Slashdot Mirror
Roger Penrose and the Road to Reality
Flipping through the eleven-hundred pages, you notice the gratuitous inclusion of mathematical formulae and the chapter titles on the page headers -- "Quantum algebra, geometry, and spin," "Gravity's role in quantum state reduction," "Calculus on manifolds" -- suggest a far more exclusive audience than yourself, a lowly paper-pusher with a four-year degree. "But then, what's this doing in the popular new releases?" you ask yourself, "Shouldn't it be hidden away in the darkened corner of the store's physics section?" But that's where you're wrong, you realize, glancing through the author's preface; this book is for you: Penrose has, it seems, composed a mathematical physics book for the general audience -- and not merely an introductory one, but one that takes you to the frontiers of modern theory.
The trouble with the common popular-science books that propose to illustrate modern physical theories is in their implicit premise of avoiding mathematical notation and concept in favor of plain English. This works to an extent, but ultimately breaks down when the nature of the subject matter itself is mathematical. Indeed, after reading the wonderful Dancing Wu Li Masters, the reader is no more prepared to plunge into a textbook on modern physics or to comprehend even the titles of the latest mathematical physics papers on Arxiv.org. Physicists know about the fundamental particles or the nature of space only through the mathematics that model the phenomena. Which is not to say that such English language renderings are useless, but they skillfully devise to distance themselves from what physicists actually do, as well as to reenforce readers' natural aversion to numbers and formulae.
Penrose's approach is not to dive head-first into the most strenuous material or to assume a proper background for the comprehension of advanced physics; instead, the first several chapters are devoted to building the necessary mathematical subtext for the remaining bulk of the book. The volume's length is not, as is often the case, a result of lengthy diversions or pedantry (needless complexity); Penrose keeps his eye on the ball throughout, consistently informing the reader how the topic at hand is related to the over-arching theme and infusing the more well-known pedagogy with creative insight, so that even a talented math major may learn from the introductory chapters on number systems or geometry. What's more, the careful organization of the disparate topics permits a fluid drift from one to the next. The effect is a single cohesive book and not a collection of notes or essays.
With 390 illustrations and a generous supply of endnotes and bibliography entries, it's clear that Penrose didn't consider the work completed with the text alone. The inclusion of short problems within the footnotes hints to the reader what concepts are important to understand. The usual footnote-commentary is withheld for the endnotes at the end of each chapter.
It's probable that the name "Roger Penrose" might excite some memories you may have of his previous works, published over a decade ago, both of which explore the mind-brain relationship. At least one of these (Shadows of the Mind -- the other is the more popular The Emperor's New Mind) proposes a quantum theoretical explanation for consciousness which was perhaps too liberal to have been taken seriously by neurologists. Penrose's efforts in quantum theory have, however, been more successful than those in neurology: in 1988 he was awarded the Wolf Prize, one of the very highest honors in mathematics (perhaps second only to the Fields Medal), along with Stephen Hawking, and has made invaluable contributions to quantum physics for the past several decades, proving himself to be one of the finest scientific minds of our day. In consequence to his stature, it's certainly a treat for laypeople that Penrose has donated the time and energy to the creation of a monumental expository work for general consumption.
Whereas the average pop-science journalist reaches upwards to accrue a book's material, Penrose's acknowledged expertise on the subject forces him back towards the ground again. If you think about it, I suppose this is as difficult a task, since much of what Penrose describes he's known for forty or fifty years (he was born in 1931). He apologizes in the final chapter for the necessity of handpicking among the dozen or so "theories of everything," sometimes according to his own professional biases. Today's leading theory, "String Theory" along with the theory of "Loop Quantum Gravity," and the little known "Twister Theory," are all covered in the later chapters; the first portion of the book builds the mathematical foundations for the succeeding chapters, which give an indepth treatment of quantum physics and quantum field theory. These topics are followed by the previously described "theories of everything."
