The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
by Brian Greene

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Book Reviews of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

Book Review: Spectacularly successful!
Summary: 5 Stars

How "accessible" is the book? Well, you don't need an advanced degree in theoretical physics in order to understand it. But a reader with no knowledge of college-level physics or mathematics will probably find it rough going. You probably should at least have an idea of what the subject of quantum mechanics is, as well as some notion of relativity - although Greene describes both of those subjects for the neophyte. You should know enough mathematics that the idea of nine or eleven-dimensional space doesn't blow you away completely. If the suggestions in this paragraph intimidate you, then I suggest reading the incomparable "One Two Three....Infinity" by George Gamow before reading this book. Despite being more than 40 years old (Gamow certainly had never heard of superstrings), that book will do a wonderful job of opening your mind to the point where you can accept the notions of "The Elegant Universe" more easily.

My only reservation about the book is that it seems premature. According to Greene's account, there is remarkably little direct physical evidence to support superstring theory. That is not to say that there is physical evidence CONTRADICTING string theory, either - there isn't. But when many of the best brains in the human race are devoting their lives to studying string theory, one might ask whether they are jumping the gun by giving so much effort to an unproven theory. There seem to be at least a couple of answers to that objection.

First, there are good reasons for the absence of physical evidence for string theory. One is that the physical events predicted by string theory can be experimentally discovered only under extremely high-energy or physically tiny conditions - conditions which we lack the technology to create and examine. Another reason is that string theory addresses such tiny, precise quantities that the usual "approximate" mathematics we use in everyday life is inapplicable. For example, a doctor wouldn't think twice about prescribing the same dosage of medication for a 150-lb. patient and a 155-lb. patient. Those weights are approximate anyway, and nothing would be gained by making a distinction. However, the quantities dealt with by string theory are so small and precise that the string theorists have not been able to confidently predict the outcomes of the experiments which would be performed to test string theory! A second answer is that there is a sort of "philosophy of science" which goes back centuries. That philosophy carries several assumptions, two of which are symmetry and economy. Symmetry means essentially that the laws of physics are the same everywhere and at every point in time. It means that no observer is special; that no person (and no galaxy!) can regard himself as the center of the universe, or the only object in the universe that is at rest. There is no proof of this principle, nor can there be, but using it as an assumption has led to many scientific and intellectual breakthroughs, including Einstein's theory of relativity. The "economy" principle means more or less that the universe contains nothing except those things necessary to make the universe work. Scientists have discovered 16 different varieties of basic matter particles and 4 "force" particles. But physicists are extremely reluctant to accept the idea that all 20 of those particles came into existence by themselves, for 20 independent reasons. Historically, science has made progress because scientists have explicitly rejected the notion that "things are as they are because they are that way".

String theory dominates theoretical physics because right now it's the "only game in town" which maintains economy and symmetry. It's the only theory we know of which gives hope of unifying what we know into one mathematically and logically consistent theory.

The book really belongs to the world of mathematics rather than physics. Rather than performing physical experiments and finding a pattern in the results, string theorists start from highly theoretical assumptions and then work out the theory of what would happen if those assumptions turned out to be true. This is what mathematicians do! Indeed, Greene relates one example of a physicist solving some complex mathematical problem by attacking it from a string theory point of view, when at the same time a mathematician was working on the same problem by employing much more difficult techniques. The mathematician and the physicist came up with very different answers, and to Greene's obvious satisfaction the physicist turned out to be right.

Rather than writing a physics textbook here, Greene has taken a contemporary-history approach. He covers the major discoveries chronologically, setting the stage for each new advance by lucidly describing the uncertainties and obstacles that were resolved by the next breakthrough. This approach gives the book more human interest than a textbook, and places each idea in an understandable context.

By the way, we can confidently dismiss the criticisms of a couple of reviewers below who claim that the book is scientifically false or unsound. Greene is a Rhodes scholar, a world-class researcher, and a professor at Cornell and Columbia. He knows what he's talking about.

But I must return to what really makes this a five-star book, which is the clarity of the writing and explaining. As a math teacher myself, I was deeply impressed by Greene's ability to communicate such advanced ideas to an audience of educated laypersons. I'll bet he is a great, great teacher.

Summary of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

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

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