About this item
One of the preeminent mathematicians of the past half century shows how physics and math were combined to give us the theory of gravity and the dizzying array of ideas and insights that has come from it . Mathematics is far more than just the language of science. It is a critical underpinning of nature. The famed physicist Albert Einstein demonstrated this in 1915 when he showed that gravity - long considered an attractive force between massive objects - was actually a manifestation of the curvature, or geometry, of space and time. But in making this towering intellectual leap, Einstein needed the help of several mathematicians, including Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to the geometrical framework upon which his theory rest. In The Gravity of Math, Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau consider how math can drive and sometimes even anticipate discoveries in physics.
About the Author
Steve Nadis is a Contributing Editor to Astronomy Magazine. His articles have appeared in Nature, Science, Scientific American, New Scientist, Popular Science, Technology Review, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He has written or contributed to more than two dozen books. He has also has been a staff researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a research fellow at MIT, and a consultant to the World Resources Institute, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and WGBH/NOVA. A graduate of Hampshire College, Nadis lives in Cambridge, Mass., where he writes a humor column for the Cambridge Chronicle.
