The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
April 16, 2011 by Actaphysica
Filed under Physics Book Reviews
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Record Setting,
I’ve never written a review before, but I have enjoyed browsing reader’s comments on books I read or teach from. While reading the review that claims this new book to be a “dumbing down” of The Elegant Universe, and to have “no new material”, I felt I had to set the record straight. For the record: I teach Physics for Poets class in a local community college, and use The Elegant Universe as one of our books. Next year I will add Fabric of the Cosmos to the syllabus since it has at least 80% new material, and the overlap with The Elegant Universe is done in a new way that I have not seen in any other book, The Elegant Universe or otherwise. The reviewer says that “200 pages are spent reviewing Newton and Einstein” which is a factual error. It is just over 50 pages, and a fascinating new angle known as Mach’s principle is used.
For the reviewer to say that “spooky action at a distance” is in Elegant, is also a factual error. He must be thinking of another book. This (huge) subject, entanglement, was not covered in the Elegant Universe as I know for sure, since in the past I have had to assign other books for these ideas. I might add that the discussion of entanglement in Fabric goes far ahead of any other since it proves Bell’s theorem, without math! I didn’t think that was possible! The main theme of The Arrow of Time which runs through Fabric, is not touched on at all in Elegant, nor are the questions of whether space and time are real or just ideas.
If someone is looking for a direct sequel to Elegent, this is not that book. Fabric is a monumental work of its own and should be read as such.
For other suggested readings: Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps, Janna Levin’s How the Universe Got its Spots.
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The One Book to Read,
I loved The Elegant Universe.
I loved The Fabric of the Cosmos even more.
In showing the state of the art of unified theories, The Elegant Universe explained alot of physics with unsurpassed clarity. Yet, there were discoveries I had read something about in other books that The Elegant Universe did not discuss, and I longed for Brian Greene to bring his powers of explanation to these subjects too. (I even wrote him an email saying so).
The Fabric of the Cosmos answers my longing in abundance.
This book not only covers relativity but also the long debate about Mach’s principle and what “space” means. It covers quantum mechanics, but goes further by taking on the debate regarding observers and measurment, and provides the clearest, most understandable discussion of quantum entanglement (the “EPR paradox) that I have ever seen in print or any other format. The chapters on cosmology are equally great, and the final sections bring the work on unification and string theory right up to the moment.
I can’t say this is an easy book, perhaps a little easier than
The Elegant Universe, but definitely a challenge. It is worth it. By the end, the poetry of the universe is yours to behold.
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