Rating: 
Summary: Professional Nerd
Review: What a great introduction to super string theory. This book is as great as Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". It takes awhile to get through but all explaniations and examples that are given are well worth the time it takes to fully understand them. I envy the college students of today. I hope some of them realize that they are about to embark on a new frontier that will be full of adventure and discovery.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for they with a little more then the average math skill
Review: I read this book hopeing to get a concrete grasp on something that I felt was the leading edge in physics theory and I was especially interested in string theory since it seamed to meld with some other spiritual ideas I have regarding the interconnectedness of life. The first 6 chapters were very good since I was able to absorb quickly and concisely all the build up to present-day physics theory. The book was worth it alone for that. I really wonder if the average person knows that there is NO widely accepted unified field theory yet? When the author started into the 6th chapter, this mind (untrained in college) started struggling a lot with the detailed abstractness of it all. I did read it to the end though and did gleam something of the gist of it but not to the point that I could intelligently describe it. I gave the book to a friend and she enjoyed it very much but she has much more of a mathematical background and I would suggest that only those that do read this book past the first 6 chapters. In whole I was glad for the mental exercise and glad that this was the first physics book that I happened to try - if for no other reason then the first 6 chapters.
Rating:
Summary: A complex, and remarkable book
Review: The Elegant Universe is an excellent way to learn and understand more about Physics. It has down to earth examples to explain very difficult-to-attain concepts. It is a difficult book to read because one almost needs to be familiar with many of the different theories, before the book makes complete sense. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a passion for science. This book ties in all different areas of science, to achieve one common goal, describe the string theory. As a whole the book was an eye-opener for myself. I realized that things in the world aren't always cleanly cut, as people sometimes think. We aren't even possitive how the world goes round. That's why it is important to understand how the string theory works, and what it effects. Even though, I am not finished, I have found that this book is interesting, even to a 15 year-old. The major topics are the fabric of space, time, super-symmetry, THE STRING THEORY, and the point-partical theory. There are also countless other theories involved. Understanding every sentance is crucial to understanding the different concepts involved. All in all, This is my favorite book, and I think that any adult would appreciate it.
Rating:
Summary: short opinion
Review: This book was just what I was looking for. I have always had an interest in String Theory but was never able to find literature on the subject that was not heavily reliant on math. This book is wonderful in that it explains some of the basic concepts of String Theory without requiring an advanced knowledge of math. Still, this is not an easy read, many of the concepts are abstract and sometimes difficult to picture. I read this a few months ago for an english class asignment, ( I am currently a junior in high school), and enjoyed it a lot. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in String Theory.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing and frustrating
Review: I have a college degree in Electrical Engineering (also a MSc. in Statistics), which means basically two things: (1) I have had decent exposure to modern physics, including relativity and quantum mechanics, and (2) I loved Star Trek. I thought that these were the prerequisites to fully enjoying "The Elegant Universe" but I must confess that I finished it with an indefinable sense of frustation. Yes, the book is a tour de force in explanatory imagery (I loved the "photon clock") and the writing is carefully edited; thus the four stars. However, total reliance on metaphor and analogy leaves a "mathematically inclined reader" suspicious of the knowledge he has just (suposedly) acquired. Or so I thought, until I investigated further on the Internet the kind of arcane mathematics is really involved in string theory. (If you care, take a look at the nice "Official String Theory Web Site", by a Caltech PhD, at ...) Only then I humbly realized Greene's heroic effort in unearthing the main insights of string theory and bringing them down to us in the general public, in plain English. Even so, the provisional character of the theory and the absolute lack of experimental confirmation makes it difficult not to think that this is a book that should be written ten years from now, when we will hopefully have a more complete picture of "M-theory". (Or not: in the last weeks Fermilab has published its analysis of the Tevatron accelerator results and there are absolutely no signs of the Higgs boson at energies where it was expected to be found. If I get it right, the inexistence of the boson would be a major blow to supersymmetry, the Standard Model, and string theory.) Sentences such as "Currently, no one knows how to do this" (p. 382) appear every half a dozen pages, leaving the reader with the ambiguous impression that the author is very honest but also overly enthusiastic about the theory he is trying to sell. But my main problem with the book is that it dodges the really interesting question, from the human point of view, which in my opinion must be answered by physics: what is Time and how can we escape its entrapment? It is fascinating to know that in every point of 4D spacetime there may be a tiny 6-dimensional Calabi-Yau space, but what is its significance for us if it is curled up space and does not grant us new levels of freedom? What we really want to know about is the revision that string theory may impose on our conception of Time (as general relativity once did), but Greene has little to say on this matter. My guess is that he and his colleagues are still as clueless about this as the man on the street. (A more technical but also crucial topic lacking is the measurement problem.) On a lighter note, the book is a must for any Star Trek script-writer-wannabe. A typical endnote, for example, runs like this (chapter 13, note 1): "...The difference, however, is that a mirror rephrasing of this sort results in the antisymmetric tensor field B(mu,nu) -- the real part of the complexified Kähler form of the mirror Calabi-Yau -- vanishing..." Scotty, beam me up!
