The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  501 reviews
Sales Rank: 236820
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393046885
Dewey Decimal Number: 539.7258
EAN: 9780393046885
ASIN: 0393046885
Publication Date: February 1999
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Condition: NOTE: this is a PAPERBACK Copy, same iSBN use 0393046885, 448 pages, NORTON & Company Publishing, stains on edges, curling corners, no writings, clean text, tight spine
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| • | Paperback - The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | | • | Hardcover - The Elegant Universe | | • | Paperback - The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | | • | Hardcover - The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | | • | Turtleback - Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | | • | School & Library Binding - Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | | • | Library Binding - The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory |
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Amazon.com
There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything. Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties--"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"--Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate. Though Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study is in many ways the human hero of The Elegant Universe, it is not a human-side-of-physics story. Greene's focus throughout is the science, and he gives the nonspecialist at least an illusion of understanding--or the sense of knowing what it is that you don't know. And that is traditionally the first step on the road to knowledge. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
A fascinating and thought-provoking journey through the mysteries of space, time, and matter. Today physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring theory. String theory, as it is often called, is the key to the Unified Field Theory that eluded Einstein for more than thirty years. Finally, the century-old antagonism between the large and the small-General Relativity and Quantum Theory-is resolved. String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe, from the frantic dancing of subatomic quarks to the majestic swirling of heavenly galaxies, are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated and refreshingly clear book, Brian Greene, one of the world's leading physicists, relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind twentieth-century physics' search for a theory of everything. Through the masterful use of metaphor and analogy, The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated viscerally accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 496 more reviews...
 Don't know if its the subject matter or Greene... July 26, 2008
...but this stuff is good. Greene goes a little overboard with the analogies, but it's almost necessary to do so with such technical material (at least when it's obvious his target reader is someone with little collegiate-level training in physics). I personally love anything that attempts to explain our physical world, and Greene does just that in a very original and sincere way. String theory is a hard concept to grasp -and quantum mechanics is even harder, but after reading this book two times through, the information really begins to sink in. Most people are simply unaware of the possibility of additional dimensions, or at least, are aware of them but believe they only exist in science fiction. I can't wait for technology to catch up to the claims these scientists are making. I advise anyone to read this book. Good intro to the subjects.
 science fiction July 17, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
just read lee smolin's book.
The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Paperback)
over 30 years,the gang of stringers have been trying to find any evidence even at atomic level for their theory , but they failed.
better to read science fiction novels..
Elegant Theory for an Inelegant Universe July 10, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Brian Greene provides an excellent introduction to the topic of superstring theory, its history and evolution; its current status, achievements and obstacles; and its areas of focus for future study. The book is written for the layman, in a style that is honest, clear and concise, using numerous real-world examples to explain the basic theories, and excludes mathematical explanations as much as is possible. The early chapters on special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics are brief and superficial and serve more as historical backgound to the main focus of the book which is superstring theory. Consequently, the book is somewhat biased in that it does not look at alternative views of the nature of the universe, on the assumption that superstring theory may eventually prove to be the theory of everything. This is because the primary goal of superstring theory is to combine general relativity (theory of the very large) and quantum mechanics (theory of the very small) and provide a unified theory of the four fundamental forces of nature - the weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces.
The main chapters on superstring theory and M-Theory can be difficult to understand, even to accept as valid, for the layman, but keep in mind that string theory is extremely complex, not fully developed, virtually impossible to test, and consequently, not fully understood at present. The core of superstring theory is that all matter in the universe is made up of one(2,3,etc)-dimensional vibrating strings and hidden dimensions which currently cannot be observed or measured, and may never be. Consequently, matter is not infinitely small but has a very small finite size. Nor is matter and energy limited to the 3-dimensional world we live in, but can occupy up to 6 or 7 higher dimensions that are hidden from our everyday experience.
This book is well worth reading, but whether the layman walks away with a better understanding of the universe after this introduction to superstring theory is debatable. What the layman may walk away with after reading this book is a myriad of questions regarding the very assumptions upon which superstring theory is based. That superstring theory is elegant, and its complex mathematics are elegant, there is no doubt, but whether the universe is also elegant will depend on the validity of superstring theory as a true description of our universe.
