|
|
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (Paperback)
by Brian Greene
| Category:
Science, Physics, Cosmos, Universe |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 168.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
|
|
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Written with a clarity rarely seen in armchair physics books, this science text is an outstanding work and a challenging read. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition
Pub. in: February, 2005
ISBN: 0375727205
Pages: 592
Measurements: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00704
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0375727207
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- Awards & Credential -
National Bestseller in America by one of the world's most brilliant physicists and the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Elegant Universe. |
|
- MSL Picks -
In some respects this book is an extension (and a substantial one) of physicist Brian Greene's well-received The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (1999) in which he attempted the very difficult task of explaining relativity, quantum mechanics, and string theory to the educated layperson while keeping the mathematics in footnotes. Here he covers some of the same ground as he patiently and painstakingly illuminates some of the most important ideas in physics and cosmology, employing new ways to explain the nearly unexplainable.
His watchword is "reality" and his overarching idea is that reality is not as we intuitively think it is. (p. 5) This is one of the startling revelations from relativity and the quantum world: namely that our perceptions and concepts built up through evolutionary experience are NOT adequate to understand the world of the very small or the very large. The dual nature of the particle/wave is the most obvious example, and one that Greene examines at length. We have no way of intuitively appreciating the fact that elementary particles are not just particles but waves as well--actually probability waves. But there is also our notion of something and "nothing" that is being tested by modern physics. What appears to be empty space is in fact far from empty. Moreover, space itself has unsuspected qualities, as Greene demonstrates in his discussion of the postulated Higgs fields.
Particularly exciting was the way Greene makes inflation credible ("the universe could easily have expanded by a factor of 10 to the 30th, 10 to the 50th or 10 to the 100th or more" within a time frame "as short as ten to the minus 35th seconds" p. 284) by positing that before the Higgs field made its phase transition, all quanta had zero mass. It doesn't take much energy to move something with zero mass. (Or maybe something with zero mass can't be moved at all.) At any rate, very shortly after the big bang, space and presumably time, expanded enormously (faster than the speed of light, actually--but, as Greene, assures us, the speed limit on light does not apply to expanding space).
In short what Greene does in this book is take the reader to the edge of what can be understood. What he writes is exciting and awe-inspiring, and he writes so very well, and he works so hard at trying to reach every reader. However you'll forgive me if I get some of this wrong. And of course I am compelled to point out (as Greene does himself) that the Higgs field and therefore inflation, not to mention string theory and M-theory, etc., remain as yet in the category of the not proven.
Obvious is Greene's faith in the "beauty" of mathematics to point the way to physical truth. He recalls the work of Glashow, Weinberg and Salam in predicting the existence of W and Z particles because of the "strong faith these physicists had in the power of theory and the beauty of symmetry that gave them the confidence to go forward." (p. 266) Whether the beauty that physicists see in the equations for string theory, etc., will lead them to a deeper understanding of the cosmos remains to be seen. Most readers are familiar with what one ugly fact can do to a beautiful theory.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the book is Greene's delineation of time and time's "arrow." I have always been fascinated with time and have spent many hours trying to figure out what it is. Reading between the lines, it would appear that Greene believes that events create time. Or more precisely, that asymmetry creates time. He writes "If the universe had perfect temporal symmetry--if it were completely unchanging--it would be hard to define what time even means." (p. 228) Of course this is somewhat circular, but I think I can add that if the universe were completely empty, it would also "be hard to define" what time means.
On the question of "Does time have a direction?" Greene writes that "the laws of physics...show a complete symmetry between past and future." (pp. 144-145) Yet, in everyday life, time is always aimed toward the future. An egg splatters. It doesn't unsplatter. Why is that? Greene brings entropy into the picture, noting that entropy has increased since the big bang. He explains that the unsplattered egg has a very low degree of entropy (that is, it is highly ordered, thanks to DNA, energy from the sun, etc.). Eggs splatter more easily than they could ever hope to unsplatter because there are an uncounted number of ways that the egg can have high entropy (ways it can be splattered about) but only one (or very few) ways it can be pristine. In a footnote on page 511 Greene articulates something that I have been waiting to hear from a prominent physicist. Suppose the universe began to contract, seemingly reversing time's arrow. Would eggs unsplatter? Greene's answer: "Physical processes (eggs breaking, people aging, and so on) would still happen in the usual direction..."