Rating:
Summary: Step by patient step
Review: Among the many wonderful qualities of this book, including its brilliantly lucid prose style, is the author's patient and thorough summary of the important developments in physics before string theory came along (gravity, relativity, uncertainty, and so forth), providing the attentive reader with some basic tools for following the very difficult concepts that are essential to appreciating the adventure of modern physics. After reading this book, I am convinced that the fields of mathematics, physics, and even philosophy are merging in a way that promises wonderful advances in the 21st century. Brian Greene demonstrates that there is some very advanced thinking going on that is being carefully constructed and tested by our best minds, and that we could be on the threshold of an entirely new understanding of our place in the universe.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Book, A Masterpiece
Review: I just sat down to write this review, lots of thoughts running through my mind, and I encountered the review of Mr. Isebrand from January 22. And that review, surprising as it was, really crystalized things for me. There are two kinds of science books. One kind is like a glorified newspaper article. It gives you the gist of what's going on through vague, rough explanations, largely suppressing all the rich and subtle points. You leave this kind of book without having stetched yourself much and with a glimmer of new understanding. I put Hawking's books in this category. The other kind of science book seeks to deliver something far more profound. It tries really to convey the truth of what is going on with the science it covers. It does not cower from the daunting challenge of translating technical, mathematical undertakings into ideas that can, with some effort on the reader's part, be grasped. I put Greene's book in this category. Actually, Greene's book IS this category. There is no other book I have ever found that comes anywhere near the success of The Elegant Universe in conveying abstract science in a way that ordinary people can understand. There is value to both kinds of science books. Clearly, the reviewer of January 22 should stick to the first kind. But if you want to put in a little effort to enrich your mind and open your eyes to the true wonder and beauty of the universe, read this book. Read it slowly if you need to. But rest assured that it is all there--between the covers of this book is all you need to understand where physicists have gotten in the last hundred years.
Rating:
Summary: 1/3 elegant, 2/3's daunting
Review: Brian Green has an amazing genius for the accumulation and organization of complex abstract ideas. This book was an enormous undertaking to write. But I would argue that Green does not necessarily have a genius for communicating clearly all of the ideas he holds so dear. This book was also an enormous undertaking to read. The first 5 of its 15 chapters were the most fluid, interesting, and well-written summary of the history of quantum mechanics that I've ever encountered. But as soon as Greene began to delve into string theory--right around chapter 6--I struggled to stay with him. If you are a reader who, as am I, has only a basic American science education, this book might be a tough project. Once I was past about Chapter 6, it was a sheer act of will to get through the book. I moved from briefly pondered provocative idea--like string theory involving 10 dimensions (plus time), or like black holes being massive elementary particles--to the next little gem of a wild idea--like the big bang (our universe itself) having a "pre-history." But getting through the stylistically dull narrative and explanations between these nuggets was like running through 4-feet-deep water. (Also, the names of scientists and dates can be very overwhelming. Mr. Greene... an idea for the next edition: A TIMELINE!) *IF* you share the same sort of feebleness scientific training that I have, this book is worth checking out of the library in order to read the first 5 or 6 chapters. Skim the rest and get out of it what you can. Then BUY the gorgeously illustrated and more satisfying, "The Illustrated Brief History of Time: Revised." It takes less of an arduous path towards ideas like M-Theory and the nature of black holes. Also, I think that I've read enough nonfiction in my time--from sermons to Gore Vidal essays, Stephan Jay Gould to military history--to say that Greene has axes to grind. I detected a real defensiveness in Greene at several points during the later 2/3's of the book. And at times he seemed strident, polemical. I felt that Greene was so eager to show the triumph of string theory that he inadvertently made me suspicious. Instead of proving to me how wildly correct he always was, he got me to wondering: who *disagrees* with string theory, and why? On a more personal note: At the end of the book, I also found myself feeling about string theory the way Einstein did about quantum mechanics: I admit that it might be correct, but...well...I don't like it! :) I find it very unsatisfying that the explanation of the universe at its most fundamental level would be so purely mathematic, so nearly incomprehensible to all but a very small number of experts. That's a somewhat childish complaint, of course. And it's no reflection on the book, really. But it was very much part of why I found the book so frustrating. Bottom line: I am glad that I read this book...or at least attempted to. I am not sure that things like 1-dimensional strings can be explained satisfyingly apart from math. But, Greene's attempt to do just that is valiant. His book helped me understand quantum mechanics. But it also left me feeling that Green wasn't telling the whole story about string theory, and the authorial voice annoyed me in its smugness at times. All in all, I would rather try to tackle this book AFTER a more basic introduction to string theory as provided by a handful of other books.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a book that explains String Theory Well
Review: If you are looking for a book that will help you understand string theory, this is it. Well written, full of details and extremely well formed analogies, this book covers most of the history of cosmology. This book doesn't just skim the conceptual surface, as most do, but delves deep into just what we do and don't understand about the cosmos. Definitely worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Wonderful
Review: Brian Greene has a gift to describe topics that would normally baffle the average person in such a way that anyone, from any intellectual background, could understand.
| 
