Foreword
Getting to the top of a high mountain without any effort, e.g. with a cable
car or a helicopter, may perhaps seem to make no sense, since all the feelings
of adventure and achievement are lost. Likewise, wanting to learn physics
without bearing the effort of fathoming the intricacies of its equations and
having to face the quagmire of its daunting theories could also be considered questionable or even futile. Yet, trying to allow non-scientists to understand the foundations and beauty of physical theories has been a goal of
many pioneers of the field, and I have myself greatly benefited from their
endeavours.
I remember with a vivid emotion my first reading of The Evolution of
Physics by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, which had precisely the
purpose of introducing the non-initiated to the wonderful world of science
in general and physics in particular. Their book led me to a gratifying level
of satisfaction for the qualitative understanding of the basic concepts which I
had reached, accompanied later on by an inevitable dissatisfaction, due to the
lack of a more quantitative understanding, which I (partially) achieved only
after a university degree in physics (following a first one in engineering). In
other words, if I became a scientist, it is partly thanks to such a book.
The present book is framed in this context, taking advantage of a modern
approach and of the extraordinary advances, achieved in the field of physics
and related applications in the last century or so. Should anybody have
any doubt about the flourishing progress (or rather explosion) of the field,
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