What impressed me the most about this book is just how well produced it is. Greene improves on his previous opus in two important ways. His explanations are more detailed and more accessible to the average reader; and his information and understanding are more up to date. Furthermore, the book is beautifully presented with many drawings, a glossary, selected readings for further study, and a fine index. There are 493 pages of text and 43 pages of notes. It is handsomely presented and beautifully edited and proofread. This is a book clearly worth the money and then some.
(From quoting Dennis Litrell, USA)
Target readers:
All science readers with an open and curious mind about why we are here and where we are heading.
|
|
Brian Greene received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the physics faculty at Cornell University in 1990, was appointed to a full professorship in 1995, and in 1996 joined Columbia University where he is professor of physics and mathematics. He has lectured at both a general and a technical level in more than twenty-five countries and is widely regarded for a number of ground breaking discoveries in superstring theory. He lives in Andes, New York, and New York City.
|
|
From Publisher
From Brian Greene, one of the world?s leading physicists, 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?
Greene uses these questions to guide us toward modern science?s new and deeper understanding of the universe. 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 bridge their spatial separation to instantaneously coordinate their behavior or even undergo teleportation, Greene reveals our world to be very different from what common experience leads us to believe. Focusing on the enigma of time, Greene establishes that nothing in the laws of physics insists that it run in any particular direction and that ?time?s arrow? is a relic of the universe?s condition at the moment of the big bang. And in explaining the big bang itself, Greene shows how recent cutting-edge developments in superstring and M-theory may reconcile the behavior of everything from the smallest particle to the largest black hole. This startling vision culminates in a vibrant eleven-dimensional ?multiverse,? pulsating with ever-changing textures, where space and time themselves may dissolve into subtler, more fundamental entities.
Sparked by the trademark wit, humor, and brilliant use of analogy that have made The Elegant Universe a modern classic, Brian 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.
|
Chapter 1: Roads to Reality
SPACE, TIME, AND WHY THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE
None of the books in my father’s dusty old bookcase were forbidden. Yet while I was growing up, I never saw anyone take one down. Most were massive tomes - a comprehensive history of civilization, matching volumes of the great works of western literature, numerous others I can no longer recall - that seemed almost fused to shelves that bowed slightly from decades of steadfast support. But way up on the highest shelf was a thin little text that, every now and then, would catch my eye because it seemed so out of place, like Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians. In hindsight, I’m not quite sure why I waited so long before taking a look. Perhaps, as the years went by, the books seemed less like material you read and more like family heirlooms you admire from afar. Ultimately, such reverence gave way to teenage brashness. I reached up for the little text, dusted it off, and opened to page one. The first few lines were, to say the least, startling.
"There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide," the text began. I winced. "Whether or not the world has three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories," it continued, "comes afterward"; such questions, the text explained, were part of the game humanity played, but they deserved attention only after the one true issue had been settled. The book was The Myth of Sisyphus and was written by the Algerian-born philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus. After a moment, the iciness of his words melted under the light of comprehension. Yes, of course, I thought. You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That’s what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail.
