaciones de Maxwell, o algunas explicaciones sobre relatividad. more
Books that attempt to distill physics down to my cognitive level will forever be a staple of my reading life. This pleasant little volume by Michio Kaku presents a general overview of the history of physics, from Newton's laws, Maxwell's Equations, Einstein's General Relativity, quantum mechanics, and the various attempts to come up with a "God Equation" that can *string* them all together. (Hahah, get it. I'm so proud of myself for this pun) I will never cease to be amazed by how anyone's brain can comprehend, let alone *come up with* this stuff. Nothing like reading a book that tries to explain string theory and quantum gravity to humble yourself. more
I wish I could give this a zero star rating. haha. this is a fairy tale for grown ups. Although it is a simple read, that is that even someone without a physics degree can understand it. It is utterly ridiculous to postulate that by making an equation work on paper that somehow it makes it reality. more
I always like reading Kaku's books because he is a great writer. This book is in the same vein as "A Brief History of Time": a popular science guide to difficult physics concepts related to the concepts and conundrums in quantum and Newtonian physics. Don't get me wrong. it is a good book and mostly accessible (some parts I didn't quite get with all of the subatomic particles). It's just. more
The book covers all the eras of physics and the great discoveries and explains them in a simple way. However, there are some things that I feel need to be polished more, so that the explanation would be more beautiful. //El libro recorre todas las épocas de la física y los grandes descubrimientos y los explica de una forma sencilla. Sin embargo hay algunas cosas que siento faltan pulirlas más, para que la explicación sea más bella. more
Oh WOW 3. 5🌟I miss the feeling of reading physics book like this. I finished this in one sitting cause I feel like I never read physics for years. more