The Fabric of the Cosmos

Brian Greene 

 

While books on wars and politics fly off the shelves in this country, I am happy that at least one book about physics makes it to the bestseller list. Greene carefully takes us through the groundwork of early twentieth century physics and into quantum theory. Then he discusses string theory, the most popular of the competing theories to explain the underlying forces of the universe.

Greene writes clearly and succinctly. About half of the book simply explains basic theoretical principles, especially relativity and quantum theory. Then, Green launches into the speculative, explaining how string theory first arose and where current reseach is going. It is rare to find a book in science that covers so much material in such a small space. Theoretical physics is nearing astounding breakthoughs, if Greene is to be believed, and the general public should know about the progress being made. It is not clear that the outcome in Iraq will have a more profound influence on our future than cutting edge physics. And yet very few understand what is going on.

Though very good, this book has a few weaknesses. In the early chapters of the book Greene does a good job of explaining not only how quantum physics and general relativity work, but also describes their experimental basis and gives the reader a passing understanding of how the concepts were derived. But when he enters string theory, he abandons this tack. Instead of describing proofs backing these theories, he simply states them. Perhaps this is necessary, but when he says that calculations show that there are 10 dimensions in string theory but makes no effort to explain how this might have come about, it gives the topic less weight. I want to know why 10, not 6, or 23, and he does not tell us this. Clearly advanced mathematics is a difficult area to explain to a lay audience, but I wish he had given it a try.

Though I was happy to read his late chapters on topics like time travel and teleportation, and while I found his discussion of the theory that the entire universe is a hologram projected from a surrounding surface interesting, all this material felt highly speculative. I wondered how much Greene's speculation about a univeral hologram was rooted in science and how much could have come from a Phillip K. Dick science fiction novel. Since he abandoned the underlying scientific explanations around Chapter 8, it is difficult to tell.

Overall, a good book, sometimes demanding, but very informative. Unfortunately, in the late chapters it was difficult to tell how much of the physics was solid science and how much is speculative.