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Summary: An easy to understand introduction
Review: This book was a big surprise for me! I expected a general account of the events leading up to the superstring theory, with a possibility of some science in between the lines. This book delves FAR deeper than I expected. Green's explanations of general and special relativity, and the quantum world, are without comparison. All of this, in the first few chapters, before you even get to the superstrings! If you're interested in science's current developments, and you're not necessarily proficient on the mathematical front, this book is for you.
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Summary: Intuition is Dangerous
Review: This is a very good book.It takes the reader through a practical example based journey seeking the TOE - the Theory of Everything. The hardest part is for the reader to leave their three dimensional everyday thinking behind and see the reality of time and space in a new, and occasionally troubling way. As many other reviewers have noted, reality in time and space is so unreal. This book proves it.
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Summary: You have to read this book!
Review: A great review of superstrings. Green is able to explain the latest physics and provide an optimistic outlook for what lies ahead. Don't get this book to impress your friends. Read it to find out what's really happening in physics.
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Summary: Absolutely brilliant!
Review: The clarity with which the author presents the subject is truly excellent. Really great work! I recommend this book to all.
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Summary: Silly book
Review: There is nothing to be gained from this silly book if you have already read layman introductions to relativity and quantum mechanics. I got a chuckle reading the final chapter 'Prospects' where the author admits string theorists make wild assumptions about the nature of spacetime at the planck length and that present day mathematics are woefully inadequate to tackle the various problems. So what are you as a layman left with? Nothing, because Greene admits the underlying principles behind M-Theory (the theory formerly known as string theory) are unknown. Don't be fooled by all the wonderful reviews. Most are buying this book as a ornament mean't to impress other people.
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Summary: Question reality.
Review: This is an excellent trip through the wonders of modern cosmology and physics. I kept having to get up and walk around the room once in a while and pinch myself to get a new reality fix. Well maybe reality -- but Mr. Greene might think I was fooling myself and only moving about in the 3 dimensional space known to my conciousness, and not the other seven tightly wrapped dimensions in Calabi-Yau forms at a billionth of a billonth of a meter. Who needs science fiction when the real thing is so "unreal?" As a reader I have more than a casual interest in modern physics and have read dozens of books in this vein, however I do not have a math background sufficient enough to deal with the professional literature in the field. I have found this work one of the best in explaining string theory. Mr. Greene's approach of using analogy and metaphor is right on target. His sometimes humorous approach was a good antidote for what could become overbearingly theoretical. The first half went down pretty easily in spite of the difficult nature of the subject. Brian Greene deserves much applause for pulling off this bit of magic. The second half gets tangled up in the author's own areas of research and I felt that he suddenly began talking to a different audience, in this case his peers, and instead of an explanatory tone, the book seemed a little bit argumentative. Of course this is a topic where anything said in a definitive manner is likely to provoke a professional argument. Nonetheless, the first half of the book is well worth the read and more than adequately covers the field for the reader where this topic would be of interest. The second half will be of interest to folks with more background.
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Summary: The very best introduction to modern physics. Essential.
Review: Green is the poster boy of modern physics. I hear he even has a bit part in a movie. Happily, his success is well deserved; the eulogies in other customers' reviews about the quality of his writing and thinking are spot on. I'll just add a couple of separate points: - Firstly, this book is not just about string theory. It takes the novice reader by the hand, and leads her or him step by step through gravitation, relativity, and - superbly - quantum mechanics. The analogy of nickles and dimes to explain the photoelectric effect (coins are, after all, discrete quanta) is the best and most useful metaphor I've ever read for a scientific concept which defies our day to day intuition. The book is well structured, with chapters introducing successively more advanced ideas in sequence, leading up to M Theory at the end. I can't imagine how this approach could be bettered. - Secondly, regarding the controversy over string theory, and in particular the point that we cannot verify it experimentally: undisputably true. But the other reviewer who dwells on this doth protest too much. For generations, physicists have lived with a glaring contradiction between two of their great achievements - namely the understanding of the very large (general relativity) and the very small (quantum physics). Finally, the bones of a framework are starting to emerge which might - just might - be a step on the road to reconciliation. This may turn out to be a blind path - Green does not claim otherwise. But it is a towering achievement nonetheless. As one eminent physicist has said, "there are good ideas and there are wrong ideas, but there has never before been an idea this good which has turned out to be wrong". Ultimately, these ideas are worth pursuing on the basis of their elegance alone. Read this book for the very best overview of the newly explored frontiers of mankind's understanding of the universe.
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Summary: It's all about strings !
Review: I found this book to be very descriptive and enjoyable. The material was presented in a good logical pattern with a decent narrative flow. The only detractor for me personally was the length of the last few chapters, that is they certainly included applicable information, but I found it just a bit too long. I would still heartily suggest this book if you're at all interested in gaining a conceptual understanding of superstring theory.
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Summary: A remarkable exposition of high-energy physics
Review: A remarkable exposition of the string theory. Brian Greene is a high-energy physicist of the first rank, and he does an excellent job of explaining the history and background of theoretical science, which led to the latest superstring theory. Beginning with Newtonian physics he leads the reader through relativity and quantum mechanics with clear, logical, everyday illustrations, although his explanation of quantum mechanics did get a little rarefied-understandable for sub-atomic behavior that is often described as "weird." He explains the incompatibility of general relativity and quantum mechanics, and the resulting need for a unifying theory, which gave rise to the string theory, which seems to have the potential to become a Theory of Everything (T.O.E.): "The moment you encounter string theory and realize that almost all of the major developments in physics over the last hundred years emerge--and emerge with such elegance-from such a simple starting point, you realize that this incredibly compelling theory is in a class of its own" --Michael Green, formerly of Queen Mary College --one of the pioneers of string theory What is string theory? Simply put, it proposes that the basic, radical building block of all sub-atomic particles, energy and matter is not a point particle, but rather a one-dimensional string-loop about a hundred billion billion times smaller (the so-called Planck length) than an atomic nucleus which vibrates at an undetermined, but potentially infinite number of wavelengths, amplitudes and tensions, comparable to a violin string The various wavelengths and amplitudes give the "particles" their characteristic properties. Our present-day experiments are unable to resolve the microscopic stringy nature of matter: Greene says we would need an accelerator to slam matter together with energies some million billion times more powerful than any previously constructed accelerator in order to reveal directly that a string is not a point-particle, so discoveries in the foreseeable future depend upon mathematical formulae and the resulting deductions. String theory so far claims that such strings are nature's most fundamental ingredient and that if the presumed point-particles composing electrons, quarks, protons, neutrons, positrons, photons, etc., could be examined with a precision significantly beyond our present capacity, each would be seen to be made of a single, tiny, oscillating loop of string. In physics, oscillation is to vary regularly between maximum and minimum values, as an electric current. Brian Green has done a masterful job of explaining in layman's terms some of the most abstruse theoretical science currently being discussed and studied by some of the foremost high-energy physicists on the planet. Joseph Pierre
author of THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS: Our Journey Through Eternity
Rating:
Summary: A Brief History of the Elegant Universe...
Review: After reading this book I thought my background in math and physics would enable me to pick up a basic textbook on String Theory and explore further. Five minutes (and some slight personal embaressment) later I realised what an incredible result the author has achieved. I am in awe of his ability - there are books about "what we already know" which don't even come close in readability. Without wanting to be negative, this book shows that Hawking, Penrose et al have a lot to learn about communicating their ideas to the "intelligent reader". Richard Feynman would be proud.
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