The New World of Mr Tompkins: George Gamow's Classic Mr Tompkins in Paperback

The famous physicist and excellent popularizer of science George Gamow wrote the original version of this book "Mr Tompkins in Paperback" in 1965. Since then the understanding of the physical world from its smallest to largest entities has shown much progress. Thus the book, which was once one of the best classics in the genre of physics popularizations, needed a revision to continue its role of introducing the modern knowledge of fundamental physics to laypersons.Russell Stannard, an able popularizer of science, courageously tackled this difficult problem of modernizing "Mr Tompkins." Four chapters out of 17 are entirely new. Old chapters describe the theory of relativity, quantum physics and atomic and nuclear physics through Mr Tompkins' adventurous dreams and a series of lectures given by "the professor" to the lay-audience. Tompkins is among the listeners of the lectures, gets acquainted with the professor's daughter Maud, and . . . Maud's look, hairstyle and dresses in illustrations and the episode of romance have also been modernized. The new chapters treat black holes, a high-energy accelerator ("atom smasher") and the results of physics gotten by it, quarks and the Standard Model, and the relation between the life of the Universe and particle physics.Even the old chapters have been rewritten considerably. For example, Chapter 2 newly tells about an experimental evidence by neutral pion decay for the constancy of light speed, demonstration of relativistic time dilation at CERN by the change of life time of muons traveling at high speed, etc. The "twin paradox" of relativity has also been added in Chapter 2, and its further explanation is given in Chapter 3 (here is a minor but confusing error of "she" and "he" wrongly interchanged). I like this addition very much, because the "paradox" bothered me even after I had learned the theory of relativity at a university. (For a more complete explanation of the twin paradox, I recommend Max Born's "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" to readers of an inquiring mind.)Being one of old Japanese fans of Tompkins, I feel a little sorry that the name of Hideki Yukawa has disappeared from the present version. Surely, his meson theory of nuclear forces became outdated, because constituents of nucleons and mesons, i.e., quarks and gluons, had been discovered. However, Yukawa's theory was a strong driving force for the birth of particle physics, and a good place where his name can be mentioned remains in Chapter 13 (in the original version it appeared in a later chapter, which has been omitted in the present version).I highly recommend this book especially to young people who wish to major in physical sciences. There are a small number of simple equations of relativity and formulas of particle reactions. For those who are eager to learn about mysteries of the micro world and the universe, however, the presence of these would not be any hindrance to the enjoyment of the book but rather be an attractive feature. Some of old fans of Tompkins would also read the new version to welcome Stannard's good job.

This was an enjoyable book, but it would profit by an index and bibliography. I keep wanting to refer to material read earlier, and foundd it difficult to find. I finally used the glosary as the basis of an index. When I thought there was a term in the book that might also be in the glossary, I wrote the page number down in the glossary. It'll be useful when I return to the book, which I'm sure I will. I can understand why they didn't provide a bibliography, but even a one pager would help. It only needed to be topic driven and not historically driven. Don't need a chronicle of events. I'm sure they didn't want to add to the expense or turn the book into something of an academic book.Much of the material in the first few chapters is available in books like Epstein's Relativity Visualized, which I highly recommend. I really like the last three chapters, which were added to the book. The chapters on how particle accelerators work and on elementary particles were very good. The later was a very insightful treatment on how the particles got their properties. Very well done. Also liked the chapter on space curvature. A reference might be good here on non-euclidean geometry, or naybe a reference to Abbott's Flatland or Ian Stewart's Flatterland, although they aren't on non-euclidean geometry.The introduction of fictional characters in the Tompkins book is quite useful and helpful. It somehow makes the facts more appealing. That alone perhaps encouraged me to read it from cover to cover. It softened the material at appropriate times rather than keep it on a hard track.The book had some trouble with the Andromeda Galaxy. In two places it had the distance wrong and in disagreement with one another. 800K ly (circa 1950s value) and 1M ly (not sure where that came from). I believe the accepted value is 2M ly. In one place it called the galaxy The Great Andromeda Nebula. It's not a nebula.

The original version of this book (actually written by George Gamow) was recommended by my college astronomy professor. This book is the revised version, as there have been many, many changes to our knowledge of astronomy and physics since the 1960's. The book is interesting, fun to read, and closely follows Gamow's style. While you may not fully understand a certain concept from the chapter where it is introduced (like time/space relativity), you get more information and examples in later chapters that help to get the big picture. It is recommended for 11 year-olds and up, but most adults interested in physics would benefit from reading this. There are some math equations, of course, but they are there mostly for the person who needs to know why and how scientists make their deductions, and do not necessarily take away from the concepts if you don't understand them.

I really loved this book, and keep finding stuff in it every time I re-read it. If you're a Physics major (like me), or just a physics enthousiast, this book is a must read, as it has de fundamental concepts of physics explained "for dummies", as well as a deeper, really enjoyable knowledge of physics.

Clean copy that came in good time.

Fantastic book for science lovers. Strongly recommended.

I was a freshman the first time I read about Mr Tompkins. Ten years later, I decided to buy it. It is a funny and enjoyable way to explain modern physics.

This book is intended for the general people. Prof. Gamow gives beatiful descriptions about quantum phenomena that ocurr in the atom, the nucleus as well as in solids. Really beatiful.Highly recomended.

As a physics student studying my A levels, I found this book extremely helpful.It allows the reader to understand difficult and advanced concepts in physics.Gamow uses his imagination to help us understand it for example 'what if speed of light was 30mph' and he then explores a world with such limitations and shows how special relativity works.There are many other concepts explored, like entropy, gravity, etc etcA great book for people interested in physics!Easy to understand and fun.Highly recommended

I had read the original both in paperback and on the kindle once it was released, I love the book! The way Gamow explains difficult concepts in such an illustrated way is excellent. I am a Physics teacher and wanted to read sections of the book to my class as an introduction to Special Relativity. I read various reviews, but final decided to purchases the more up-to-date version. I have to say it is very similar, but the author has done well in modernising the story without loosing its charm. All in all it's a must read for anyone interested or studying Physics. It is one of the greats!Excellent service as usual from amazon, ordered it and it arrived the next day! And one final note - my A-Level Physicists are hooked!

brilliant book, building scientis logic, slightly harder for 8 yrs kids. Strongly recon!

Inspiring and intriguing.

Book & delivery expectations met.