The publishers sent me a copy of this book Introduction to Entropy – The Way of the World by Jonathan Allday and Simon Hands. Here are some thoughts on it.
The conventional way of teaching physics at an introductory level is to develop the subject in thematic strands – classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and so on – and reinforce the resulting structure with a cross-weave of methods – experimental, mathematical or computational – to show how the discipline as a whole is bound together by the interplay between these two. Some approaches emphasize the themes, others the methods but generally the layout is a criss-cross pattern of this sort, embedded within which are various concepts which we encounter on the way.
This book by schoolteacher Jonathan Allday and particle physicist Simon Hands is provides a valuable alternative approach in that it focusses on neither themes nor methods but on a particular concept, that of entropy. This is an interesting idea because it allows the reader to follow a direction more-or-less orthogonal to the conventional approaches. It is especially interesting to deal with entropy in this way because it is a concept that is familiar on one level – even Homer Simpson knows what about the Second Law of Thermodynamics! – but very unfamiliar when it comes to its detailed application, for example in quantum mechanics.
Guided by the concept of entropy, the authors take us on a journey through physics that has three main stages. The first is fairly mainstream in undergraduate courses, from classical thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, with applications and basic ideas of probability and statistics introduced along the way. The second, more technical, leg takes us through the idea of entropy in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. The final part of the excursion is much freer ramble through more speculative terrain, including the role of entropy in biology, cosmology and black holes. This final section on life, the universe, and (almost) everything, addresses a number of open research questions. The authors stop to point out common errors and misconceptions at various points too.
This is an interesting and engaging book to anyone with an undergraduate education in physics, or above, who wants to understand the concept of entropy in all its manifestations in modern physics. It covers a great deal of territory but the narrative is coherent and well thought-out, and the material is very well organized and presented.
In the Dark 