A glance at the table of contents may make or break your purchasing decision; chances are, if you find the mysteries of the terms somehow galvanizing, then you'll enjoy the book. On the other hand, if the eclectic terms frighten you, you should perhaps look at the preface (where Penrose gives solace to anxious readers), or it may be best to avoid the book altogether.
As I mentioned earlier, little has been done for the general audience to explore the wide expanse between physics and mathematics. The Road to Reality is, in this respect, a virtually pioneering effort, and given its size, scope and quality, I would venture to guess it will remain the de facto text in its area for many decades to come, and may safely be placed on your bookshelf next to E.T. Bell's Men of Mathematics, Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, or Benjamin Yandell's recent (*highly* recommended) The Honor's Class: Hilbert's Problem's and Their Solvers.
I am fortunate to have had some mathematics education and so am familiar with the basic principles of complex numbers, calculus, and geometry, making the first several chapters, while still insightful, less toilsome than it might've been. I suspect that the average bright high school graduate would have no trouble with Penrose's quick treatment of these concepts. I would recommend the reader have at least some familiarity with the basic terms of mathematics and physics (i.e. when Penrose mentions "set" you know he's referring to a particular mathematical structure) or the book could overwhelm you quickly. Additionally, readers would be at an advantage having read "English-based" modern physics books such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Michio Kaku's Hyperspace, Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe or a similar book about 20th century quantum physics. Either way, it's safe to say that despite the virtuosic readability of the text, it's still going to take an intellectual commitment on the part of the reader to reap all of the available knowledge."
You can purchase The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
There's an article about what I suppose I would describe as his own flavor of decoherence.
GEB was mentioned above, and I just had to post about it.. It's one of the best books I've ever read. If you've never read it and you're a geek, and at all interested in how the mind works, you'll absolutely love it. I've read it three times, and the last time I even almost understood the whole thing.. :)
It's an absolute classic, I can't recommend it highly enough.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
If you spell it correctly, and then do a web search, you'll see that it isn't as obscure as you might have thought. It's also beautiful stuff.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Is this the same Roger Penrose that patented a pattern (The Penrose Tile) and then sued a toilet paper company for having a similar pattern printed on their toilet paper?
:)
And then sued the chair of my painting department, Clark Richert for using the same pattern in a *painitng*
And then lost that case, learning that my chair figured that pattern out years before him - by accident? The proof being a photo of the painting - on the side of a bus. The license plate was used as the evidence for date.
I'm not quite sure if I like this guy
Dada Mail - Program, Art Project or Absurdity?
I saw him when he came to Seattle recently. It was hard to believe that he wrote such a book, especially after he gave the most disorganized presentation that I've ever seen. Nevertheless, I got an autographed copy.
☠
Too often I see people reading these "physics for the general public" books that simplify so much they're almost misleading, and then the people who read them assume they're experts and walk away drastically mislead, repeating silly things like the idea that the schrodringer's cat metaphor is meant literally or string theory literally means there's all these dimensions right next to us. Unfortunately some of the things in modern physics-- like strings or quantum mechanics-- if you don't at least sort of understand the math, you don't understand it at all. It's nice to see someone at least attempting to do a "general public physics" book that actually tells it like it is rather than trying to give silly zen koans.
I just hope this book doesn't do anything like imply that there's any evidence whatsoever for the veracity of string theory.
You are in a dark room. You see exits to the north, south and west.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
...but this is the exception to that rule. It's sitting on the corner of my desk, and it's been calling to me since I got it.
I'm actually just taking a couple of months off to finish it properly. Like TAOP this is one of those books you need to read with a notebook to hand. Reading it in the bath could prove hazardous...
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
You've had a long, tedious day at work. You have some money in the bank and decide that you need to spend some of it on yourself rather than hand it over to the Man.
but if this were me described above, I'm spending it on alcohol, or something to give me a cheap thrill.
A geek book that's going to "take an intellectual commitment on the part of the reader" isn't on my top 10 list.
