Publisher's Synopsis
Have you read or are you planning to read any of the following books? 1: "A Brief History of Time," by S. Hawking (1988)2: "A Briefer History of Time," by S. Hawking and L. Mlodinow (2005)3: "Decoding the Universe," by C. Seife (2007)4: "Programming the Universe," by S. Lloyd (2006)5: "From Eternity to Here," by S. Carroll (2010)6: "The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe itself," by S. Carroll (2016)7: "Now, The Physics of Time," by R. Muller (2016)8: "The Order Time," by C. Rovelli (2018)Then this book is for you!What drives the popular science book industry today? Do marketing and profit lead the way? Or do honesty and first principle thinking still hold as its core value? This book argues for maintaining the latter and takes a critical look at eight "best-selling" popular science books which spread erroneous ideas and misinformation on topics such as Time, Entropy, Information Theory, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Using humor and reason the author puts under the microscope and scrutinizes the confusion and ignorance spread by some of popular sciences' greatest authors. It is written in simple, clear language which is accessible to scientists as well as to laypersons. The author, Arieh Ben-Naim, is a professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. He has published over twenty books and most of his research work focused on the theory of liquids and solutions and understanding the peculiar and outstanding properties of water and the role of water in biological systems. In recent years, the author shifted his focus toward clarifying and explaining to the wider public audience one of the most mysterious concepts in Physics: Entropy. Deemed by numerous scientists as a concept that will forever remain shrouded in mystery, the author set out on a mission to demystify the concept of entropy and provide a platform to hold popular science writing accountable to the highest level for both the lay and advanced reader alike.
