About this title: In this accessible work, a physicist asserts that string theory--the theory that the universe is made up of vibrating loops--merges the previously incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity into a unified theory of the universe. A New York Times Notable Book for 1999.
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Description: Acceptable. May have wear or tear to spine, edges and or cover. Creases in spine. Bent/rounded corners. May have highlighting/notes. read more
Description: Very good. Light wear to edges and pages. Cover and spine show no easily noticeable damage. A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company. read more
Description: Good. Cover tattered, side pages slightly dirty We here at Elistics have a 100% satisfacion guarantee. Thank you for your business. read more
Description: Good. 2000-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375708114ISBN:0375708111
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 464 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780375708114ISBN:0375708111
Description: Paperback. All text is legible, may contain markings, cover wear, loose/torn pages or staining and much writing. All text is legible, may contain markings, cover wear, loose/torn pages or staining and much writing. SKU: 25134827 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780375708114 All text is legible, may contain markings, cover wear, loose/torn pages or staining and much writing. All text is legible, may contain markings, cover wear, loose/torn pages or ... read more
Description: Fine. Clean, smooth pages-only mark in book is dedication on pastedown-tight binding-DJ just has lite shelf wear-sharp corners-We ship out fast daily w/FREE tracking on this item-(Gotta have it fast? ) Expedited shipping is available on this item (Personalized Service~Always Bubble Envelope) read more
"I have recently read The Language of God by Francis Collins and Quantum Enigma by Bruce Rosenblum, both of which include some discussion of the Big Bang and the origin of the universe. They mention that the problem with understanding more about that early time is that both quantum mechanics and general relativity must be applied. Unfortunately general relativity as developed by Einstein does not incorporate quantum effects. Collins mentions that scientists are not yet able to interpret the earliest events of the universe; Rosenblum mentions that String Theory may shed some light on these early times.
I had some peripheral exposure to String Theory in the '70's, but have never really studied it. I was skeptical of it, as I mentioned in my review of Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics, for the same reason as Smolin. String Theory has not produced any predictions that have been experimentally verified, one of the standard tests of new theories. I decided I ought to learn more about String Theory to either confirm my skepticism or become enlightened.
I commend Greene on making a quite complex topic understandable enough to gain an appreciation for it. The reader need not be a mathematician or physicist to learn from this book. The way String Theory has been expanded to produce a possible explanation of some of the first events of history in a unified theory is fascinating.
Greene has not removed my skepticism about String Theory however. Time after time Green mentions ways that String Theory can be differentiated from other theories only to conclude that such experiments are not yet possible or such results have not yet been observed. String Theory has been able to produce approximate results that agree with already known properties of particles, but with much less precision than more conventional theories. String Theory can thus not be distinguished from convention theories on that basis either. Experimental evidence may indeed one day be forthcoming, but until then String Theory remains an interesting, very complex mental construct.
Greene's terminology supporting further work in String Theory sounds more like a religious quest than a scientific quest, "With solid faith (emphasis mine) that laws of the large and the small should fit together into a coherent whole, physicists are relentlessly hunting down the elusive unified theory," and "We are all, each in our own way, seekers of the truth and we each long for an answer to why we are here." I would not want to spend my life working on a complex physical theory that as yet has no experimental evidence to support it. I believe we have better ways to learn about why we are here."
But I stand by my summer of physics reading order:
1. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav 2. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking 3. The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
--with an optional step 0 that should precede Zukav:
0. Zen and the Art of the Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig (but only read the first 2/3 or so)
The reason for this order is that Zukav does the best job of explaining the major revelations in physics from Copernicus to Einstein on through to quantum mechanics. Pirsig's Zen is highly recommended before reading Zukav because Zukav takes a more philosophical view of physics; many of Zukav's abstract concepts come across much more clearly in Zen.
Hawking is the least satisfying of the three, but goes the deepest into Einsteinian general relativity and the cosmic significance of gravity.
