The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
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The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
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Narrated by:
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Don Lincoln
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Written by:
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Don Lincoln
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The Great Courses
About this listen
At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. He failed, but others have taken up the challenge in a remarkable quest that is shedding light on unsuspected secrets of the cosmos.
Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology, while delving into the history of the centuries-long search for this holy grail of science.
You trace the dream of a theory of everything through Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg, and other great physicists, charting their progress toward an all-embracing, unifying theory. Their resulting equations are the masterpieces of physics, which Dr. Lincoln explains in fascinating and accessible detail. Studying them is like touring a museum of great works of art - works that are progressing toward an ultimate, as-yet-unfinished masterpiece.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2017 The Great Courses (P)2017 The Teaching Company, LLCYou may also enjoy...
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What listeners say about The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Shesophist
- 2020-06-16
Awesome Physics, Disclaimer about Diagrams
I've been reading pop physics and science for 20+ years, and this fits in with some of the best. it's a very up to date modern physics course that tackles our biggest and best understandings of the universe. The three main branches are the Standard Model of particle physics, Einstein's theories of Relativity, and Big Bang cosmology. There are multiple lectures on "what we don't know" / "what we think might be next" hypotheticals.
I am removing one star for a very specific reason. This was clearly a recording meant for a classroom or environment with a visual component, because Dr. Lincoln makes many references to diagrams or equations. in the audio format, the meaning here gets confused or entirely lost, for rather obvious reasons. this makes already somewhat challenging material even tougher. for this reason, I must subtract from the score if an audio review.
nevertheless, LOVE it!
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- unRheal
- 2023-08-01
Prob even better as video as someone mentioned
Excellent. Though as another reviewer mentioned, it was probably meant as a video.. despite the PDF. I still loved it, I just think it would be even better in video format, Considering the appaent price of the videos, though, I still think this was awesome.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. Morgan
- 2020-05-14
The most complete book on the quest of science
This book is fascinating. Up to date as of the statue of the art and science of quantum gravity.
Highly recommended if you want to be at the edge of knowledge.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brian
- 2020-04-13
GUD
Tiny bits of info is visualy orianted as this lecture has probably a video behind it also. Overall its great.
Here is a civilian guess about the everything theory: The big bang is eternaly active. New matter keeps being blown out and expanded and the black holes connect to the big bang source as a white hole expelling everything back at the begining! So the universe accelerates expansion because it is new matter plus recycled matter through black holes creating an exponential increase. Heck this alone here is enough to write my own bible.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Quenton
- 2019-05-14
Worth it
Dr Lincoln is always great to listen to. I've seen all his FermiLab videos on YouTube and I still enjoyed this book because it helped my understand some of those concepts on a more fundamental level.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Marwan El Nashar
- 2022-03-31
I have the power #mastersoftheuniverse
since knowledge is power this is very empowering.
In 1925, Einstein went on a walk with a young student named Esther Salaman. As they wandered, he shared his core guiding intellectual principle: "I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Chantel Lee
- 2019-09-08
Excellent course!
Extremely informative, and relevant. I look forward to going through this lecture series again in the future and understanding more of what the course has to offer.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2019-09-18
digesting physics has never been easier
I've somewhat struggled to visualize/conceptualize Physics, and its overall goals and concepts but this lectures helped me take it, and at the very least have me a general idea on how everything goes...
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michel M.
- 2021-06-18
Great course but highly recommend the prime video version
This so interesting and accessible to anyone interested. However, I also followed the same course on Amazon Prime on demand and I must say that seeing some of the example helps a lot to better understand. So, although the audio book is great I strongly recommend the video version to better understand.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Robert A. Runte
- 2019-11-05
Complex, challenging subject presented clearly.
Everything I was taught about physics in high school in the 1960s (textbooks from the 50s) is now obsolete, so I wanted a good overview of current state of the field these days. I'd heard of quarks and strings and so on, but didn't really have a good grasp of how the models all fit together, so really needed this concise, clear, comprehensive overview. Don Lincoin's historical approach showing how this idea fit into that discovery led to the next theory provided a good structure, moving forward to questions about what's next. Lincoin's presentation was engaging, and possible to follow...though I admit I had to hit the 'back 30 seconds' button a few times to make sure I was following what are some mind-bending ideas. My only reservation is that this was obviously the audio track from a video course because he keeps saying things like, "as you can see in this equation" or "this diagram" etc. That was a little frustrating, but on the whole, I was able to follow along with just the audio. Since I was listening while doing household chores, I wouldn't have wanted to just sit and watch either, so it's fine. Great overview, best lecturer, highly recommended.
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