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The Infinite Book
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Review
"Praise for The Book of Nothing: 'Barrow explains nothing with great clarity, a lovely lightness of touch and enormous erudition. He has written an eligible bachelor of a book - witty, suave, rich and immensely learned.' Spectator. Praise for Theories of Everything: 'An exhilarating journey that cuts across a vast terrain of conceptuall and marks: from physics to metaphysics, mathematics to philosophy, and from mythology to theology.' New Scientist. Praise for Impossibility: 'For as good an account as you're going to get of where science stops, read this book.' Nature"
Book Description
Everything you might want to know about infinity - in history and all the way to today's cutting-edge science.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a wonderful read. The Math is kept descriptive rather than technical and is easy to follow. The writing is clear and easy to read. The theories and concepts however stretch the mind. In contemplating the nature of infinity we are taken into the vast and the tiny. It crosses the boundary into theology and I was quick to pass it on to a clergyman friend.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read already several books from John D Barrow (Theories of Everything, Book of Nothing, Pi in the Sky), and I found some of them a bit vague and with some irrelevant chapters. To me, this one is the best one from Barrow I have read. The topic could have been discussed even more in depth, but overall, the book kept me turning pages from the beginningto end, and I have not read many better written popular science books. Even though there were some, therefore I give 4 of 5 :-))
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Well," I said to myself, as I picked up The Infinite Book for a bargain, finite sum of money, "this ought to last a while".
There are a number of playful paradoxes on the theme of "infinite" books, and indeed Barrow mentions one of them in a chapter of his own "Infinite Book", a short story by Borges, in which a man finds a book with an infinite number of pages, which means that absolutely all knowledge, both true and false, is contained within it ... the answer to everything is always there, somewhere, but once you've lost your page the chances of ever finding it again are mathematically nil. However, this "Infinite Book" reminded me of a different sort of imaginary "infinite book" - a mathematical paradox, in which every successive page of a book is half the thickness of the previous one, so when you flip the book over to look at the last page, the last page doesn't exist.
Just like this latter "infinite book", it seemed to me that the content of "The Infinite Book" started out in the early pages as challenging, hefty, engaging - and then starts to become more flimsy and insubstantial as it goes on. It's as if the author started out with a terrific idea for a book (and the early chapters, about Cantor's infinities and the heresy of infinity, make for engrossing reading) but then ran out of ideas and had to pad it out to book length with in some places, frankly daft chapters about Infinite Machines and Living Forever. Increasingly the reader is asked to accept statements that challenge not only one's intuition but also the foregoing text, unless of course the current theory is truly so esoteric that it doesn't make sense to the ordinary brain. For instance, computers, we are told, have doubled in power every couple of years or so on average since about 1900 "which has led some people to speculate that eventually there may be machines capable of performing an infinite number of calculations." Oh, right, okay, says the reader, and when's that going to happen? No answer is given us here. Elsewhere in his book, Barrow tells us that the existence of an infinite number of universes, apparently, "implies" that everything exists and is infinitely repeated. It's hard to see why, though, since we have already been introduced to the idea that the number "1" for instance, is never, ever, repeated again in the infinitely long series of whole numbers. Perhaps universes are counted as a different order of infinity. But it isn't clear. Another thing which slightly jarred was that, even though the existence of Infinity is still (the author tells us) a matter of philosophical speculation among mathematicians, the philosophy in this book seems to be pitched at a considerably lower level than the science ("endless" confused with "timeless" seemed to me like a bit of failed expository legerdemain). This is annoying, because presumably a book called "The Infinite Book" will be read by people with an interest in both camps.
Nonetheless Barrow writes well, and has also provided a very comprehensive bibliography for anyone wanting to read further about a fascinating subject, but despite its title, in the end this is a book that whets the appetite, rather than trying to cover the entire field of his subject - which would admittedly be a daunting undertaking!
There are a number of playful paradoxes on the theme of "infinite" books, and indeed Barrow mentions one of them in a chapter of his own "Infinite Book", a short story by Borges, in which a man finds a book with an infinite number of pages, which means that absolutely all knowledge, both true and false, is contained within it ... the answer to everything is always there, somewhere, but once you've lost your page the chances of ever finding it again are mathematically nil. However, this "Infinite Book" reminded me of a different sort of imaginary "infinite book" - a mathematical paradox, in which every successive page of a book is half the thickness of the previous one, so when you flip the book over to look at the last page, the last page doesn't exist.
Just like this latter "infinite book", it seemed to me that the content of "The Infinite Book" started out in the early pages as challenging, hefty, engaging - and then starts to become more flimsy and insubstantial as it goes on. It's as if the author started out with a terrific idea for a book (and the early chapters, about Cantor's infinities and the heresy of infinity, make for engrossing reading) but then ran out of ideas and had to pad it out to book length with in some places, frankly daft chapters about Infinite Machines and Living Forever. Increasingly the reader is asked to accept statements that challenge not only one's intuition but also the foregoing text, unless of course the current theory is truly so esoteric that it doesn't make sense to the ordinary brain. For instance, computers, we are told, have doubled in power every couple of years or so on average since about 1900 "which has led some people to speculate that eventually there may be machines capable of performing an infinite number of calculations." Oh, right, okay, says the reader, and when's that going to happen? No answer is given us here. Elsewhere in his book, Barrow tells us that the existence of an infinite number of universes, apparently, "implies" that everything exists and is infinitely repeated. It's hard to see why, though, since we have already been introduced to the idea that the number "1" for instance, is never, ever, repeated again in the infinitely long series of whole numbers. Perhaps universes are counted as a different order of infinity. But it isn't clear. Another thing which slightly jarred was that, even though the existence of Infinity is still (the author tells us) a matter of philosophical speculation among mathematicians, the philosophy in this book seems to be pitched at a considerably lower level than the science ("endless" confused with "timeless" seemed to me like a bit of failed expository legerdemain). This is annoying, because presumably a book called "The Infinite Book" will be read by people with an interest in both camps.
Nonetheless Barrow writes well, and has also provided a very comprehensive bibliography for anyone wanting to read further about a fascinating subject, but despite its title, in the end this is a book that whets the appetite, rather than trying to cover the entire field of his subject - which would admittedly be a daunting undertaking!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An infinite book that does not take forever to read.
The perfect introduction for anyone with an interest in the mind boggling subject of the infinite. Is the universe infinite? Maybe, but only under particular conditions. Read more
Published 1 month ago by HHD
Average science writing about an interesting topic
This is the first John D. Barrow book I have read. It hasn't left me scouring the bookshop for his others. Read more
Published 5 months ago by GoatHorns
A great intro to a very, very big topic
This book is at the high end of the "popular science reads" I say this because while this is obviously aimed at the non-scientific/mathematical community, the fact is our brains... Read more
Published 8 months ago by J. Duducu
A Compelling Read.
This excellent book should be precribed reading for school/university students and most adults to remind them of the wonderful Universe we are so privileged to live in. Read more
Published 11 months ago by yduj
Brain dead and a terrible read
This book makes for terrible reading. For some reason the author insists on inserting sometimes barely related quotes at the beginning of each chapter and sub-chapter. Read more
Published on 16 April 2009 by Crouching Soldier, Hidden Taliban
Quite a disappointment
I find myself agreeing almost 100% with hwade17. His analysis is detailed and excellent. For all the reasons he gives I found it quite a disappointment. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2008 by J. M. Aucken
An easy read on a hard subject
A very well written book which makes a hard subject deceptively easy. Very light on equations and the "frightening" bits of mathematics, very strong on well written explanations of... Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2006 by Alec Cawley
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