And people wonder why geeks don't get laid more often.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
[
The Tao of Physics by FRITJOF CAPRA, which, I think, predates The Dancing Wu Li Masters.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
This reminded me of another book that I liked for much the same reason: Inward Bound by Abraham Pais (1986). It's basically a history of modern physics, but unlike most such books does not shy away from the mathematics (without which the physics would make little sense). In fact, I just pulled it off of my shelf and see that one of the testimonials on the back is from none other than Roger Penrose...
Joe, a frustrated writer, was writing a book review. He should have been content to convey the qualities of the book, but he couldn't contain his literary aspirations. After struggling through a massive tome on the nature of the universe he deserved to indulge his one vice. No editor would stand in his way. No simple slashdot user could thwart him!
-Peter
Does anyone have an informed opinion on its failings?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
everything sucks
or in its alternate form
everything is a load of shite
Needless to say this quite brilliant encapsulation of everything has sparked some debate as to whether the shite is real or metaphysical.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I'm gonna go pick this one up ASAP! I've been looking for something readable, yet fully useable in light of how much I gained in the desire to learn more of mathematics and physics from Brian Green's The Elegant Universe. Unfortunately, I haven't come across anything nearly as beautifully written as Brian Greene's work yet. This book review makes this book sound downright fun for the nerd in me!
Penrose's take on the universe is a pretty amazing one, but a very difficult one to grasp. The main point is: we just don't know enough about the world yet. Not enough mathematics, and our experiments are nowhere near adequate to get final answers.
Energy: time to change the picture.
...what's still used in university physics courses? Not most of the books mentioned by others. What is? Another extremely weighty tome (and those who've held it know it could be used to bludgeon Governor Arnold in one whack) called Geometrodynamics. I tossed it casually back on the shelf at Borders recently and nearly broke the shelf.
If it's a choice of someone giving me their POV based on their understanding of the math and having an encyclopaedia sized copy of the math which I can work with to get my own POV, well that's a matter of whether I'm overachieving and truly engrossed or looking for coffee table material in which case, sure, I'll look at this book.
But not one more thing by Kaku and those in that stripe. I'm tired of popular crap about "this is really how the universe works" and at the time of first printing it has already been contradicted by seven different Discover articles which themselves descend from thirty plus serious physics journals. A one page pamphlet would do that says, "We have no farking idea. We THINK it goes this way, but we don't really know. Here's a an artist's rendering and some fancy quotes. They've not been fact checked because there are no facts, only suppositions. You can get books with serious formulas at your local college bookstore."
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I saw this book at the store the other day. I couldn't find anything else that looked interesting, but still, the book seemed a little watered down. Not intense enough, no challenge, and not because it was so expertly written that anyone could understand it. The section I glanced at looked primarily theoretical with a peppering of math, not a comprehensive view both theoretically and mathematically.
A friend of mine looked over it after I put it back on the shelf. She's a gifted writer, but couldn't pass high school algebra. She also couldn't get through the first chapter of this book for her life. Seeing her difficulties frustrates me, she and millions of others want to be able to grasp the more complex theories of physics while avoiding calculus. I hope that one day a truly gifted teacher/writter will be able to write a book for this helpless audience.
The book isn't for those fed up with other "quick guides to physics," but more for people who want one that's jam packed with modern physics and will serve their general education well.
"Man, I am so unbelievably stupid."
Last summer I read a clutch of books attempting to define life. After reading Sex and the Origins of Death by W.C. Clark, I decided to restrict my readings to authors born in the 1930's. I did this because people of this generation seemed to be in a position to sum up a lifetime of scientific investigations in their respective field. Sir R. Penrose is coeval with people of this age group and I suspect his book represents a unique opportunity to review Physics as his generation came to know it. Younger authors, like Lee Smolin might better present the bleeding edge.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I think you've misspelt the title of the book. Surely you meant: The Honor's Clas's: Hilbert's Problem's and Their Solver's, a classic in the field of egregiou's misu'se of apostrophe's.
