The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
From Brian Greene, one of the world?s leading physicists and author the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way.
Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? From Newton?s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein?s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics? entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.
As a boy, Brian Greene read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and was transformed. Camus, in Greene's paraphrase, insisted that the hero triumphs "by relinquishing everything beyond immediate experience." After wrestling with this idea, however, Greene rejected Camus and realized that his true idols were physicists; scientists who struggled "to assess life and to experience the universe at all possible levels, not just those that happened to be accessible to our frail human senses." His driving question in The Fabric of the Cosmos, then, is fundamental: "What is reality?" Over sixteen chapters, he traces the evolving human understanding of the substrate of the universe, from classical physics to ten-dimensional M-Theory. Assuming an audience of non-specialists, Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. For the most part, he succeeds. His language reflects a deep passion for science and a gift for translating concepts into poetic images. When explaining, for example, the inability to see the higher dimensions inherent in string theory, Greene writes: "We don't see them because of the way we see?like an ant walking along a lily pad?we could be floating within a grand, expansive, higher-dimensional space." For Greene, Rhodes Scholar and professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, speculative science is not always as thorough and successful. His discussion of teleportation, for example, introduces and then quickly tables a valuable philosophical probing of identity. The paradoxes of time travel, however, are treated with greater depth, and his vision of life in a three-brane universe is compelling and--to use his description for quantum reality--"weird." In the final pages Greene turns from science fiction back to the fringes of science fact, and he returns with rigor to frame discoveries likely to be made in the coming decades. "We are, most definitely, still wandering in the jungle," he concludes. Thanks to Greene, though, some of the underbrush has been cleared. --Patrick O'Kelley
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality Accessories
 The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
A Brief History of Time
A Briefer History of Time
Icarus at the Edge of Time
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens ion
NOVA - Physics: The Elegant Universe and Beyond
The Universe in a Nutshell
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality Reviews
I also recommend this to physics graduate students who want a better idea of the underlying ideas of the equations that they are studying. While it is true that many of the same topics are covered in both books, the focus of the books is quite different. He does these things by showing how quantum mechanics, general relativity and experimental data have led to these understandings. While the treatment is very down to earth it uncovers the deepest meaning of things. He shows why many scientists think that the Universe is made up from 10 spatial dimensions, not just three. Many books make it seem that scientists just think up complex ideas from thin air, but Greene shows the train of ideas and data that have led to things like quantum theory, special and general relativity, the big bang theory, inflationary cosmology, string theory and much more, and he does this without using a single equation.
Other books (especially those by Hawking) tell you what the current ideas are concerning quantum theory and cosmology, but Greene tells you why scientists believe the things that they do. (I found that this book contained perhaps the best discussions of Newton's bucket and the contrasting interpretations of this by Newton, Mach and Einstein, Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, quantum theory (especially the measurement problem), EPR, Bell's Theorem, quantum reality, black hole entropy, and many other topics). I have read many general treatments of quantum theory and cosmology (including books by Einstein, Feynman, Hawking and many others, including previous books by Brian Greene) and in my opinion this is the best of the lot. I did not feel that this was too much material. The Elegant Universe is about quantum theory and string theory, whereas this book is more focused of cosmology. - "The Fabric of the Cosmos" contains a little fewer than 500 pages of text (with an additional 70 pages or so of notes and an index). Furthermore, he does this in a general, non-mathematical, manner, mostly with simple, but powerful, analogies.
While it was more general I felt that Greene did a much better job of focusing on the important concepts, rather than on specifics. Greene anticipates the reader's questions (at least mine) and addresses them in a very clear manner. The same is true for all of the topics that are covered. He explains the conundrum of the EPR thought experiment and why the experimental data, contrary to Einstein's expectations, show that the universe is non-local. Previous reviewers have discussed the content of this book in some detail, so rather than just adding more to this, let me address some of the criticisms contained in some of the few negative reviews, which are:.
Other books just state things like the inflationary model of cosmology, but Greene shows that it was not created out of thin air, but was a consequence of the general theory of relativity. I found the discussion in "Fabric" to be much clearer because it focused on the important concepts and sidestepped some of the topological complexities. 3. The analogies were too quaint. He shows where string theory comes from and much, much, more.
Greene is striving for clarity and I think that he achieves this to a greater degree than any other book that I have read. (There are notes at the end of the book, which do contain some math and are more addressed to specialists than general readers, but these can be skipped). - Instead of using Bill and Bob, Greene uses the characters from the Simpsons and the X-files.
This may be a problem in 40 years when these cultural references make much less sense, but I see little difference in explaining special relativity in terms of Lisa and Bart's relative view of the speed of light versus that of Bill and Bob. He clearly explains why a black hole has the maximum entropy for a given volume and why the entropy is actually a function of the surface area of the black hole. 1. This book duplicates the material in Greene's previous book, "The Elegant Universe". I recommend this book to advanced high school students, college physics majors (and philosophy majors) and to anyone who wants to get an idea of why Physicists believe many very strange things. He discusses how the idea of symmetry has allowed cosmologists to speculate about the shape of the universe, even though they cannot see all of it.
While quantum theory and string theory are covered in the "Fabric of the Cosmos", the treatment is much more general, and I feel much more accessible. In fact, the major criticism that I had concerning "Elegant" (see my review) was that the latter sections on string theory read more like a complex discussion of topology. 2. The book was too long. It was this long because Greene was intent on explaining very complex ideas in a simplified manner, and without the shorthand of mathematics this required extra effort and extra pages.
I'm a college student and I've only taken 2 physics courses. However, this book has been so incredibly insightful and it still surprises me how clearly everything was explained. A definite read for anyone interested in learning more about quantum mechanics (like me), superstring theory and more So my knowledge of physics is limited. Great Book.
He uses some pop culture references such as the Simpsons to illustrate and explain the concepts involved in the physics he's discussing. It is written for a popular audience, but even with that, it is a dense book. I found it useful in helping me understanding some of the finer details involved in quantum mechanics and how time and space work from a physics perspective. His enthusiasm consistently made the book more enjoyable and the concepts easier to understand. However Greene does an excellent job of making the material easier to approach. What I enjoyed most, however, is the evident enthusiasm in Greene's work. This is an excellent book on contemporary physics. I highly recommend picking this book if you want to learn more about physics, or if you're interested in how science can inform your spiritual practices.
I particularly liked the idea of frozen time:. one thing that seems basic to modern theory is that what is a sphere. on our space-time is a state of frozen higher dimensions. The seems to be an honest effort in this book to teach the science in a way that can be understood and with no talking down the nose. This book is a refreshing change.
Anyone who has completed advanced level courses in physics in high school and with a penchant for physics, will find this book a great read. Overall, a strong recommendation to read this book. This book clearly and in simple terms explains some very complicated theories and discoveries in modern day physics.
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