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Rating: 
Summary: Well worth the read - some excellent contributors !
Review: At first I was disappointed - the most beautiful equation in the world, e^i.pi = -1, was missing! As I read the book, I looked back at the title : great equations of Modern Science, not of Modern Mathematics. And indeed that is what the book is.
However I do have a few criticisms :
I knew by reputation only 2 of the 12 authors - who were the other people? Long after I had searched out their biographies on the web, I found them at the front of the book - but before the title page rather than after - how strange to put them there, or not at the back of the book ?
I didn't think the Drake equation was that 'great' - and in Oliver Morton's chapter he places the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Costa Rica when in fact its in Puerto Rico.
In the opening chapter, Graham Farmelo briefly alludes to 'British Astronomers announcing their results' without explaining what it was they were looking for and what they found? Only in the later chapters by Peter Galison & Roger Penrose respectively do they take pains to explain that Sir Arthur Eddington measured the bending of starlight during an eclipse.
I was confused in the chapter on Schrodingers Wave Equation - it didn't describe the form I was familiar with. Then in the notes at the end of the book Arthur Miller explained the more general form - and confessed that the 'time' element had been ignored - rather a strange omission in my opinion.
Shannons Equations & the Logistic Map were both new to me - and very interesting they were.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful equations!
Review: IMBB is not an easy book to read, but it is one that continues to reward with subsequent readings. Though the first half of the book is weighted toward physics, this is not a physics book. It also explores equations important in biology, ecology, information theory, game theory and SETI. Some of the essays require a fairly deep background in science to "get" the subtleties, but even these pay rewards for careful reading. You don't need to understand every word of the technical science to get a sense of the history and the people who uncovered these equations and how they apply to our modern world.If you have seen Frayn's Copenhagen, the essay on Schrodinger's equation entitled "Erotica, Aesthetics and Schrodinger's Wave Equation", will give you additional insight into Heisenberg, Bohr and Schrodinger. As editor Farmelo says in his introduction "In common with with all great scientific equations, E=MC2 is in many ways similar to a great poem. Just as a perfect sonnet is spoiled if so much as a word or item of punctuation is changed, not a single detail of a great equation...can be altered without rendering it useless." In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I receive an acknowledgement after Farmelo's essay on Einstein and Planck.
Rating:
Summary: It is!
Review: The quantities on the two side of each of the equations in the book, are from science, or from life. The equations result from scientific experiments or from pure theory. Planck's equation signaled the start of atomic physics, and Einstein's E=m c^2 , the continuation. Dirac's equation reveals the secrets of the electron. All the equations predict physical reality; and yet they are strikingly simple to state, perhaps not to fully understand.-- They *are* beautiful! . Really! They are also fundamental discoveries that affect us all. Schrodinger's equation [along with the equivalt formulation of Heisenberg] puts quantum theory on a solid footing, and started wave mechanics. Shannon's equations initiated the age of information technology. And there are more: relativity, astronomy, dynamics, chemestry... The book consists of chapters written by authorities in the field, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg..., but no [or at least very little] knowledge of science is assumed on the part of the reader. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: It Must Be beautiful
Review: This book had some of the best insight on equatiion form i have read in the rescent past.I could read larger sections of it without haviong to go grab a bottle of asprin. The insight it gave on the personal lives and how the evolution of the equation came to be from raw base form to what we learn now is amazing. The sections on Diracs eqaution I found the most intresting. I would reccommend this book to anyone intrested in math and not just the text book side. It takes almost and artistic veiw on math which i have never seen before. Very intresting .
DIG IN AND ENJOY
Rating:
Summary: An exhilarating and highly varied group of essays
Review: This collection of eleven essays, each written by a different author, is a pleasing assortment of articles which I recommend highly. The essays cover an astonishingly wide range of unrelated topics, including the Planck-Einstein Equation for the Energy of a Quantum, the Drake equation that estimates the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy, and Shannon's Equations on information theory. The only unpleasant aspect of this book is the uneven quality of the writing. Each author has a unique style of expression, so some chapters are exhilarating while others sound stilted and contrived. This is the reason I've limited my opinion to four instead of five stars. The most technically "beautiful" equation in the book is probably the Dirac equation, but the chapter on logistic mapping and chaos theory ("The Best Possible Time to be Alive", by Robert May) is far and away the most enjoyable and best-written essay. These alone would warrant the price of the book.
Rating:
Summary: An exhilarating and highly varied group of essays
Review: This collection of eleven essays, each written by a different author, is a pleasing assortment of articles which I recommend highly. The essays cover an astonishingly wide range of unrelated topics, including the Planck-Einstein Equation for the Energy of a Quantum, the Drake equation that estimates the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy, and Shannon's Equations on information theory. The only unpleasant aspect of this book is the uneven quality of the writing. Each author has a unique style of expression, so some chapters are exhilarating while others sound stilted and contrived. This is the reason I've limited my opinion to four instead of five stars. The most technically "beautiful" equation in the book is probably the Dirac equation, but the chapter on logistic mapping and chaos theory ("The Best Possible Time to be Alive", by Robert May) is far and away the most enjoyable and best-written essay. These alone would warrant the price of the book.
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