My chance encounter with Camus' book must have occurred during an especially impressionable phase because, more than anything else I’d read, his words stayed with me. Time and again I’d imagine how various people I’d met, or heard about, or had seen on television would answer this primary of all questions. In retrospect, though, it was his second assertion - regarding the role of scientific progress - that, for me, proved particularly challenging. Camus acknowledged value in understanding the structure of the universe, but as far as I could tell, he rejected the possibility that such understanding could make any difference to our assessment of life’s worth. Now, certainly, my teenage reading of existential philosophy was about as sophisticated as Bart Simpson’s reading of Romantic poetry, but even so, Camus’ conclusion struck me as off the mark. To this aspiring physicist, it seemed that an informed appraisal of life absolutely required a full understanding of life’s arena - the universe. I remember thinking that if our species dwelled in cavernous outcroppings buried deep underground and so had yet to discover the earth’s surface, brilliant sunlight, an ocean breeze, and the stars that lie beyond, or if evolution had proceeded along a different pathway and we had yet to acquire any but the sense of touch, so everything we knew came only from our tactile impressions of our immediate environment, or if human mental faculties stopped developing during early childhood so our emotional and analytical skills never progressed beyond those of a five-year-old - in short, if our experiences painted but a paltry portrait of reality - our appraisal of life would be thoroughly compromised. When we finally found our way to earth’s surface, or when we finally gained the ability to see, hear, smell, and taste, or when our minds were finally freed to develop as they ordinarily do, our collective view of life and the cosmos would, of necessity, change radically. Our previously compromised grasp of reality would have shed a very different light on that most fundamental of all philosophical questions.
But, you might ask, what of it? Surely, any sober assessment would conclude that although we might not understand everything about the universe - every aspect of how matter behaves or life functions–we are privy to the defining, broad-brush strokes gracing nature’s canvas. Surely, as Camus intimated, progress in physics, such as understanding the number of space dimensions; or progress in neuropsychology, such as understanding all the organizational structures in the brain; or, for that matter, progress in any number of other scientific undertakings may fill in important details, but their impact on our evaluation of life and reality would be minimal. Surely, reality is what we think it is; reality is revealed to us by
our experiences.
To one extent or another, this view of reality is one many of us hold, if only implicitly. I certainly find myself thinking this way in day-to-day life; it’s easy to be seduced by the face nature reveals directly to our senses. Yet, in the decades since first encountering Camus’ text, I’ve learned that modern science tells a very different story. The overarching lesson that has emerged from scientific inquiry over the last century is that human experience is often a misleading guide to the true nature of reality. Lying just beneath the surface of the everyday is a world we'd hardly recognize. Followers of the occult, devotees of astrology, and those who hold to religious principles that speak to a reality beyond experience have, from widely varying perspectives, long since arrived at a similar conclusion. But that’s not what I have in mind. I’m referring to the work of ingenious innovators and tireless researchers - the men and women of science - who have peeled back layer after layer of the cosmic onion, enigma by enigma, and revealed a universe that is at once surprising, unfamiliar, exciting, elegant, and thoroughly unlike what anyone ever expected.
These developments are anything but details. Breakthroughs in physics have forced, and continue to force, dramatic revisions to our conception of the cosmos. I remain as convinced now as I did decades ago that Camus rightly chose life's value as the ultimate question, but the insights of modern physics have persuaded me that assessing life through the lens of everyday experience is like gazing at a van Gogh through an empty Coke bottle. Modern science has spearheaded one assault after another on evidence gathered from our rudimentary perceptions, showing that they often yield a clouded conception of the world we inhabit. And so whereas Camus separated out physical questions and labeled them secondary, II've become convinced that they're primary. For me, physical reality both sets the arena and provides the illumination for grappling with Camus' question. Assessing existence while failing to embrace the insights of modern physics would be like wrestling in the dark with an unknown opponent. By deepening our understanding of the true nature of physical reality, we profoundly reconfigure our sense of ourselves and our experience of the universe.
The central concern of this book is to explain some of the most prominent and pivotal of these revisions to our picture of reality, with an intense focus on those that affect our species’ long-term project to understand space and time. From Aristotle to Einstein, from the astrolabe to the Hubble Space Telescope, from the pyramids to mountaintop observatories, space and time have framed thinking since thinking began. With the advent of the modern scientific age, their importance has been tremendously heightened. Over the last three centuries, developments in physics have revealed space and time as the most baffling and most compelling concepts, and as those most instrumental in our scientific analysis of the universe. Such developments have also shown that space and time top the list of age-old scientific constructs that are being fantastically revised by cutting-edge research.
