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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?
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!
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
[
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
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.
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
If you can't grok calculus, you are never (repeat: never) going to get 'the more advanced theories of physics'.
... yuk. And doing it was only half the battle - you had to know *when* to do it...
The ideas behind calculus aren't that hard to understand, but teaching them is a skill - most teachers I've seen tend to just explain the ideas then hope sufficient example problems will do their job for them. It's a lot easier if you learn to derive the basics (d/dx, integral around a path, partial differentials etc.) from first principles - it's not that you'll use the first-principles approach ever, but the understanding is worth the learning pain.
To give another datapoint on Physics' needs: I recall my first college term as a physics undergrad - we had a "basic primer" in maths (a 4 week course) which was essentially the 'A' level Further-Mathematics syllabus. Those unfortunates who hadn't done further-maths (about 50% of people) were a bit shell-shocked by the end of the primer course. Once that was out of the way, we got into the meaty stuff that you need for a Physics BSc. Most of us had to work damned hard to grok that - integrating partial differential tensors, residues, integral transforms
I guess the point I'm labouring to say is that some stuff is just complicated - irreduceably so. If you remove the complexity, you remove the understanding and therefore the whole point.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
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.