Thanks for the previous reviewers. Their comments are absolutely correct. This is one of the best book on thermodynamics!

The book is small in size, but contains clear and comprehensive explanations of the subject.

There is usually something I don't like in a book. However, I cannot find a single negative thing about this one. It is that good!

fermi presents thermodynamics with beutiful economy. many other authors obfuscate the subject with extraneous detail, often missing the most important points. fermi misses absolutely nothing of importance, but does not weigh down his explanations with ramblings or tangents either. he presents the bare core of thermodynamics.

though the following analogy is somewhat cheesy, i find it appropriate: most authors who have written on thermo are like beginning kung fu students who do all sorts of fancy moves, backflips, and sommersaults but who ultimately land on their behinds. fermi is like the grand master who uses a stunning sparsity of moves, but each one is necessary and each one is enough. in the end, his competition doesn't stand a chance. he's just that good.

Profound. This book is a beautiful work on the subject of thermodynamics. I consider this a classic treatise. All that one requires is a knowledge of basic calculus.

Preceedings of the Italian summer school on BEC in 1998. Great coverage from basics to complex phase contrast imaging techniques. Articles from the greatest in the field, including Wolfgang Ketterle, Carl Weiman, Eric Cornell, and Dan Heinzen.

I'm the author of this book. I sought to show how physics is done and how one of the greatest scientists of our time used his fine mind and friendly yet competitive ways to succeed. I believe I've made Fermi, the man, and the physics he did accessible to a wide range of readers. Don't be put off if you found physics hard in school -- this isn't like that, and it ain't brain surgery.

Fermi was famous for being one of those very rare physicists who are good at both theory and experiment. That helped as he and his team did the neutron experiments that led to his 1938 Nobel Prize. After a dramatic escape from fascist Italy, he and his family emigrated to America. There he went on to create the first nuclear chain reaction (on December 2, 1942) and to play a major role in the development of the atom bomb. After helping to win World War II, he helped set sensible science policy and did more great physics. His name is enshrined in the element Fermium, in the Fermi National Accelerator Lab, and in some of the most impotant concepts of physics.

This book is a good way to learn about a great man and about the way the physical world works. I hope you'll enjoy it; let me know what you think of it.

Send me this book. I'm a physics student

This is a terrific, fun book to read. The author discusses 50 solutions to the Fermi paradox (you know the one: "if advanced alien civilizations exist, then why don't we see them?"), and does so very wittily. I didn't agree with all the arguments given in the book, but it many ways that's the whole point: this is the kind of topic you can have great fun arguing about. It captured my imagination, and it made me think - which is what I look for in books.

My only criticism of the book is the awkward referencing system it uses. Numbers in the main text point to a "Notes and Further Reading" chapter (these notes are themselves fun to read!), but then numbers in this chapter point to a "References" chapter. It got confusing for a while.

Almost all books on SETI or ETC (as this writer calls them) just brush aside this problem. This ruins as far as I am concerned almost all of them. So this book is refreshing.

The writer starts off with a brief discussion on the Fermi paradox and states quite correctly that it is one of the greatest paradoxes of science today. I agree with him that its answer will be of major significance to us all.

He then goes though 50 solutions to the problem that have been suggested. He firstly provides a brief discussion on each point and his comments which you can agree or disagree with. I think that he is fair in his comments until he came to 45 to 49. His comment here, I think need a lot more work.

Some such as solution (11) where he discusses that SETI may not want to colonise worlds after making at best a few colonies, I found weak. If only as I would expect that these colony worlds to be more in favour of continuing expanding even more so then the homeworld. One would expect that colony will produce colony.

Solution (26) that the SETI after hitting a certain level of technology goes elsewhere eg different universes seemed very similar to solution (13) that they go to place we are not looking for. Maybe it should have been a (13b) rather then its own solution.

Solution (34) that the conditions were not suitable for life till very recently is one that I wondered why he did not develop further as it seems to me to be one of the most promising solutions. The conditions that allow a SETI to form is relatively recent in the universe. Although it cannot fully answer the Fermi paradox, as the writer states it, it may be able to answer some of it. Most of the galaxies and stars cannot have a SETI as they are too young. I don't know why he did not use this part in his grand solution (50).

His comment to solutions (45) to (49), I think need more work as several others have stated here.

His solution at the end (50) is not new and also contains a mathematical error in step 5 half a million x (1 -20%) = 400,000 not 100,000 as he states.

Another solution that the author might want to consider might be solution (51) that the ocean covers on earth 3/4 of the globe. This almost all. What if almost all the world was covered in water say 98%, could such a water world create a SETI? I doubt it.

Be warned that he supports the position that we are alone and offers quite good reasoning for his position. Its a position I agree with. But at the very least by reading this book you will get the best discussion that I have seen on the Fermi paradox. I liked it so much that after read the book and went out to buy another copy for a friend for his birthday as I wanted to keep this book for reference.