To Isaac Newton, space and time simply were - they formed an inert, universal cosmic stage on which the events of the universe played themselves out. To his contemporary and frequent rival Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, "space" and "time" were merely the vocabulary of relations between where objects were and when events took place. Nothing more. But to Albert Einstein, space and time were the raw material underlying reality. Through his theories of relativity, Einstein jolted our thinking about space and time and revealed the principal part they play in the evolution of the universe. Ever since, space and time have been the sparkling jewels of physics. They are at once familiar and mystifying; fully understanding space and time has become physics’ most daunting challenge and sought-after prize.
The developments we'll cover in this book interweave the fabric of space and time in various ways. Some ideas will challenge features of space and time so basic that for centuries, if not millennia, they’ve seemed beyond questioning. Others will seek the link between our theoretical understanding of space and time and the traits we commonly experience. Yet others will raise questions unfathomable within the limited confines of ordinary perceptions... |
|
| View all 14 comments |
Discover (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
Highly informed, lucid and witty... There is simply no better introduction to the strange wonders of general relativity and quantum mechanics, the fields of knowledge essential for any real understanding of space and time. |
Physics World (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-08 00:00>
One of the most entertaining and thought-provoking popular science books to have emerged in the last few years. The Elegant Universe was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Fabric of the Cosmos deserves to win it.
|
Ray Erskins (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-09 00:00>
Brian Greene is a wonderful writer who illuminates the subtle and elusive nature of physical reality as perhaps only a physicist-philosopher can. Thus, he begins his book with a down-to-earth, ego-shattering quote from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus:
"There is but one truly philosophical question, and that is suicide..."
In view of the ominous significance of this statement in light of current events, this thought-provoking nugget sets the tone for a more humanistic approach to our quest to understand "The Fabric of the Cosmos." From the start, Greene appears to be asking himself and the reader if this quest is merely some trivial game we play. Then shrewdly, he posits the existential value of cosmological curiosity and the role of the individual genius throughout human history.
Newton's bucket experiment (Chapter 2) soon becomes the point of origin for so many wondrous and subtle investigations into the nature of phenomena. The famous story of the apple falling on Newton's head seems to pale in comparison to his twirling bucket of H2O. For it is here, I believe, that Newton steals Promethean fire from the gods. For centuries thereafter the greatest minds in Europe would grapple with Newton's bucket experiment and what it was telling them about "Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality." And Greene does a superb job of recounting the intellectual history of this puzzle in organized stages, demonstrating again and again that "nature does not give up her secrets easily." Indeed, the more you think about Newton's bucket experiment - especially in light of what we now know about quantum physics - the more your head begins to spin like that bucket.
This book often made me wonder if we understand the true nature of the cosmos at all. We have obviously discovered effective equations that possess immense practical value, and yet, the fundamental premises upon which our understanding of the cosmos is based, still seem inadequate -- even at this late date. And here is why:
As Greene recounts so masterfully, "In 1894, the renowned experimental physicist Albert Michelson remarked that 'most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established.'" Lord Kelvin also believed that only a few remaining details needed to be addressed and human understanding of the physical universe would be complete. But Faraday's experiments on electromagnetism, and Maxwell's formal equations describing it, and, irony of ironies, the Michelson-Morley experiments with respect to the velocity of light, would suddenly awaken a sleeping giant named Albert Einstein.
By 1905 Einstein was wide-awake as a result of reading Ernst Mach, who had questioned the fundamental premise of Newton's bucket experiment and his concept of "absolute space." This, Newton had surmised, was causing the water to achieve its concave shape as it spun inside the bucket. Mach argued that the water achieved its concave shape because of the effect created by all the MATTER in the universe, rather than "absolute space." And to Einstein this posed deeper questions about the 'simultaneity' of gravitational fields in a universe where light was the fastest known signal, as well as being the only constant in a relative space-time continuum of interchangeable matter and energy infused with electrodynamic properties.
In time, Einstein was able to raise our understanding of physics to an entirely new level by rethinking Newton's absolute space (and thus, time). And there can be no doubt that his subsequent equations have proved to be far more powerful than we might now prefer (especially, in view of Iran's current behavior). And yet, quantum reality seems to fly in the face of everything Einstein unveiled, even though he gave us a much clearer understanding of quantum physics. Still, Einstein disliked the implications of quantum reality. As he once said angrily" "God does not play dice with the universe."
