The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality - Softcover

Greene, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375727205 ISBN 13: 9780375727207

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2005

Synopsis

From Brian Greene, one of the world's leading physicists and author of 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? 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. 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.

About this title

Review:

Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos with its questions about the limits of space and time and the texture of reality certainly looks a bit daunting to the uninitiated. Cosmic ripples, 11 dimensions to the universe and string theory that is somehow connected to a "Theory of Everything" are all a bit alien if you never really got to grips with Newton, let alone Einstein. It might look very heavyweight, but Greene is an excellent communicator and what he's writing about is perhaps the greatest intellectual challenge we face.

There is no doubt that speculation about the nature of the heavens is very ancient. After centuries of thought "we still can only portray space and time as the most familiar of strangers". But enormous advances in understanding have been made especially over the last few decades. Whether we are high-flying city slickers or impoverished cattle-herders in the third world, speculation about space-time "takes on an almost mystical quality: we're considering the fate of the very things that dominate our sense of reality" according to Greene.

Over the last century we have become much better acquainted with previously hidden features of the Universe, especially thanks to Einstein. Greene summarises these as

"the slowing of time, the relativity of simultaneity, alternative slicings of spacetime, gravity as the warpings and curving of space and time, the probabilistic nature of reality, and long range entanglement were not on the list of things that even the best of the world's nineteenth-century physicists would have expected to find just around the corner."

And yet they are attested to by both experimental results and theoretical explanations. Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, is one of the foremost players in contemporary string theory and authored a bestselling book The Elegant Universe for which he won the Aventis Prize in 2000.

In The Fabric of the Cosmos Green avoids mathematical formulae, which can be an immediate turnoff for most general readers. Clearly he knows that visually we can deal with abstract and/or difficult concepts much better than when they are presented in words. Consequently, he uses a very clever selection of excellent and well designed illustrations to help get his ideas across. There is an excellent index, plenty of notes and suggestions for further reading, which will allow those more in the know to take matters further. And, there is a glossary for us ordinary mortals who need every now and again to check up on our understanding of things such as quarks, Higgs particles, braneworld scenario and M-theory. --Douglas Palmer

Review:

"Send[s] the reader's imagination hurtling through space on an astonishing ride. . . . He is both a skilled and kindly explicator. His excitement for science on the threshold of vital breakthroughs is extremely contagious." --The New York Times

"The best exposition and explanation of early 21st-century research into the fundamental nature of the universe as you are likely to find anywhere." --Science

"Perhaps the single best explainer of abstruse science in the world today. . . . Greene has a gift for finding the right metaphor." --The Washington Post

"I recommend Greene's book to any nonexpert reader who wants an up-to-date account of theoretical physics, written in colloquial language that anyone can understand." --Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books

"As pure intellectual adventure, this is about as good as it gets. . . . Even compared with A Brief History of Time, Greene's book stands out for its sweeping ambition . . . stripping down the mystery from difficult concepts without watering down the science." --Newsday

"Greene is as elegant as ever, cutting through the fog of complexity with insight and clarity. Space and time, you might even say, become putty in his hands." --Los Angeles Times

"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." --Discover

"The author's informed curiosity is inspiring and his enthusiasm infectious." --Kansas City Star

"Mind-bending. . . . [Greene] is both a gifted theoretical physicist and a graceful popularizer [with] virtuoso explanatory skills." --The Oregonian

"Brian Greene is the new Hawking, only better." --The Times (London)

"Greene's gravitational pull rivals a black hole's." --Newsweek

"Greene is an excellent teacher, humorous and quick. . . . Read [your friends] the passages of this book that boggle your mind. (You may find yourself reading them every single paragraph.)." --Boston Globe

"Inexhaustibly witty . . . a must-read for the huge constituency of lay readers enticed by the mysteries of cosmology." --Sunday Times

"Relish this exhilarating foray into the alien terrain that is our own universe." --Booklist, starred review

"Holds out the promise that we may one day explain how space and time have come to exist." --Paul Davies, Nature

"Greene takes us to the limits of space and time." --The Guardian

"Exciting stuff. . . . Introduces the reader to the mind-boggling landscape of cutting-edge theoretical physics, where mathematics rules supreme." --The News & Observer

"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." --Physics World

"In the space of 500 readable pages, Greene has brought us to the brink of twenty-first-century physics with the minimum of fuss." --The Herald

"If anyone can popularize tough science, it's Greene." --Entertainment Weekly

"Greene is a marvelously talented exponent of physics. . . . A pleasure to read." --Economist

"Magnificent . . . sends shivers down the spine." --Financial Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0375727205
• ISBN 13: 9780375727207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 569