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briandice's review against another edition
4.0
Extremely well written for those of us without a physics background. Progression of the narrative kept my interest while educating on the superstring theory evolution.
imjustadow's review
4.0
well, my brain definitely hurts. but i feel like i have a much better *gist* of what a lot of this stuff means or could mean. worth a read if you're comfortable feeling stupid, but greene does excellent work in pulling you up out of that feeling and giving you a framework in which you can start to grasp at the concepts
zachcarter's review
4.0
After revisiting this ~10 years after I first discovered it, I think my appreciation for and skepticism of it both increased in pace with one another. I think the most compelling and intriguing (to me) unification born of string theory is the black hole/elementary particle connection: as a Calabi-Yau space undergoes a space-tearing conifold transition, a black hole becomes increasingly massless until you get transmutation (a Calabi-Yau phase transition) to a massless photon, which - per string theory - is just a single string vibrating in a fixed pattern! That to me is worthy of the title: Elegant.
As this was written after the relaunching of the second wave of excitement around string theory, you can tell Brian is really trying to sell it. At times, I found it a little annoying, focusing too much on what X or Y physicist has to say about the potential of the theory. Focusing more on the facts, the limitations, the successes, and the failures would have made it a bit more succinct and less of a “promotional” feeling.
But for what we knew in 1999, and looking at how much more we know now, I think this book held a lot of promise and hope for the future of theoretical physics, and works really well as a primer to some more recent scholarly work.
As this was written after the relaunching of the second wave of excitement around string theory, you can tell Brian is really trying to sell it. At times, I found it a little annoying, focusing too much on what X or Y physicist has to say about the potential of the theory. Focusing more on the facts, the limitations, the successes, and the failures would have made it a bit more succinct and less of a “promotional” feeling.
But for what we knew in 1999, and looking at how much more we know now, I think this book held a lot of promise and hope for the future of theoretical physics, and works really well as a primer to some more recent scholarly work.
dajenny's review against another edition
3.0
Approachable and readable? Yes. Understandable? Um. Not sure, but that's probably just because quantum mechanics and theoretical physics are rather mind-blowing and difficult to comprehend. I'll be honest and say I don't know how much I really got from this book, but that's likely my own fault and not the author's.
biblio_amy's review
4.0
So, I found this book to be well written and maybe not the best introduction for someone like me who has little to no knowledge that falls in the physics category. That's not to say that I didn't learn anything from this book. I took notes the whole way through and also had a co-worker who is more knowledgeable in this subject help me understand a few things. I am still interested in diving into this area more and have started searching for more books especially basic introductions to physics.
ninj's review
4.0
Easy going at first, ramps up a lot in complexity in the second half.
17 years old now - highlighted when it talks about the large hadron collider coming online in the next decade...
17 years old now - highlighted when it talks about the large hadron collider coming online in the next decade...
undviklundvik's review
4.0
Handra halvan är smått oförståelig, men coolt ändå så blir en 4a. Om den hade varit mindre bloated hade det varit en 5a men innehåller lite för mycket gagg
zkendall's review against another edition
4.0
Crazy and fascinating stuff. About as accessible as it can be. I also watched the corresponding PBS 3 part series (I remember watching one of them in HS years ago!), and that was even more accessible if you need it--I find TV too slow.