The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces

(Basic Books)

The author, the winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2004, explains the search for what scientists call the Unified Field Theory, which remains illusive and aims to describe the structure of physical life. Along the way, he surveys everything in the universe from protons and the origin of mass to quarks and black holes. Publishers Weekly said this book “will be a hit with hard-core science buffs.” Wilczek is a physics professor at M.I.T.