"If you look 'round the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Quiz Show
Come on. Be honest.
Scattered throughout the book are sections that speculate on Platonism, and half-dead cats, and astronauts orbiting black holes and anthropic principles.
The rest of the book is math. And some of it is hard. Maybe iI was supposed to learn about "Clifford Algebra" from juvenile stories about a Big Red Dog. And maybe, I somehow missed the high school geometry lessons about fiber bundles. Perhaps I've simply forgotten my nursery school lullabies on algebraic topology, but I've found that if you actually read the book for the content, and not for the "mindblowin' shit", it's a tough read. Not impossible, mind you. It's just less literary than Goedel Escher Bach.
What's up with such a big book? Does he have Stephen Wolfram syndrome or something?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
A deity that would deceive me is a sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker.
I saw that, you little git.
Well, I'll deceive you no more; I *am* that deity, and you're right- I'm one sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker. I've hacked this user's account ('Dogtanian' seemed appropriate because it had my name in it backwards.... ha ha, just my little joke. LAUGH you pitiful humans, or I'll smite you with that plague thing again).
Why? Just to let you know that pissing me off is a *really* bad idea; when the DEITY hates you, you're *really* in the shit. Muwahahahahah! We're talking Old Testament-style punishment here.
You wait till I find you. Hang on.... Anonymous Coward?.... ANONYMOUS COWARD??! You little #$$^#^!!!!!!!! When I find out who you are, I'm gonna wring your damn neck...
What do you *mean* "If you're really ominpotent, you should be able to find me easily?"
Think you're clever, huh? Anonymous Coward.... uh... hmm.
I'll figure out who you are. Eventually.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
...the paperback version comes out in the UK this summer and this autumn (er, fall...) in the US.
I had second thoughts when I saw the hardback price; but I'll probably go for the paperback version.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
'You' is second-person. And other than Zork or CYOA, there isn't much popular literature written in the second person.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
I bought his book "The Emperor's New Mind" in 1990 because it was rumored to be an argument for why conventional computers could not 'do real AI' - I wanted to read something that cut across the grain of my own beliefs.
:-) but search for "Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics" for interesting reading material.
The ironic thing is that now I very much agree with what he wrote in "The Emperor's New Mind": I have attended enough "Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics" type conferences to finally start to believe in the connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics.
I definitely used to believe in the idea of 'strong AI' on convential computers, but not now.
I don't have time right now to dig up links (it has been a really long work day, and now my wife and I are going to party
-Mark
not to read, but to bend a few pages and put it on my shelf to give me a level of 'apparent knowledge' others could not comprehend.
If my boss asks too many question, I'll use my white board to copy some of the formulas.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Having taken a Phil of Mind course with Dennett, I can't say that he was unfair to Penrose. And Dennett isn't alone - try Colin McGinn, for example. The problem is that Penrose is a True Believer in free will: without free, unpredetermined human choices he believes that there is no autonomous self, so no consciousness, no responsibility. So he needs a source of indeterminacy to defeat the inexorable forces of determinism. The trouble is, quantum effects can't give you that kind of inteterminacy at the neuorological and mental level - if they did, all of the other emergent laws of matter and chemistry and biology would fall apart. Ordinary everyday physics relies on quantum effects being smoothed out statistically. You can't have it both ways - smoothed out at the atomic level and re-emerging at the neurological level (or even higher - shudder).
Maths is the art of finding what must be true within a system often expressed in liguistic form, but whereas a language is a local (though often approximately copied) utilitarian structure that binds meaning together; mathematics is a one-to-one mapping of a structure that is found to be the same by all practicing mathematicians (which is pretty close to objectivity if you ask me) onto an agreed linguistic form. When mathematicians use different symbols and reasoning, they still find the same things to be true as they find when they use the original set. That is: the linguistic element is arbitary to a high degree; it is not the important thing; rather: the underlying structure that exists before it is expressed symbolically is what is important.
