Granta Feb 2002, hc $27.95

It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science
edited by Graham Farmelo

Science is hugely influential in our culture. Equations lie at the heart of many of the most extraordinarily successful scientific theories. Yet, for many of us, these equations have been a closed book. Their difficult form has often acted as an obstacle to any understanding of their significance and they have even come to embody the mystery and terror of modern science. It Must Beautiful redresses this by presenting the great equations of modern science for non-mathermatical readers, thereby attempting to convey something of their power and beauty.

It Must Be Beautiful brings together some of the greatest living scientists with historians and writers about science, each with a gift for explanation and polemic. The authors each unpack an equation so that it becomes understandable, and we are entertained and enlightened by a knowledge of how it was arrived at, what it can do and its importance in contemporary culture.

Contributors include:

Peter Galison, of Harvard University, on E=mc2; Roger Penrose on Einstein¹s equation of general relativity; Robert May, President of the Royal Society, on the quadratic map; John Maynard Smith on the mathematics of evolution; award-winning journalist Aisling Irwin on the equations which predicted that a hole would appear in the ozone layer; Frank Wilczek on the Dirac equation for the electron; Oliver Morton, contributing editor to Wired magazine, on the Drake equation, which clarifies thinking about the likelihood of extra-terrestrial life; and a thoughtful afterword by Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg.

from the publisher