This is the most up-to-date and thorough discussion of the Fermi Paradox that I have read. Stephen Webb examines all the popular solutions as well as some esoteric ones, giving us considerable background on each along with the benefit of his knowledge on a wide range of relevant subjects including microbiology, plate tectonics, evolution, intelligence, language, philosophy, as well as astronomy and cosmology. And then he gives his solution: we are alone.

That was Fermi's solution of course, and it is a popular one; however I don't think that Webb comes anywhere near to making a convincing case; and at any rate he is somewhat equivocal about whether his answer applies to the entire universe or to just the galaxy. It is clear that his answer applies only to life as we know it, having a carbon based biochemistry and a cellular structure. My feeling is that intelligent life forms may evolve from some other chemical basis or even from some use of energy and matter we know nothing about.

On pages 237 to 239 Webb presents his argument that we are the only extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) in the galaxy by a process of elimination, i.e., life must be on a planet within both a galactic habitable zone (GHZ) and a solar continuously habitable zone (CHZ) around the right kind of star; must avoid cosmic disasters like supernovae; must have the right kind of moon, Jupiter, and plate tectonics; must evolve beyond single cells; must develop tool use and language, etc. He ends up sifting out everything except us, and the only reason he doesn't sift us out is that he has set us aside since we actually exist!

This is close to sophistry, perhaps, but it has been argued before. I might call it the Fallacy of Elimination by Unknown Probabilities about Matters that May or May Not Be Essential. Putting that aside, consider this: If we extrapolate from what we know (as opposed to any speculation) about the existence of life in just our own galaxy, we should expect on average--at the very least--one ETC per galaxy. Wow. Far from being alone, this suggests more than 100 billion other ETCs are out there, although we are not likely to ever communicate with them.

One of the things this book demonstrates, as others have before (see especially, Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee's Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe [2000], which Webb acknowledges as influential), is that when you're dealing with so little concrete information in such a vastness, it is impossible to be entirely convincing one way or the other. The conclusion in Rare Earth, with which Webb concurs, is that life is common in the universe, but intelligent life is rare. I agree substantially with this, but my "rare" is perhaps larger than their "rare."

Some of the familiar but crucial questions considered here were addressed in the excellent Extraterrestrials: Where Are They? (1995) edited by Ben Zuckerman and Michael H. Hart. For example, How long do ETCs exist before they go extinct? Is space travel enormously difficult and expensive or is it just very difficult? Do ETCs have a psychology similar enough to ours to make them want to communicate? How would they communicate, using what sort of medium?--even: would we recognize a communication from an ETC if we received one?

The answer to these questions and many others is, we don't know. But it's fun to speculate; and in speculating at least we can eliminate many conceptual and logical errors that might crop up. Furthermore such speculations expand the mind and allow the imagination a greater range. In direct contrast to Webb I think there's only the smallest chance that we are alone. Amazing how people can come to such divergent conclusions from the same evidence!

For such answers as, They are so advanced that they have no interest in communicating with us, and They are so into their own self-constructed pleasure-enhancing virtual existence that they care not to look outward, etc., Webb has a ready response. For such answers to solve the Fermi paradox, he says, they have to apply to every single ETC. Surely, he posits, not all ETCs would have such a psychology. But, by taking all such solutions and playing an elimination game similar to the one Webb plays on pages 237-239, we can reverse his conclusion and eliminate all existing ETCs as non-communicative for one reason or another, arriving at the grand conclusion that we are not alone and that there are indeed a whole bunch of ETCs out there.

I wish I had the space to address some other Stephen Webb arguments that I think are faulty, but perhaps just one more will be suggestive. On page 229, while arguing that only humans have symbolic language, he relates an experiment in which a dolphin learns to operate an apparatus to release food. The dolphin is timed. Then the scientists close that dolphin off and release a second dolphin into the pool with the apparatus. The first dolphin can send signals to the second dolphin. The scientists then time how long it takes for the second dolphin to learn to work the apparatus. They discover that it takes the second dolphin on average just as long as it did the first. Webb writes: "We can conclude from this that the first dolphin was unable to tell the second dolphin how the apparatus worked."

Well, maybe. But replace the dolphins with humans, and the reward of food with hundred dollar bills, and perhaps we might conclude that humans are also unable to communicate how the apparatus worked!

Bottom line: for SETI enthusiasts and anyone interested in the prospect of extraterrestrial life, this is a book, despite its flaws, not to be missed.

The text was written with expertise about the nature of the atom, of nuclear decay rates, and of the nature of radiation beyond Plank. It is very mathematically based (as all good physics books are), however, it was beyond me mathematically at times, and took about ten reads to comprehend the basic mathematical structure and implications.

It is excellent if one already has a background in nuclear physics, and is a wonderful reference.

