RELATIVITY+ : The Theory of Everything [Illustrated] [Paperback]

I've looked over Duffield's book after encountering him online ("Farsight") and it's utter rubbish. The man has no understanding of even quite basic physics (not surprising he's an IT graduate) an a Larsonian level phobia of mathematics. It's full of the usual woo, unsupported statements, carefully quote-mined extracts from real scientists and denials of demonstrated reality.

The book is only worth looking at to calculate his crackpot score...........

The ideas in this book on the much coveted The Theory of Everything are stunning. Duffield is the first to admit that there are some loose ends to his ideas, but the general theme is sound and he leads the reader into his ideas in an approachable way.

Duffield's chief inspiration is Einstein, whos papers, which he reads in the original german, say things that are startlingly different to what people usually say Einstein says. For example Einstein was opposed to the 4D "spacetime" geometric interpretation of Special and General Relativity.

The good

This is a no-nonsense physics book. Yet it is so interesting that a friend who is an archetypical spiritual woman (she borrowed a copy of this book from me) was hardly able to put it down. I doubt you could say that about dry physics books such as "The Brief History Of Time". Yet Relativity plus is far more insightful and entertaining than "Brief History Of Time", the latter being a book that I did not enjoy.

This is a cliche, but if you read the book you will never again, think of the world the same way. Because that is what the book is about. What is energy? What is light? What is charge? What is matter? What is gravity? What is an electron? What is a quark? The answers are not what you are expecting, believe me! The description of the electron and the photon alone are so poetic you will be astonished.

The quirks:

The book is not perfect. For the most part, the book is clear and lucid to the intelligent layman who knows nothing about physics. But new readers should not have a qualm about skipping some paragraphs that discuss some dense aspects of electromagnetism. This book is not dumbed down, which is great. But do not give up when you hit a tricky chunk of text, thinking you're not up to it. It's normal! Skip it and the writing soon becomes simple and clear again and the text easy to follow.

Impatient readers may wish to skip some of the preamble of the opening chapters, and dive into the science.

Inevitably for a book with a scope as great as this book's, Relativity+ is a little vague on some details that I was curious about, such as Duffield's interpretation of how protons bind to neutrons, and what a neutron looks like. (A proton is illustrated). The book is full of pictures and diagrams, however some diagrams of how certain subatomic particles bind would be a bonus.

Conclusion:

Such a book would be difficult to get published by our press, due to the pressure that the ideas within would place on established physicists, especially String Theorists (who, strictly speaking, are not physicists but mumbo jumbo metaphysicists).

The String Wars: Relatvitiy+ is a theory of everything that is consistent with Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, however the interpretation of these is radical and amazing. And the book makes predictions - there is no higgs, there is no graviton, gravity vanishes when the other forces of nature merge, and so on.

The elegant ideas in this book, Relativity+ are deadly to "String Theory", and it will be extremely difficult to get the ideas herewithin into the wider world without the author being dragged into some pretty grim "String wars" battles. Expect the string theorists to play dirty, and be vaguely dismissive. If this book gains traction, expect the String Theorists to go on the attack with negative reviews on the web and in the media. If the string theorists abhor this book, then you will know that this book is on the right lines. String theory (or "M-theory") is not actually a scientific theory, for it is incapable of making testable predictions, and this will always will be the case, as the foundations are fundamentally flawed.

Advanced readers who liked this book may also consider an additional book, "Not Even Wrong" by Peter Woit, which discusses the failure of String Theory, but also has some excellent explanations on the physics of the unification of the forces.

In summary, Relativity+ is a must-read for anybody who is interested in what matter is, what space is, what subatomic particles are, in clear writing. Most of all, Relativity+ is IMPORTANT! You will not think the same way about light again! Of the many science books I read, Duffield's book stands out as the most insightful and original I have read in a decade or more.

It might be handy to know about special and general relativity and other fields before you tackle this book, that is it might if it were not for the clear and careful diagrams and text that open up a new way of looking at physics, that even a novice should be able to grasp.

From amateur to expert this book is a good addition to anyone interested in the field. Whether ultimately the Large Hadron Collider at CERN turns up a God particle: Higgs Boson or not, or such models highlighted here are ultimately correct, the carefully presented ideas detail a great overall history of the modern field and is well worth a read, whether you are a standard model fan or a string theorist or just an interested layman. I heartily recommend it if you are interested in physics from the quantum scale to the cosmic scale. In fact I heartily recommend it if you are not as its a good place to start.