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'Entertaining...both lucid and enjoyable....Like the best teachers, Susskind makes it fun to learn. With a deft use of analogy and a flair for language, he tames the most ferocious concepts....He has come up with the best visual metaphor for the multidimensinality of string theory that I've yet come across, one that alone is worth the price of the book' - Los Angeles Times
'Susskind is very down to earth, an easy-going and entertaining guide through the most exciting frontiers of theoretical physics' - New Scientist
'Susskind is very down to earth, an easy-going and entertaining guide through the most exciting frontiers of theoretical physics' - New Scientist
Review
Entertaining...both lucid and enjoyable...Like the best teachers, Susskind makes it fun to learn. With a deft use of analogy and a flair for language, he tames the most ferocious concepts...He has come up with the best visual metaphor for the multidimensinality of string theory that I've yet come across, one that alone is worth the price of the book - Los Angeles Times 'Susskind is very down to earth, an easy-going and entertaining guide through the most exciting frontiers of theoretical physics' #NAME?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Susskind describes the decades-long battle between the quantum mechanics community and the general relativists as to whether information is lost when objects pass through the event horizon of a black hole and the hole eventually evaporates. According to Prof. Hawking and the GR community, as nothing can ever reappear from inside an event horizon, the information is indeed totally lost.
Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft begged to differ. Loss of information would violate the basic time-reversibility of QM: Hawking's ideas would lead to universe-destroying phenomena (p. 23). Somehow, the information locked the wrong side of the event horizon must leak out via Hawking radiation. But how?
The resolution of this dilemma took many years of conjectures and refutations. Susskind takes us on a tour of entropy, holographic principles and physics at the Planck scale. And the adversarial plot keeps the reader turning the pages.
I am normally very dubious about popularisations. They proceed by raking up endless analogies which never quite fit together, so that by the end of the book, your mind is like that jig-saw puzzle you bought and could never fit together.
This book was never going to be the exception - the mathematics of quantum field theory, general relativity and string theory are just too arcane for popular culture concepts to cohere around. However, there are wonderful insights all the way through this book and we do end up learning something about the large scale map of the territory. Apparently even the experts find it hard to get the whole thing into one focus.
Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft begged to differ. Loss of information would violate the basic time-reversibility of QM: Hawking's ideas would lead to universe-destroying phenomena (p. 23). Somehow, the information locked the wrong side of the event horizon must leak out via Hawking radiation. But how?
The resolution of this dilemma took many years of conjectures and refutations. Susskind takes us on a tour of entropy, holographic principles and physics at the Planck scale. And the adversarial plot keeps the reader turning the pages.
I am normally very dubious about popularisations. They proceed by raking up endless analogies which never quite fit together, so that by the end of the book, your mind is like that jig-saw puzzle you bought and could never fit together.
This book was never going to be the exception - the mathematics of quantum field theory, general relativity and string theory are just too arcane for popular culture concepts to cohere around. However, there are wonderful insights all the way through this book and we do end up learning something about the large scale map of the territory. Apparently even the experts find it hard to get the whole thing into one focus.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a really excellent book, Susskind patiently explains his theory as it takes shape over years, and in terms a layman can understand. I was left, entertained as well as knowing far more about the nature of our universe. Science really is more exciting than fiction, and Susskind really can explain his subject in the simplest of terms.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Great at explaining latest theoretical physics developments... forget it about the war...
19 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback
This book is a great recount in simple (and elegant) writing about cosmology, quantum theory (more to the point about quantum field theory and string theory)
It's a must for whoever want to get to know what theoretical physics (particle physics, high energy physics, cosmology) is about or for those who even having studied a physics grade have gone for another careers so they have lost whatever feeble knowledge they managed to grasp regarding these subjects
The main thread is fascinating: a scientific debate between the author and Hawking about what happens to the information that falls in a black hole... it's re - expelled along with the so called Hawking radiation or is lost forever??
Notwithstanding the interest this subject may raise, you get much more fun reading the colateral explanations the author have to offer to make himself understood regarding the black hole stuff
If you have enjoyed Brian Greene the Elegant Universe I guess you will like this one too
I am not giving the top rate for the poor paper and binding and due to excessive obsession of the author for making it clear that he (and his supporters) won the war... what is the point??? the discussion was fascinating... and without opponent it wouldn't have been possible!!!
It's a must for whoever want to get to know what theoretical physics (particle physics, high energy physics, cosmology) is about or for those who even having studied a physics grade have gone for another careers so they have lost whatever feeble knowledge they managed to grasp regarding these subjects
The main thread is fascinating: a scientific debate between the author and Hawking about what happens to the information that falls in a black hole... it's re - expelled along with the so called Hawking radiation or is lost forever??
Notwithstanding the interest this subject may raise, you get much more fun reading the colateral explanations the author have to offer to make himself understood regarding the black hole stuff
If you have enjoyed Brian Greene the Elegant Universe I guess you will like this one too
I am not giving the top rate for the poor paper and binding and due to excessive obsession of the author for making it clear that he (and his supporters) won the war... what is the point??? the discussion was fascinating... and without opponent it wouldn't have been possible!!!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Black Hole War
I would generally say that if you have read a few 'popular science' books, then you have read them all. Not this one! Read more
Published 12 days ago by Alex
A World Safe for Quantum Mechanics!
An outstanding book, on a subject that is at the cutting edge of science!
Leonard Susskin tells the tale of the properties of sub-atomic particles in clear and understandable... Read more
Leonard Susskin tells the tale of the properties of sub-atomic particles in clear and understandable... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Ben Quinn
Outstanding
It's weight worth in gould. You are taken by the hand and lead through the facinating world of physics with Susskind as a most compotent guide. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Michael M. Vestergaard
So long, and thanks for all the string!
None of us need ever be concerned about disappearing beyond the horizon of a black hole; few of us will even be alarmed to be told that we are, right now, disappearing over the... Read more
Published 21 months ago by M. Woodman
Thoroughly readable but not a war story
This is an interesting and readable book. Susskind sure-footedly guides the reader through a labyrinth of modern physics, presenting increasingly complex and cutting-edge ideas in... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Rasrasmussen
The black hole war
Quite interesting, even for those who are not nuts about black holes.
The author does not hide his own light under a bushel. Read more
The author does not hide his own light under a bushel. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. Paul Sutton
The Black Hole War
A great read. Susskind has quite a relaxed style of writing and is able to breeze through some of the most complex and controversial theories of the universe with ease carrying the... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2010 by Phil Price
The history is ultimately written by the winners
Leonard Susskind is not only a co-father of string theory, the holographic principle, and many other key concepts of physics but also one of the most original physicists of our... Read more
Published on 20 July 2008 by Lubos Motl
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