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The Fabric of the Cosmos
Now, when I say "easy," this is, like so much of Greene's book, relative. It's taken me three weeks to wade through the concepts and often humorous prose that goes along with them. Being something of a physics geek, I have a basic concept of relativity and quantum mechanics. Greene takes his time laying out classical physics, from Newton to Einstein, exploring the version of the universe presented by the laws of the very large. He then dedicates just as much room enumerating the precepts of the standard model as well as those of quantum mechanics. With these two pillars of modern physics established, we are next whisked on a journey through cosmology, delving further and further back into the history of the universe until both quantum mechanics and relativity break down and we are introduced to strings.
Greene's attention to strings does not overwhelm the book, as in The Elegant Universe, and he doesn't delve deeply into the concepts and math behind any of the theories of physics as in the latter half of his earlier text. What he does present is a very good conceptual overview of modern physics, all the while using the frameworks provided to drive at the central question: What are space and time? (Or "spacetime" as relativity puts it).
This sophomore effort is actually better, I believe, than The Elegant Universe. Greene has a way of explaining things in terms that non-physicists can grasp. His use of pop-culture icons to drive his points home are as masterful as they are funny. It would be my bet that should this book be made into its own television special (and it should) it will have to be a joint work by PBS and Fox. After seeing Greene present his Elegant Universe on PBS, and reading this book, I'm beginning to see him as a new Carl Sagan, or perhaps the illegitimate love child of Sagan and Matt Groening, if such a thing were possible.
In the end, though, the book has left me with more questions than answers. To be sure, Greene and the theories that he covers provide answers, but to conceptualize and understand them is my current difficulty. I'm sure that some of my own problems arise from learning through allegory. Not having the mathematical background to understand these concepts on a more fundamental level is, I'm sure, leading to my own habit of taking an allegory too far. Would the book benefit from a deeper analysis of physics? I don't think so. To take things much deeper would lose those of us without a deep rooting in mathematics. If anything, Greene's work should inspire us to learn more, to grasp the concepts at a deeper level, to understand them in a more fundamental way, if this is indeed possible with the strange world of quantum mechanics.
Greene does delve into what the future of physics could hold. This is, in my opinion, the weakest part of the book. While it is interesting to be exposed to what the 'next big thing' could be, without the grounding that Greene enjoyed in the previous four sections of the book the final chapters prove less fulfilling than the ones that worked towards them. It's not that Greene doesn't explain the concepts expertly, but knowing that we're reading about a theory that hasn't even been fully formed, that is only a step away from speculation, means they don't stand as tall as the previous chapters. People may say this about string theory as well, because it is still very much an evolving theory.
Still, this accounts for no more than the denouement of an otherwise thrilling, work. Having traveled once again with Greene on a journey through physics I can say that I understand what Feynman meant when he spoke of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out; thankfully Greene is a good bit easier to follow than Feynman.
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I like The Illustrated Brief History of Time more than the none illustrated version. I saw Elegant Universe on PBS and really liked the visuals. Mr. Greene - give us non-geniuses more visuals to help understand this stuff.
Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
Reading through his paper, I am struck by the following flash of enlightenment:
The concept of the limit is explained with more rigor in high-school calculus.
Grade: D- See me after class
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
Not exactly a novel idea. Time is only treated as continuous for lack of a better way to treat it. One of the major research areas of theoretical physics is to do what the classical theory of generality relativity does, but to do it in a quantum-mechanical framework. Hence string theory and several other approaches.
The "scientific" method is this;
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation
Has strings ever been (or can be) observed in nature??
They have not.
Physics without a testable hypothesis is Philosophy.
String theory is not science.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
And here is where I debunked this steaming pile of crank shit on Slashdot.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
Wow.
I just read this paper. As a physics major in college, I say, "Bullshit!" I mean, what an absolute load of crap. So, his great insight is "there's no such thing as any distinct point in space or time because if there were, then everything would be frozen." I understand he has no mathematics to back this up, and that's not why I'm condemning it. I'm condemning his work simply because his reasoning is completely circular. He claims there cannot be both discrete events and continuity because if there were discrete events then there cannot be continuity. Ummm...how about some evidence? How about something, anything to back up this idea? No, nothing. This is horrible garbage, and should be shat upon.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It isn't so much that the masses are so stupid as those who direct the product think we are stupid and film for the lowest common denominator. Thus, we drag everyone down to the lowest level rather than lift everyone up to the highest.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Several times I found myself saying "okay, I get the point already, move ON."
This is a very self-centered statement. When I saw that show on PBS, my first thought was "This is great for a high-school physics class."
People who understand education know that some repitition is important. Watch Blues Clues or Teletubbies for good evidence of this. Even adult education shows have summary segments after each topic.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
The me that exists at this moment is not the me that will exist the next moment or the me that existed a moment ago. Sentient existence only lasts for one moment in time. Therefore, each sentient being only lasts for one moment. The sentient being the next moment is a different being. Have you ever had the feeling of "Gee, out of all the time in existence, isn't it great that it happens to be now? Well, it happens to be now because all nows have their own existence. In the string of my life, each now has it's own "me". Each me is glad that it happens to live in the current now.
My brain has information about the past that is active in the current now for my brain. Concurrently it has information about now. Concurrently it projects into the future. There is the experience of flow. The real question is, how is the binding problem solved? How are different parts of the brain experienced subjectively as a single consciousness in a particular now?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.