With Zukav covering quantum mechanics and Hawking covering gravity, we are now ready for Greene whose superstring theory unites quantum mechanics with gravity.
It's not an easy read, but it's not extraordinarily difficult either. I found it very enjoyable to read half a chapter or so in each sitting. He breaks up his discussion into easily digestable chunks, with multiple section headers further subdividing his chapters.
He tells a compelling and exciting story, though the latter third of the book gets increasingly difficult. The problem is twofold. First, the physics moves further and further from our ability to visualize and innately understand--we can intuitively "get" a black hole, but we cannot intuitively understand a multidimensional cavity within a 6-dimensional clump of space-time.
The second problem is that even if we could visualize a 6-D space, we can't see the relevance of it. Most of the core findings of superstring theory come out of these 6-D spaces. His discussion necessarily becomes one of mathematical proofs (though he does it without the math--he expertly talks us through the basic concepts with very little math lingo). The proofs in and of themselves are interesting, but can hardly compete with the cosmic significance of Hawking's black holes and wormholes.
Greene puts in a heroic effort to convey the significance of each proof and does keep things interesting. But ultimately a big part of the book reads something like the following (with artistic liberties):
"We know that there are 7 flimflams in the universe. This proof shows that the oogy-boogy inside the foobar has three whatsits. The math is extremely complex, but what we've been able to determine is that the three whatsits cause the foobar to generate 7 flimflams--exactly what experimental data confirms!"
You get a little caught up in the excitement, but then immediately say, "uh, sounds cool, but so what?" The "So what?" does eventually come at the end and is worth arriving at, but you'll have to be patient and ride through all the revelations of whatsits and foobars and oogy-boogies that seem almost meaningless until you finally arrive at your destination.
This is not a weakness of Brian Greene's writing. This is the inherent challenge of discussing superstring theory.
In Wu Li, Zukav gave us a taste of quantum mechanics and its many, many mind-blowing oddities, but the realm of quantum mechanics is still just barely accessible to our minds and our imagination. No, we'll never see a quark with the naked eye, but we kind of get what it's all about. We can invoke a naive view of it as a building block for protons and neutrons, which, in turn, are the building blocks of atoms that we're all familiar with from high school chemistry.
Quantum mechanics is the weird reality that underlies the world as we know it. But superstring theory is the even weirder reality that underlies quantum mechanics. It's just so far removed from our experience of reality.
But weird as it is, it does seem to be getting us closer to understanding the fundamental nature of our universe--and perhaps even universes--and, more abstractly, it's just cool to marvel at how intelligent and clever human beings can be.
It's worth reading, but if you're going to read it, do it right; follow the sequence outlined above."
"So if a one dimensional sphere--some might call this a circle--is wrapped around a three dimensional torus and pinched, the torus can then be topologically morphed into a three dimensional sphere. And apparently if this happens at the center of a Calabi-Yau space, string theory produces black holes.
Brian Greene is a great writer. He uses plenty of diagrams and examples to explain difficult physics concepts. However, in the end, they are still difficult physics concepts. I just plain can't imagine six dimensional spaces, even if they are all curled up and tiny. This inability on my part doesn't make me doubt the arguments in the book, but it definitely affects my understanding of certain chapters.
Still, this is probably the most straight forward accounting of string theory (and M-theory) that a lay-person can get. If you want to know what all of the fuss is about, I highly recommend it."
"Although much of this was a retread of the equally engaging (if not more coherent) show, it still served its purpose. The gradual evolution of these theories have blurred the line between spiritualism and science, and are only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the enlightening possibilites of what the future may hold. My only gripe with this literary version is that Greene sometimes gets in the way of his own message, who is trying to convey a very complex theory which may very well hold the key to answering the mysteries of our universe. What seemed like an easy explanation on video sometimes turns into a convulted explanation of ideas based on ideas.
A quick google search of the famous "double-slit" experiment will undoubtedly throw you into a rabbit hole filled with unimaginable possibilities; our world is definitely stranger than fiction."
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