If you believe maths to be, rather than having a language, you will not be a very competent mathematician, for you will be inclined to engage in symbolic manipulation as an arbitary and bizzare exercise without intuiting the underlying nature of mathematical truth.
When I say that maths can be viewed as being less than a language, I mean that the above-mentioned structure is highly restrictive. The potential of using mathematics for conveying "human meaning" (to do with day-to-day judgement and decision-making) is extremely poor. Insofar as mathematics is used to help in everyday matters, it does so by analysing a system that is intuited to have the right properties. Normal language and reasoning is then used to build an analogy with the phenomenon under consideration, but common language and understanding build the bridge, not mathematics.
Wikileaks, no DNS
am I the only English major in the house
On Slashdot? Probably.
Somewhere, perhaps in a paper from the Santa Fe Institute, I read an exchange between a physicist and an economist. The economist derided the physicist saying that a career in physics did not last much beyond the physicist's 30th year. The economist went on to ask the physicist what he'll do after his 30th birthday. The physicist replied he'd likely become an economist
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I thought geek meant fool....
"I call a baby goat a 'goatse.'" -- my non-Internet-savvy 6-year-old stepdaughter
I always find it fascinating how much is known about 'god', when there is so little proof that he exists (maybe like Santa Claus?). How do you know that a being with the order of intellegence of human^2/ant wouldn't be able to do things that you think only a being 'outside' of physics can do? What we are able to do certainly is not in any way something that an ant can conceptualize.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
The "quantum mind" idea was definitely the theme in his books of a decade or so ago, but this one is really more an argument for re-thinking the direction the majority of physicists seem to be going in trying to come up with a "theory of everything".
The "quantum mind" idea had, at its base, the concept of some new kind of physics that links quantum mechanics and general relativity together, in a way very different from the supersymmetry/string theory take of recent years: Penrose thinks gravity is more fundamental, and quantum mechanics really just an approximation. And he has some strong arguments in this book on why there is something fundamentally wrong with quantum mechanics - particularly the time-symmetry fundamental to the theory. Except for those messy reduction processes embodied in the Schrodinger cat, which few physicists other than Penrose treat as any sort of serious problem.
The other aspect of it is more a philosophical thing (though related to the Godel argument) that somehow our minds have a relationship with the platonic world of logic and mathematics that cannot be explained by ordinary physical processes. But this is book is a very serious one, and he doesn't get into that stuff at all.
Energy: time to change the picture.
Like most physicists, he suffers from the illusion that he knows everything about everything. His theories of intelligence and conciousness are so bad they are not even wrong.
As far as I can tell, his argument was "quantum physics is complicated. The brain is complicated. Therefore it can only be explained as quantum physics".
It really is that bad. Nature called it "a masterpiece of psuedoscience".
AI as a field has its own problems, but these guys aren't helping.
Some things do remain. I may never be able to look up at a clear dark sky again without thinking "Ah, look, the Riemann Sphere", for one.
Incidentally, anyone with 45 minutes of spare time and a something capable of playing Real-media files can hear Penrose's own views on some fundamental cosmological questions on the BBC or more specifically here . Martin Rees and Carolin Crawford (a Cambridge-contemporary of mine) are also participants.
So I'll be putting the damn thing aside until I've gotten through some hyperbolic geometry courses and algebra. The writing is clear and enjoyable, the contents get my noodle in a knot.
There are at least two.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Quantum effects of the sort proposed by Hameroff and Penrose are based the folding configuration of tubulin dimers, protein components within the microtubule. Simulations of microtubule excitations suggest topological error correction of global states which may be resistant to local decoherence, independent of any nuclear spin 'tickling' induced by an externally-applied electromagnetic field.
Note also that MRI induced quantum coherence of a different sort has been experimentally observed in the brain.
Nevertheless, you are correct in positing that the burden of experimental proof remains upon those who would advocate any revision of prevailing theory.