The Fabric of the Cosmos
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos with its questions about the limits of space and time and the texture of reality certainly looks a bit daunting to the uninitiated. Cosmic ripples, 11 dimensions to the universe and string theory that is somehow connected to a "Theory of Everything" are all a bit alien if you never really got to grips with Newton, let alone Einstein. It might look very heavyweight, but Greene is an excellent communicator and what he's writing about is perhaps the greatest intellectual challenge we face.
There is no doubt that speculation about the nature of the heavens is very ancient. After centuries of thought "we still can only portray space and time as the most familiar of strangers". But enormous advances in understanding have been made especially over the last few decades. Whether we are high-flying city slickers or impoverished cattle-herders in the third world, speculation about space-time "takes on an almost mystical quality: we're considering the fate of the very things that dominate our sense of reality" according to Greene.
Over the last century we have become much better acquainted with previously hidden features of the Universe, especially thanks to Einstein. Greene summarises these as
"the slowing of time, the relativity of simultaneity, alternative slicings of spacetime, gravity as the warpings and curving of space and time, the probabilistic nature of reality, and long range entanglement were not on the list of things that even the best of the world's nineteenth-century physicists would have expected to find just around the corner."And yet they are attested to by both experimental results and theoretical explanations. Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, is one of the foremost players in contemporary string theory and authored a bestselling book The Elegant Universe for which he won the Aventis Prize in 2000.
In The Fabric of the Cosmos Green avoids mathematical formulae, which can be an immediate turnoff for most general readers. Clearly he knows that visually we can deal with abstract and/or difficult concepts much better than when they are presented in words. Consequently, he uses a very clever selection of excellent and well designed illustrations to help get his ideas across. There is an excellent index, plenty of notes and suggestions for further reading, which will allow those more in the know to take matters further. And, there is a glossary for us ordinary mortals who need every now and again to check up on our understanding of things such as quarks, Higgs particles, braneworld scenario and M-theory. --Douglas Palmer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Financial Times
'The Fabric of the Cosmos is a magnificent challenge to conventional ideas'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
None of the books in my father's dusty old bookcase were forbidden. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
None of the books in my father's dusty old bookcase were forbidden. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
77 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blows Hawking out of the Water,
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This review is from: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)
Just before reading this book I finished reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and, though I found it fascinating, it left me feeling unsatisfied - too many topics touched upon and not expanded; too many questions I already had not touched upon at all. All the questions that book left me with, this book answered...and that was before I'd made it half-way. This book opened the world of physics up for me imaginatively, authoritatively and simply, clearly explaining concepts that should be far beyond me. I can not reccommend it enough. Just got to get my girlfriend interested now.
55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great intro to physics,
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This review is from: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)
After having read other (shorter) books on quantum physics etc. I decided to go for something a bit more dense. And what a book I chose! Not only does it cover the main areas of the history of the development of Physics, but it does so in an easy to understand way. Greene uses lots of fun analogies and examples to put across complex ideas, making Physics an accessible subject for even an AS student (as I am). A great book to pick up facts to confuse your parents and even better- your teachers! He soars from chapter to chapter, sweeping over Newton's laws, Einstein's theories of relativity, quantum theory, the quantum measurement problem, Higgs fields, string theory....the list goes on! And all very readable, with lots of subtle repetitions which are good for me as I usually read it at 11.30pm and my brain needs them in order to take it in! A great book, I just cannot praise it enough! Buy it, buy it, buy it! if you are at all interested in science. I promise you you will not regret it!
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quantum & Macro world explained, easily!,
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This review is from: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality (Allen Lane Science) (Hardcover)
Unreservedly a fantastic book. With no math but brilliant analogies you get an understanding of: quantum mechanics, big-bang, inflation, space - time, branes, strings, relativity and much more and all wonderfully explained so that you can even get a hang on multi-dimensionality (11 space/time dimensions at that!).And the thorny problem of light speed comes over well together with the nature of time's arrow. What more can you ask? You know I feel that mathematicians also need good analogies - how on earth can you get a grip on reality (even quantum reality) solely from equations?
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