The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
by Brian Greene
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brian GreeneEdition: Paperback
Published: 2005-02-08
ISBN: 0375727205
Number of pages: 592
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
Book Review: Very interesting, highly recommended
Summary: 5 Stars
As an amateur interested in astronomy and astrophysics I enjoyed listening to Brian Green's the Fabric of the Cosmos very much, learned a lot and thought about fundamental questions about the universe in a different way. The questions below and many others are explored in a very interesting way. The explanations flow smoothly in a logical manner. Questions are raised in a way to get the listener thinking. This audio CD is relevant to both amateurs and professionals on the topic. As an amateur I was not able to understand everything on the CD yet. I am sure that as I listen to the CD several more times I will understand a lot more. These topics are sometimes explained in a boring way in high school physics and college astrophysics courses and therefore can kill interest in the topic. By contrast, this CD introduces them in a very curiosity raising manner. It uses a philosophical and yet at the same time a scientifc approach that is upto date. I have also watched DVDs on similar topics before. So before listening to this CD I was skeptical about whether a CD about the universe lacking the visual elements of a DVD could be interesting or not. My answer now is definitely yes ; the auditory explanations create very interesting mental images in the listener's mind.
Examples to some of the questions, among others, explored in the CD are : What is time ? What is space ? How are they related ? What is reality and how do we perceive it ? Does time always have to flow towards the future or can the direction of flow sometimes reverse ? Does time flow at the same rate in different parts of the universe or not ? How was the universe created ? How is it likely to end ? Is the big bang theory of the creation of the universe valid ? What has banged, how and how long ago? Could the universe actually be a giant brain ? How many dimensions are there in the universe ? Can we perceive all the dimensions or not ? What are matter and energy ? How are they related ? What are black holes ? What could be happening inside black holes ? How does Einstein's theory of general relativity explain the universe ? According to that theory, why is the velocity of light always constant ? What is light made of ? What are photons ? How does light travel in space ? What are the limitations in Isaac Newton's explanation of the universe ? Are objects that are billions of light years apart in the universe completely unrelated or can they affect one another despite those awesome distances ? How do we perceive movement ? Movement occurs with respect to what ? What are frames of reference ? Could we perceive movement in space if there were no other objects at all in the universe ? How did atomic theory start ? What are the smallest particles of matter ? What are quarks ? Are electrons matter or energy ? What is quantum theory ? How does it reconcile with the theory of general relativity ? What is the uncertainty principle ? Why can't the velocity and position of an object be simultaneously determined with absolute certainty ? What is gravity ? Are all forces in the universe such as gravity, electromagnetism etc. actually different manifestations of the same force or not ? What is string theory and how does it explain the universe ? Is a unified theory that explains everything possible ? How is the structure of the atom related to the structure of the universe ? What are the historical developments of various theories that attempt to explain the universe ? What are the contributions of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble and many other scientists and philosophers to the development of our understanding of matter, energy, space, time, the universe and the texture of reality ? As of today how much do we understand the universe ? What questions remain unanswered ? What are the likely developments in these theories in the future ? How do the various theories contradict and / or reconcile with one another ?
We may think that the answers to questions such as what is space ? what is gravity ? what is time ? what is reality ? what is movement ? are simple and that we already know the answers from our high school physics courses. So we may reason that there is no need for deep philosophical contemplation about them. However, this CD challenges this type of thinking and makes us aware that what we maybe taking for granted as known facts may not be ultimate answers at all. For example, if you think that space is equivalent to emptiness, to nothingness and if you think that time can flow only in one direction, that is towards what we call the future, think again. This CD challenges these concepts.
Thousands of years ago humankind thought that the Earth was carried on the backs of giant elephants or turtles. A few centuries ago humankind was debating whether the Earth was flat or round, if the Earth orbited the sun or the reverse. Humankind's vision of the universe was limited to the solar system and fixed stars. The only elements were air, soil, fire and water. With the contributions of many scientists including Galileo our understanding of the universe significantly developed to date. However, this CD demonstrates that despite these giant steps, and despite the sophistication of our current theories, we still have a long way to go before we can say that we fully understand the universe. This CD demonstrates that we do not yet have certain and final answers, but we have many questions that are being further explored. Fortunately, we have significant knowledge, that accumulates in the right direction towards the discovery of the " truth ".
So if these matters arouse your curiosity I strongly recommend that you listen to the CD titled " The Fabric of the the Cosmos " by Brian Green.
Summary of The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
As a boy, Brian Greene read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and was transformed. Camus, in Greene's paraphrase, insisted that the hero triumphs "by relinquishing everything beyond immediate experience." After wrestling with this idea, however, Greene rejected Camus and realized that his true idols were physicists; scientists who struggled "to assess life and to experience the universe at all possible levels, not just those that happened to be accessible to our frail human senses." His driving question in The Fabric of the Cosmos, then, is fundamental: "What is reality?" Over sixteen chapters, he traces the evolving human understanding of the substrate of the universe, from classical physics to ten-dimensional M-Theory.Assuming an audience of non-specialists, Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. For the most part, he succeeds. His language reflects a deep passion for science and a gift for translating concepts into poetic images. When explaining, for example, the inability to see the higher dimensions inherent in string theory, Greene writes: "We don't see them because of the way we see…like an ant walking along a lily pad…we could be floating within a grand, expansive, higher-dimensional space."
For Greene, Rhodes Scholar and professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, speculative science is not always as thorough and successful. His discussion of teleportation, for example, introduces and then quickly tables a valuable philosophical probing of identity. The paradoxes of time travel, however, are treated with greater depth, and his vision of life in a three-brane universe is compelling and--to use his description for quantum reality--"weird."
In the final pages Greene turns from science fiction back to the fringes of science fact, and he returns with rigor to frame discoveries likely to be made in the coming decades. "We are, most definitely, still wandering in the jungle," he concludes. Thanks to Greene, though, some of the underbrush has been cleared. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists and author the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way.
Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.
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