Don Lichtenberg
Professor emeritus of physics

What are we made of? And what is the nature of the universe in which we live? These are the questions Don Lichtenberg sets out to answer "as well as we can" in his new book The Universe and the Atom. Using his 30-plus years of experience as a professor of physics at Indiana University Bloomington, Lichtenberg, now professor emeritus, provides readers with an accessible, readable investigation of nature, from the smallest particles known to humans to the dynamics of the known universe as a whole, using a minimum amount of math and lots of concrete examples.

Lichtenberg focuses on describing "what we don't know" as well. Take, for instance, these words about protons: "Why is the proton so stable? Physicists like to have a reason for things. Murray Gell-Mann likes to state the 'totalitarian principle' of physics: 'Whatever is not forbidden is compulsory.' If the proton does not decay, there must be a reason, but we don't know the reason. Anyway, physicists have invented a conservation law to account for the lack of observed decays of the proton. This law is called the conservation of baryon number."

For more on Lichtenberg's explanations of physics and to read an entire sample chapter from Lichtenberg's book, visit www.worldscibooks.com/physics/6381.html.