A Century of Physics , D. Allan Bromley Springer-Verlag, New York, 2002. $59.95 (114 pp.). ISBN 0-387-95247-0
D. Allan Bromley’s A Century of Physics is a somewhat expanded version of the plenary talk Bromley gave at the American Physical Society’s centennial conference held in Atlanta in 1999. In this slim volume, he summarizes the great advances made by physics in the 20th century.
The accomplishments of physics in the 20th century are among the most illustrious achievements of our civilization, and Bromley is certainly one of those advocates of physics with the credentials to articulate them. Given so nearly impossible a task, Bromley nevertheless manages to pull it off. Although the book contains not a single equation, it offers a panoramic view of the physics landscape of the past century, in which are embedded an impressive number of major physics accomplishments. And it describes these accomplishments in a language that is comprehensible to an educated reader with or without training in physics.
Among the most admirable aspects of A Century of Physics is the huge collection of photographs that the author has gleaned from friends, his own collection, and especially from the remarkable Emilio Segrè Visual Archives at the American Institute of Physics. Among the photographs you will encounter some old favorites, but there are also some that you probably have not seen before.
Naturally, in a volume containing 116 figures in only 114 pages, little room is available for subtleties or qualifications; on occasion great accomplishments reduce to short descriptions of only a few sentences each. This brevity inevitably leads to the question, To whom is this volume addressed? Readers of Physics Today will find the volume useful to help reinforce their enthusiasm for their chosen profession: How truly wonderful it is! The book can also be used as a tool to expound the value of physics to government, industry, and academic decision makers. For me it was a welcome refresher course in physics history that, for physicists of a certain age, is a reminder of what we have lived through. The physics of the second half of the 20th century is within the living memory of many physicists who have entered or are nearing retirement age, and no more than several degrees of separation connect virtually any physicist to the original masters. However, Bromley does not restrict himself to the distant past—his work is quite up-to-date, including mention of recent developments in everything from string theory and gravitational radiation to atom cooling and Bose–Einstein condensation.
In choice of topics, Bromley is about as complete as can be imagined, including arguably topics that other disciplines, such as chemistry, might claim as their own. I would, however, add to the ten choices he enumerates in his final figure, “some open questions in physics.” In my own opinion, apart from the obvious questions of origins and final fate of the universe, there is the ultimate mystery of physics: the nature of quantum mechanics itself. Where does this beast come from or, as I. I. Rabi might have said, “Who ordered this?” One might ask a similar question about relativity. Furthermore, recent advances in the exquisite tweaking of simple quantum mechanical systems in both gas and condensed matter phases, and in the not-too-distant future, possible observation of gravitational waves, offer real promise that some new insights into these may appear in the next few decades.
To be sure, I yearned for a somewhat heavier book that included considerations of nuances. Above all, I would have liked a more calibrated discussion of the ways in which physics has contributed to some of our society’s darker aspects. This would, in my opinion, not in any way have derogated physics; rather, it would have revealed the immense impact physics has had on society beyond the obvious contributions it has made to improving our living conditions and adding to our intellectual achievements.
We have by now learned that the march toward the light, while perhaps inevitable, contains pitfalls, traps, and detours that in the end may confound us all. There is an irony about the optimistic presentation of the century of physics. The cover photograph is a picture of the Super-Kamiokande detector, taken, of course, before its disastrous implosion. The image could be read as a metaphor for the other side of the wonderful physics story: that, as with all else in our culture, the dark side can rear its ugly head at most inauspicious moments. However, the Bromley presentation in Atlanta and this book that grew out of it are in the spirit of celebration. They honor a century of physics and the almost exact coincidental centennial of the American Physical Society, occasions for great pride and satisfaction.
I found the volume to be an immensely entertaining and illuminating read, and I was greatly impressed by the amount of thought and just plain hard work the author imposed on himself to get it done.