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"'A truly remarkable book...this is just the sort of book that could inspire mathematical awakenings' Sunday Times"

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The Road to Reality is the most important and ambitious work of science for a generation. It provides nothing less than a comprehensive account of the physical universe and the essentials of its underlying mathematical theory. It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, so that, for example, the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background to the physical theories explored later in the book. Roger Penrose's purpose is to describe as clearly as possible our present understanding of the universe and to convey a feeling for its deep beauty and philosophical implications, as well as its intricate logical interconnections. The Road to Reality is rarely less than challenging, but the book is leavened by vivid descriptive passages, as well as hundreds of hand-drawn diagrams. In a single work of colossal scope one of the world's greatest scientists has given us a complete and unrivalled guide to the glories of the universe that we all inhabit.

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50 Reviews

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
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3.4 out of 5 stars (50 customer reviews)

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83 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The road right back to the book shop., 4 April 2006

By A Customer

This book certainly seems to polarise opinions. I have yet to read a neutral review of it. It is either praised to the skies or condemned as useless. It doesn't take a Penrose (or an Aristotle) to point out that these two views are logically incompatible!.
I have a good deal of sympathy with the reviewer who got as far as chapter 6 before giving up in disgust. I have got just a little bit further at the cost of considerable effort. However I do not think the book is useless and I'm sure some readers will genuinely enjoy it.
There are a few problems. Firstly the blurb is plain dishonest. Secondly Penrose's preface in which he states that it is possible to read the book and gain something from it whilst skipping most of the maths is hopelessly naive and optimistic.
Make no mistake about it, if you do not enjoy Maths for its own sake you are not going to get very far with this book.
Like several of your other reviewers I studied Maths at school and enjoyed it .
I then went on to study Medicine at university and have always nursed a vague sense of inferiority about my "school boy" Maths.
I believe anyone who tackles the book with this kind of background is going to struggle pretty badly and more specifically they are going to get stuck on chapter 7 ("Complex number calculus").
Personally I read the first 6 chapters with enjoyment and even managed to do some of the examples. It started me thinking again about the Maths I had learned long ago and I found that I enjoyed doing so. Further Maths books were purchased and most outside observers are of the opinion that I have wasted a good deal of time (I have however enjoyed myself in a strange sort of way.)
I now understand (to my own satisfaction at least) most of the first 6 chapters. It has to be said that I learned very little of this from actually reading Penrose's book on its own. I found further reading essential. Penrose presents only the barest bones of the subject and expects a great deal from the reader in terms of thinking for him or herself. There is absolutely no "spoon feeding". The prose is dense and takes some getting used to, however I think he does manage to communicate a sense of excitement in the subject.
The approach is unconventional but I have found that if something is already well understood ( by learning it at a more leisurely pace elsewhere) then Penrose's take on the subject can be quite illuminating. For example his approach to the exponential form of a complex number via an informal but convincing definition of a complex logarithm is far easier to grasp intuitively than the usual power series proof.
So far so good. No more school Maths after chapter 6!
Before reading this book I had never heard of complex calculus. Perhaps I flatter myself but I don't honestly believe anyone unfamiliar with this subject will gain anything more than a headache by reading chapter 7. I read and re read this chapter several times before giving up and skipping to chapter 10 ("Surfaces") which seemed to be related. I got on better with chapter 10 and realised I had completely missed the point of chapter 7. Why the hell didn't he put chapter 10 first? Having said this chapter 10 is still very difficult and I got so frustrated with it that I went out and bought an introductory text on vector calculus.
After reading this (and this stuff is pretty challenging in spaces that are flat. No one is going to glide through this) and then doing a bit more research on the web I think I have got as far as seeing what Penrose is trying to explain in chapters 10 and 12 ("n-dimensional manifolds") .This of course is not the same thing as actually understanding it.
If I ever do understand it (unlikely) then chapter 19 ("The classical fields of Maxwell and Einstein", 29 pages in all) should be a walk in the park ,I will have finished with classical physics for good and can start the difficult stuff!
Penrose clearly hopes that by explaining the essential concepts behind a subject and leaving out what (to him) are unnecessary computational details the reader will gain enough insight to grasp the essentials.
As I have said before the man is an optimist. Intelligent people can sometimes take intuitive short cuts with subjects they understand well. Beginners don't stand a chance.
If you enjoy Maths but don't have a degree in it ,are very well motivated to understand some of modern physics and have grown inpatient with the usual popularisations by all means buy this book.
I don't honestly think most people will finish it. If however your curiosity is aroused and in defiance of common sense you become infected with Penrose's incurable optimism you will buy a lot more books, blunt a few pencils and severely test the patience of your family and friends. You might even learn something.
Alternatively you could always stain it with coffee, make spurious notes in the margin and display it prominently on your shelf where everyone will see it. I suspect this last motivation will sell a lot of copies!