These are the notes of the Fermi lectures on nuclear physics at Chicago. As a book on nuclear physics they are, of course, too dated. However, I strongly recommend this book for he who wants to see a great master solving problems of various kinds. Besides the usual topics of alpha and beta-decays, nuclear models, scattering, etc, there are beautiful treatments of passage of radiation through matter, origin of cosmic rays and action of the Earth's magnetic field on incoming charged particles. The book is a monumental collection of very good exercises of quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, relativity, etc. In this sense , it will never become obsolete.

Laura Fermi explains her husband life: the family, the adventures of the italian physicists, the Nobel prize, the American life, the Manhattan project. But Fermi life is full of physics, and in the book you don't find any explanation of the discoveries which took most of his time. It is a pity that Laura didn't get more information from her husband work to realize how great it was and how it influenced the future of quantum mechanic. Fermi was one of the top ones. I recommend this book as a preliminar biography but not as a deep one.

I rated this so high, partly because it is one of the few books I remember reading, 35+ years ago. Around the same time I had read another book about the Manhattan Project, "The Traitors," by Alan Moorehead (apparently out of print.) Between the two I found out that most of the scientists' wives were not told why their husbands were so excited on the night of July 16, 1945 until after the war was over; meanwhile Stalin was notified through his spy network within 48 hours, during the Potsdam Conference.

I also thought she told a great story about the difficulties for a family to not only move into a strange country with strange languages and customs, only to find themselves rushed into an isolated paramilitary environment.

No great lessons in nuclear fission, lots for nuclear families.

BTW, I was surprised that Amazon does not cross-list this among the other Manhattan Project books.

I first read this book more than 40 years ago. I still reread it, now and then. It is the source of most of the anecdotes that helped to explain, and disseminate, the Fermi style of doing physics. I am particularly fond of the memories of the youth of Laura Fermi, when Enrico was a young "dottore", and, together with a group of friends, used to hike the Italian Alps at holidays. Everything was used to teach science, or the way of thinking needed in science (for instance, the thermodynamics of the frying pan!). Later you'll find this "physics at the finger tips" approach used to estimate the power emitted at the first nuclear explosion. A great book.

this book was so full of bad words and sexual acts, it made my eyes water! not for younger readers. this author has sunk to a new low.

I don't know which book the previous reviewer was referring to. This is a physics book, by one of the leading physicists of this century.

This is perhaps one of the best supplemental materials to follow up with either during, or shortly after one's quantum courses. This is the closest most of us will ever come to taking a course by the genius Fermi himself, and this book is generally inexpensive. If you've read the description, you'll see that this is nothing close to a self-contained text book though, so some familiarity with QM is needed if you are to make the most of these lecture notes.

The book was filled with many pages of interesting info that I found informative and enjoyable to read as a literature teacher. It was composed with inciteful quotes that can influence the reader. Finally, I would advise anyone interested in reading about a great man like this one should go out and buy this book

This is an interesting biography for it is written by a friend with same interests and loyalty to each other. No jealosy, no envie but appreciation and loyalty how nice. This is the story of Fermi mostly about his intellectual and social life and not about his private life and that part is in fact covered very nicely by his wife in her beautiful book. Segre without any short cuts describe Fermi, his behaior, his mastery in physics with all important documents reproduced and day by day their successes and few dissappointments. There are certain scientific explanations about the experiments they conducted days in and days out and if you are not into Atomic physics those explanations are just words but even if you do not know what they are doing you still get the pleasure of visualising masters in action. descriptions are very vivid. Hard work is necessary but knowing what you are doing is more important and this book along with the biographies of other master Physisist shows the same. Prof Serge is exteremely good in writing biography, you do not get bored while reading the book. All the surroundings, social and political world conditions are clearly described, showing the conditions these people had to go through and yet was exteremely productive.

This is the best researched biography of the great Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, the last universalist in physics, in what concerns science and education. For the private life of the great man and for the less formal aspects of his life, the best book is "Atoms in Family", by his wife, Laura Fermi. Both are remarkable books. The book by Segre, who himself won the Nobel prize for the first observation of the anti-proton, besides being very well written, has some features of his own. First, there is, in an appendix, a series of letters exchanged between Fermi and Persico, another distinguished physicist, of about the same age, which talk mainly of education:which book to use for thermodynamics (Planck), how to study, progresses in some researches, etc. Second, an interview with a friend of Fermi's father, the engineer Amidei, who had a great influence on the education of teenager Fermi, by lending him books he assumed would be important for his future. Among t! hese books is the Mecanique (mechanics) of Poisson, which remained impressed in Fermi's memory forever. The list of these books, with the dates when they were taken and given back, is there. Fermi's style, the simplicity that comes from deep knowledge, is exemplified in many occasions. Perhaps the best story is that of the malfunctioning of Compton's watch; or the first measurement of the power of the first nuclear explosion, made by Fermi by measurind the displacement caused by the shock wave on little scraps of paper released when the first light from the explosion arrived. I read this book at least ten times. I know I will read it again many times.