Here are some questions from a layman reader:
1. If we know that observing a small particle changes its position and velocity, and we know how it changes, then we should still be able to observe it.
2. Where do vibrating strings get there energy from?
3. The hidden curled-up dimensions seem to exist at the micro level. Why do they not exist as extensions of our four spacetime dimensions, in a way that encapsulates them, at a macro level?
4. The theory is now up to 11 spacetime dimensions. Is it due mathematical convenience or limitation? Does it really matter if there are 11, 11 million, or an infinite number of spacetime dimensions?
5. Using duality symmetries, why not assume that gravity is simply a phase transition of the other 3 forces (weak, strong, electromagnetic)?
6. Does a large mass spinning body create friction, and/or a charge, with its surrounding space that would help to explain gravity as more than the mere warping of space?
7. If there is a large black hole at the center of our galaxy, should not our galaxy be shrinking, and cant this be measured?
8. We seem to understand how black holes are created, but not how they die. Why not assume that black holes simply reverse themselves after taking in a suffient amount of matter and energy, and releasing it in the form of a mini-big bang?
9. Why assume that the universe was created in a big bang. Aspects of superstring theory seem to suggest that the universe may be a perpetual, self-sustaining entity. While everything within the universe can change, including the universe expanding and contracting, the universe itself is a constant.
10. Are particle accelerators dangerous? Clearly in an attempt to experimentally verify superstring theory, physicists are going to smash particles not just to create new particles predicted by theory, but to try and tear the fabric of space, or to open a portal to a higher dimension, or even to try and create a mini black hole. Of course this does not seem to be a problem for superstring theory which suggests that most disturbances in the universe eventually get averaged out, zeroed out, smoothed out, smeared out, annihilated out, or simply self-repair themselves.
 so this string walks into the tenth dimension July 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fun stuff and all, especially for the first half when he shows an amazing ability to explain complicated concepts in a way that you can understand. Holy crap, I finally get what Einstein was banging on about with all those Special Theories!
But after a while it gets into the kind of territory where he's gotta say "And then there are ten dimensions and the reason why is a whole bunch of math that you won't understand, so take my word for it." It's not his fault; at a certain point, there's just no way to describe things without insanely complex math. I do take his word for it - that's no problem - but still, that doesn't exactly help me understand it intuitively.
But anyway, I guess there are all these dimensions and stuff. So that's...pretty cool.
Interesting and enlightening story June 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is interesting to consider that the subject matter for this book essentially concerns only the last one hundred years or so of human history, ever since the time of Einstein's work, and that by way of comparison it only goes back to the time of Isaac Newton. Prior to Newton's day, the physical laws of the universe were understood almost exclusively in terms of the religious and allegorical. Only very recently in human history has there occurred this intense kind of scientific study, which the author describes here. Of course, the actual work involves a mathematics that is quite complicated, but the author has done a good job in telling the story in layman's terms. A few of the analogies are probably not the best in the world, but I found the book to be excellent reading, especially about how string theory developed, and only really stumbled in chapter 10, the one on quantum geometry.
While relativity and quantum mechanics are notable for being counterintuitive, string theory is especially interesting in that it fills in the gaps (it accounts for gravity in the way the other theories do not), and provides a more intuitive basis. It makes sense to think of the most basic element of the universe as a vibrating string, certainly much more so than as a point particle. I think of a vibrating string as being a nexus between energy and the most fundamental kind of matter. It makes more sense to think that energy comes before matter rather than matter before energy.
Although the author does not directly deal with the question, it seems that he posits that string theory is an explanation of a self-contained universe. In the instances in which the fabric of space is torn, he explains that string theory provides a way for space to be mended. If the universe contracts back to the time of the big bang, it will not go back to nothing but rather to a "big crunch". Even the multiple dimensions of the theory, which lead one to think of another universe, have the sense of being on this side of the known universe. The biggest question that I could see concerns how string theory explains black holes. Is information lost in a black hole? The author seems to be on the side of those who don't think so, but concedes that there is no way to know at this point.
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