Rating: 
Summary: Magnificent
Review: I just sat down to write a glowing review of Brian Greene's new book, and was frankly shocked to see the few, but inaccurate, reviews among the many positive ones. I am a high school science teacher and, among other books, have been using Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe in class for a few years, so I know it extremely well (the students love it--the book has even inspired a couple of our students to study physics in college). I just devoured The Fabric of the Cosmos, so I now know it well too. It is a fresh, original, highly creative presentation of a tremendous amount of material, most of which is not covered in The Elegant Universe. To say otherwise is wrong. The retired physics professor who sent in a review a few days ago said it really well: in this book, Brian Green tackles the "big" and most puzzling discoveries that were not part of his first book. For example, I've been searching for years for an understandable and complete explanation of the Einstein-Rosen-Podolski effect (if you don't know what this is, you are in for a treat when you read the book). The Fabric of the Cosmos finally gives one. I've read many attempts in previous books (and articles too), but no explanation I've ever read comes anywhere near the clarity and fullness of the one given in The Fabric of the Cosmos. After years of people trying to explain this effect in layman's terms, this book finally succeeds. The chapters that talk about whether time flows and why it has a direction, whether space and time should be thought of as physical substances, and experiments on quantum time, are equally lucid and entertaining, as are the chapters on recent advances in cosmology, Superstring theory, teleportation, and even the charming discussion of speculations on time travel. (None of this was in The Elegant Universe. I know this for a fact, having read The Elegant Universe with my class every year for three straight years.) In summary, this is a true marvel of science explication. I am now adding it to readings for my class. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Elegant Universe for Dummies
Review: I am the world's biggest fan of Brian Greene's first book, Elegant Universe. No other book comes close to explaining physics for general science readers. So I awaited The Fabric of the Cosmos with bated breath. What a disappointment. At one point in the book, Greene tells of his mother trying to read the first few pages of Elegant Universe. She put it down almost immediately because it gave her a headache. The Fabric of the Cosmos was written with this sort of reader in mind. It hides all facts except when it absolutely must reveal the underlying physics, and instead discusses the implications of physics, using down-home American analogies that mention Marge and Bart and Springfield. The spins of particles become red or blue lights, lest the poor reader encounter a fact that confuses him or her. And it covers no new ground at all. It's the same book minus any facts that might support the arguments discussed in the text. I was horrified. Expecting a science treat, I instead encountered a long Reader's Digest article. If Brian Greene writes another book, and surely he will, I hope he'll give his readers more credit. If you know nothing about physics, this book will prove interesting reading. Then, when you're done, you can read the complete text -- facts and all -- by buying Elegant Universe.
Rating: 
Summary: Angry as Hell
Review: I guess the reader from Washington DC just proved the recent pronouncment that Amazon reviewers are often masked competitors trying to demean their targets. To call Greene, a distinguished scientist-teacher, a pseudo physicist is ludicrous. This comment in toto is a sophomoric attempt to show off. No wonder it has been found to be decidedly non-helpful. When Greene makes the cutting edge of the almost inconceivable open to laymen who care to understand without having spent their lives in the active pursuit of the sciences he does us all a very great service. I must wonder if the commentator isn't a failed PhD student
Rating:
Summary: Courageous
Review: I am a retired physics prof. From the old school some would say. I don't like most popular physics books. They often skirt around the hard stuff to make physics understandable to more readers. But, finally, this book has the courage to take on the hard, difficult, but profoundly important questions associated with discoveries over the last century. I don't always agree with the authors perspective, but I respect his willingness to "sweat the big stuff". Bravo. I will likely read it again.
Rating:
Summary: It' s Worth 6 stars
Review: If I could give this book 6 stars I would. The concepts are heavy but the writing has just the right touch. You can read on many levels (the author tells you when you can skip harder sections, and summarizes so you can get on with the reading), depending on how much detail you'd like to take in. If I read this book as a kid, I think I would have gone into physics. Reading this book is the next best thing to being in on the discoveries. My praise and thanks to Mr. Green.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, New-Age Handwaving Coffee Table Book
Review: Here is how Knopf prints money. They get a pseudo-physicist to rewrite his first book on philosophy, after he starred in a TV production centered about it. Long-winded and boring, the wordiness serves to obfuscate the concepts. Stick to Hawking's Brief History of Time or Einstein's Meaning of Relativity. This books adds nothing new, and has begun subtracting. If you're into entertainment and David Duchovney wanna-bes, watch the X-files.
Rating:
Summary: As Good as it Gets
Review: I've read many science books for the general reader. I've read The Elegant Universe (twice, in fact). This new book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, is about the best I've ever read. I am now two-thirds through it, and loving every page. I don't want it to end! (I've never said that before about any book.)
