Rating: 
Summary: Awesome, awesome, awesome!
Review: I got into quantum physics a while back through Gary Zukav's "The Dancing Wu Li Masters". Because it was written in the late 70's, it ended pretty much where this book starts, at the puzzling perdicament between quantum mechanics and general relativity. "The Elegant Universe" is beautifully written and isn't too hard to understand for the layman. Granted theories are just that, theory. But books like this definetly open your mind to the possibilities and help you gain a completely new and different perspective on the world, the universe and life as we know it. At least it did for me.
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Summary: Extraordinary. An example how to explain difficult matter
Review: Formidable, I am a searcher but in biological sciences. I was ammazed by the teacher talent of this author. Though, I am very occupied by my own search, i take time to read thorougly the book. I askaed my self if the multi dimensional aspects of the string theory can not apply to brain. Perhaps schizophrenic persons are thinking in an other dimmension. Thank for the author for this work YVES
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Summary: Cristal Clear Explanations of Very Complex Ideas
Review: A book which will change the way you see everything. Basic knolowledge of relativity, quantum theory, and much beyond. It is an insight after another and a challenge of everyday ideas. If you are a doctor, economist, or lawyer you will be surprise by the mechanics of the universe and that you didn't know it before. The end becomes a little too speculative and drags a little, but it is for a good cause. You will feel more inteligent and it will give you a new way to look at things.
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Summary: The Elegant Universal Book
Review: Ok, This is it. Look no further. If you ever get stranded on a desert island and are allowed to take only one book (besides the Bible and Shakespeare) then make this the book. Its illuminating pages tells you where modern physics stands today and how it got there, and therefore where we as humans are in the understanding of who we are and how we got here. My research on relativity and quantum mechanics has taken me through over 40 books that purport to explain physics; none quite has the the clarity and power of The Elegant Universe. If you are interested in this subject - start here. This book now sets the standard by which all other books must be judged, A kind of 'In Cold Blood', or 'Grapes of Wrath', of the scientific world.
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Summary: Very good exposition and DOES know the speed of light
Review: I am halfway through this book and find it to be a good summarization of Special and General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, disregarding the String Theory which I have only begun to read. One of the early reviewers here in the peanut gallery stated that the book on page 51 declares that "it states not once, but twice, that C squared is twice the speed of light". It doesn't. It says "...multiplying the latter twice by the speed of light, c-squared." Multiplying a number twice by c IS multiplying by c-squared, not by 2c, and the author and editors are correct. That reviewer needs to take an Algebra (or an English) course.
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Summary: So Many Dimensions, So Little Time
Review: This is an excellent book if your one of those, like me, who read extensively in this area just for fun. Here, at last is the next step in physics and I hope I live long enough to see how the arguments for and against string theory resolve and what will be the practical applications of these discoveries. The book is not a complex read, and the author has done a remarkable job of keeping a very complex topic within the grasp of us non-physicists. It's a little slow moving toward the end of the book, however it is still one of the best books about the discoveries in modern physics I've read in a long time.
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Summary: simply great
Review: I have read only the first fifty three pages, but I could not help writing this already. I have read other articles/popular books on relativity, but nothing matches the eerily lucid explanations of tricky things like time dialation, lorentz contraction and motion in spacetime. If you do not understand what the reviewer below means by "Just the explanation of how we all travel through spacetime at the speed of light was worth the price of the book" - get the book and read it. You could not agree more. It makes you think. The arguments in each paragraph are very convincing and create multiple questions in the mind of the reader. And I was very pleasantly surprised that more than once those very same questions were discussed in the following paragraph(s). And finally, I would like to point out a mistake in one of the earlier reviews. Page 51 contains no typos/mistakes. It reads (correctly) "multiply twice by the speed of light" which the reader has incorrectly interpreted as "multiply by twice the speed of light". the difference is not so subtle.
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Summary: GREAT BOOK!
Review: This was a great book. The most clear and concise explanation of modern physics I have ever read. A real eye opener. No better book on these ideas is to be found. Read it! I also must say that I was struck that the reviewer of July 27 --- after reading a book of such high integrity and enjoyable precision---calls attention to an "error" which isn't an error at all. On page 51 the book says "multiply twice by the speed of light" which means carry out the ACT of multiplying by C two times over. Indeed, this is exactly what C squared means. (Had the author said "multiply by twice the speed of light" then that would be an error, but that is not what the text says. The order of words matters.)
Rating: 
Summary: "The Elegant Universe" is an excellent read for a novice.
Review: As a medical practitioner who is not versed with the intricate details of quantum mechanics and relativitiy (let alone string theory), I have been waiting for some time to read a book which explains in laymen terms, yet not too simplistically, the most recent attempts to formulate a Theory of Everything (TOE). I have enjoyed many books on related topics by people such as Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking, Murry Gell-Mann, Timothy Ferris, John Gribbin, Michio Kaku and others, however I desperately wanted to extend my knowledge to String Theory and its applications. I picked up Brian Green's book with alacrity and wasn't disappointed. This book explains in sufficient but not too laborious detail the most recent advances in String/M Theory. Overall, the book is well structured and illuminating. Pitching with the right amount of detail and employing cogent analogies makes it a very easy read for a layperson. The one thing I would have liked, however, was a little bit of mathematical detail although I don't honestly know if this is feasible given the breadth of the topic. Certainly a must read for anyone intersted in keeping abreast of the physics frontier, albeit it in an amateur way.
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Summary: Get ready for the Revolution!
Review: Want to be ready for the "final" scientific revolution that may explain "everything" from matter to space and time to the origin and destiny of the Universe? (It may arrive sooner than you think, possibly in the next ten or twenty years.) Then read this book! Greene leaves out almost nothing, yet makes very far-out ideas (of the "angels dancing on pinheads" variety) more comprehensible to the lay public than I ever thought possible. If you're technically inclined, read the Notes in the back as you read the text. This will fill you in on the juicy mathematical details. (I wish he had also included a bibliography.) To get in the mood, I recommend reading Kip Thorne's equally delightful book "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" before you tackle this one. Bon voyage ...
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