The problem is that quantum uncertainty seems to contradict this statement. In fact, quantum jumpiness has given us a physics that is as far out and surreal as the medieval Scholasticism that once pondered how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Of course, nowadays strings, branes, and extra-dimensions have been substituted for angels. There is also an apparent empirical basis for these theoretical/hypothetical entities. Nevertheless, such speculative curiosities are growing ever more complex (and numerous) and it often seems as if Ockham's Razor is a rusty old blade that's been discarded.
The proof is in Greene's later chapters, which take us through the dizzying world of theoretical physics at today's imposing level of detailed knowledge. And after reading such exotic fare one concludes that science has only multiplied our uncertainties over the past century. No one would dare say that we know most everything there is to know now. Yet I think that Greene makes it clear that we are building a model of "The Fabric of the Cosmos" with the accumulated knowledge of millenniums. And this offers the hope that an extraordinary individual will someday stand "on the shoulders of giants" and envision a simple and elegant paradigm that weaves everything we know into a web that sparkles like a starry, starry night. |
R. Markham (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-09 00:00>
I would respectfully disagree with those who suggest that Fabric of the Cosmos is just a rehash of Elegant Universe with little more to offer, and in fact not as well written. On the contrary, I found Fabric of the Cosmos to be equally as engaging as Elegant Universe and to offer a great deal of new material. It is true that some of the background material on relativity and quantum mechanics is covered in both books, but I for one preferred it that way. I read Elegant Universe several years ago, and although I have a general feel for the concepts, I appreciated the refresher on many of the details. By including the background material in Fabric of the Cosmos I never felt lost, and I never had to refer back to another book. The background material on relativity and quantum mechanics is similar in both books, but it is not identical, so I never felt like I was rereading the same old stuff.
Another minor issue I've seen some complain about is the use of The Simpson's (and other) television characters in his examples. Personally I could care less what characters are used in the examples, but from a practical standpoint, I much preferred names like Marge and Lisa to names like Slim and Jim (which were used in Elegant Universe). I could easily keep track of what Marge and Lisa were doing in an example, whereas I was often confused about what Slim and Jim were doing. The similar sounding names drove me crazy. So from a practical standpoint, I preferred the names used in Fabric of the Cosmos.
Now what about the content of the two books? For me Elegant Universe was more of an introduction to string theory, whereas Fabric of the Cosmos was much more an exposition on cosmology. In Elegant Universe roughly the first 130 pages gave a background on relativity and quantum mechanics, and then the remainder of the book, some 250 pages, was about string theory. In "Fabric of the Cosmos" roughly the same space is devoted to background info on relativity and quantum mechanics, (about 120 pages) but with more of a cosmological slant related to questions of "what is space" and "what is time". Then roughly the next 200 pages give an outstanding description of where we're at in terms of cosmological theories about the origin of the universe. If you want an excellent description of inflation theory, Higgs fields, and the like, this is the source. And then only in the last roughly 120 pages does Greene bring string theory into all of this, and then with the same overarching cosmological slant which is a common thread running through the book. Bottom line is Fabric of the Cosmos provided me with a terrific overview of cosmology that I did not get from Elegant Universe. Both books are outstanding, and I would certainly recommend both. The point being simply that these are different books, and Fabric of the Cosmos is not just a rehash of Elegant Universe.
Finally, as in Elegant Universe, Greene takes the reader very logically from one step to the next. I've read many books that make broad statements about how one thing relates to another with zero explanation of how that relationship was derived. In Greene's book this is never an issue. Sometimes this can make the writing a bit long and dense, but I would much prefer a book that I can logically work my way through, albeit sometimes with a bit of patience, than a book with logical gaps that no amount of patience is going to resolve. Don't get me wrong though, even though the book can sometimes be a bit dense, I never found it to be dry. Greene does a great job of making the book engaging and enjoyable to read throughout.
Very highly recommended. |
View all 14 comments |
|
|
|
|