Rating:
Summary: Truly Wonderful
Review: I thought The Elegant Universe was an excellent book. But without any science background, I must admit that I found it a difficult read. I got alot out of it, but frankly, I kind of skimmed the last third. My experience with The Fabric of the Cosmos has been very different. I just got it a couple of days ago, and I couldn't put it down. I read the whole book, cover to cover and it was *amazing*. I was blown away. The book has a wonderful--and wonderfully unexpected--feel, quite different really from The Elegant Universe. Yes, Brian Greene's trademarks suffuse the text: It is challenging, engaging, compelling, and at times very funny. But this book does far more than open the mind to the stunning insights revealed in recent by physicists. It shows how physics is rewriting the rules of reality and how so much of what we take for granted is, in fact, an illusion borne of misleading qualities of human perception. This book tears down misconception after misconception and reveals a deeper level of reality than I ever imagined existed. This is one of those rare books that provides a life altering experience.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond The Elegant Universe: entertaining and insightful
Review: This cool book is a must read for all science fans and a cute reading for the scientists alike. Even the people like me - who learned English as the second language and who will always prefer their first language - are showed that English can be used to write high-quality literature. While "The Elegant Universe" focused on the search for the unified theory and space and time played a secondary role, they have become the main players in "The Fabric of the Cosmos". Greene starts with some fancy philosophical questions (investigated together with Albert Camus) about the problem of suicide, but he quickly realizes that the workings of the Universe have always been more important. You will learn nearly everything about our understanding of space and time and their history. The real story of space starts with Newton's thought experiments with an ordinary spinning bucket of water. How can one distinguish a spinning bucket from a bucket at rest? How does the water know whether it is spinning or not? Greene explains how Newton's rival Gottfried von Leibniz disagreed with Newton's main goal, which was to prove the existence of space, more precisely a kind of spirit that fills it. Leibniz's relational viewpoint was defeated, but Ernst Mach revived it for a while. Although Einstein liked Mach's principle, his theories of relativity have essentially killed it again and confirmed a new reincarnation of Newton's ideas. Each of us is cutting the spacetime as a loaf of bread, and each of us does it a bit differently. Greene reveals some shocking properties of this loaf of bread that follow from relativity. The fourth chapter is dedicated to quantum mechanics, as usually. But this time you will learn something new and amazing. The agents Scully and Mulder receive some weird boxes from the aliens that are claimed to behave randomly, but nevertheless they know about one another (their flashes are correlated) even if they're far apart (and no detectable signals are being sent). Scully is sceptical and Mulder believes the aliens' fairy-tales. It turns out that Mulder can prove that he is correct, and moreover this story shows exactly how the real world works! Well, as a physicist I must confirm that Greene's story is not a mere analogy, but a description of a doable experiment! In another chapter, Greene offers a very balanced and comprehensive summary of all major mental frameworks to interpret quantum mechanics. Does the wavefunction collapse? What is decoherence? Does our Universe split into parallel Universes where the same events lead to different outcomes? One chapter or so is dedicated to a fascinating property of time: its asymmetry. Most of us are getting older, but we're rarely getting younger. The laws of physics see virtually no difference between the past and the future, so where does this asymmetry come from? Greene follows Ludwig Boltzmann and just on the verge of accepting an absurd interpretation of reality (in which you should never trust your memory), he reveals that this whole asymmetry may be blamed on a special, ordered character of the young Universe. You will understand what the entropy and thermodynamics is all about. That's a good place for Greene to explain everything about the history of the cosmos: inflation, its symmetries, vaporization of vacuum, creation of the first lumps of matter, time's arrow, and entropy. Greene can't forget his own field. Two large chapters are dedicated to string/M-theory. He exploits the opportunity to describe many recently found aspects of the theory that could not have been covered in The Elegant Universe. Two examples: Holography means that one of the spatial dimensions we see may be an illusion because all of us can be really living on a two-dimensional hologram. On the other hand, all of us may be stuck on a three-dimensional membrane floating in a higher-dimensional Universe, as the recent braneworld scenarios suggest. A violent colission with another membrane might be vital for the evolution of our Universe. Greene describes the current and future experiments in particle physics and cosmology that are designed to test some of these dramatic ideas. He also talks about the wormholes and time travels. Although he admits that time travels are likely to remain in the realm of dreams, you won't resist his thought experiments that show that some of the apparent paradoxes of time travels may be overcome. One also learns a lot of specific stuff about teleportation (a way to transport an object from A to B without its appearance in the middle). Although we're only able to teleport individual particles today, I am sure that you will be provoked to think bigger. A final chapter speculates about the future of all these ideas. Greene's language is witty and irresistable. The book has a preface, glossary, index, and extensive technical endnotes.
Rating:
Summary: I Can't Believe It
Review: I am giving a low review not because of the writing, but for the fact there is nothing new here if you have read The Elegant Universe. I dont see why there was a need for this book since no new information about string theory, etc has come since his last book. What a rip!
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