The Quest for Unity

Quantum physicist Etienne Klein and astrophysicist Marc Lachieze-Rey present and comment on the successive unifications that have marked the fundamental advances in physics from Newton's theory of gravitation unifying celestial and terrestrial mechanics, through Faraday and Maxwell's unification of electromagnetism and the unification of electromagnetism with the weak nuclear force by Salam, Weinberg and Glashow to the current search for a theory of quantum gravitation that would bring about the unification of all known forces in a theory of everything. A good deal of modern theoretical physics is lightly and gracefully explained, rooted in a philosophical examination of the motivations that drive physicists and physics. The book is a rather poetic discourse on the nature of elegance and beauty in physics, seeking to explain how and why beauty is a reliable guide in the ongoing search for Truth in physics.