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89 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant or Wonderful?, 10 Aug 2004

By	Ed (Exeter, Devon United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (Hardcover)

This is probably the best book I've ever read. It's a cross between a popular science book and a physics textbook. No other popular science book contains this level of technical detail; therefore no other pop-sci book really explains what's going on. Of course all this knowledge comes at a cost. I found it really hard going at times, and this was meant to be some light summer reading after my exams. (I've just finished a master's degree in theoretical physics). Lots of common things like Fourier series and complex analysis (which I thought I understood) are explained in a brilliant way from a different perspective, which I had never thought of before. And why had no one ever shown me diagrammatic tensor notation? That would have been very useful. Any way it's all in here. The exercise are in the foot notes and are very useful to help you understand the ideas in greater depth, I think many of the problems are for people with some training in the subject though. However you don't need a degree to read this book just an interest in the subject and a lot of patience would probably go a long way. This is one of those books where the more you know the more you get out of it. It took Penrose 8 years to write apparently but I'm amazed one person could write it at all. I'm only half way through reading it, it touches on most areas of theoretical physics and I believe will become a classic. The only complaint I would have (and this may be because I'm reading an early release) is that there are a few typos, particularly in the figure caption equations. However that shouldn't detract from an amazing work that goes where no pop sci has gone before...

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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not For The True Layman, But Fantastic Otherwise, 10 April 2006

By A Customer

I agree with other reviewers that this book is not appropriate for anyone without a degree in the physical sciences. However, people who have done a degree, even in physics at a prestigious university often come out not really knowing what's going on. Courses almost exclusively focus on examineable material and so the beauty of the whole thing is lost in routine calculations and derivations. If this sounds unhappily familiar, this book is probably for you.

For me, it was probably the most engrossing book I have ever read. Penrose explains how all the various theories and theorems interact to form a beautiful and coherent whole, but does so by building on the maths rather than the broken analogies pop-science usually uses.

It is probably worth bearing in mind that he does have a rather unusual interpretation of even the most basic physical theories. The interpretations come directly from the maths, so there is certainly no crackpottery going on, though it can be a bit of work to connect back to what you already know from university. But when you do, it is the most fantastic feeling in the world, and the reason this is the only book I have ever bothered to review on amazon.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Very nice, but not popular scince.
The book writes on his back.
"The reader doesnt need to have beforehand knowledge"

Wrong. Read more

Published 1 month ago by George Spiros

5.0 out of 5 stars Infinitely difficult, and infinitely rewarding!
To my amazement, I have got as far as Chapter 32 of this book, and there seems every chance I will actually finish it! Read more

Published 6 months ago by Mr. J. Arnold

2.0 out of 5 stars Approach with caution, you are entering a (very) strange world ...
I had great hopes of this book. Its title was certainly ambitious, but the review quotes on the cover seemed enouraging. Read more

Published 6 months ago by E. Clarke

5.0 out of 5 stars very difficult masterwork
Many of the reviews focus on the fact that this book is difficult to read. It is. The information content is dense. Read more

Published 9 months ago by bbdude

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book, though not for the true layman
This book is a real tour-de-force. My A-Level Maths of 18 Months ago was definetley a sufficient starting block for understanding almost everything in the book to an o.k. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Ted Maxwell

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a book for the "popular science" market
I'm an extremely keen reader and viewer of what is now commonly called Popular Science. I have a great amateur interest and knowledge of cosmology, quantum physics and related... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Mr. A. D. Rowley

4.0 out of 5 stars For the mathematically literate only
Sorry but you *have* to understand your maths before you can get to grips with this. As for me, I've got an MMath with Quantum Mechanics and Electromagnetic Theory under my belt,... Read more

Published 18 months ago by Matt Westwood

2.0 out of 5 stars Very hard going
This book is supposedly for the intelligent layman. However, Penrose's cutoff point is clearly quite high, and I for one failed to make the grade. Read more

Published 19 months ago by DP

2.0 out of 5 stars Impenetrable
The Emperor's New mind was a good read. This is impossible unless you have a very high level of Maths (at least to University Standard) and my further A-level maths of 30 years... Read more

Published 19 months ago by John Bland

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection
I can only describe this book as a work of art. Roger Penrose has achieved something quite extraordinary and timeless here. Read more

Published 19 months ago by C. S. Ebrey

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	75% buy the item featured on this page: The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe 3.4 out of 5 stars (50) �12.59
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