A review by chrissych
The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos by Neil Turok

4.0

This was a fairly quick read, enjoyable as a refresher on modern physics and inspiring as a call to arms for more-- better!-- scientific discovery. I do feel as though the tone failed at times to toe the line between being layman-accessible and being fully explanatory. I was occasionally bored by what seemed to me to be over-explanations of simple classical physics, but otherwise occasionally overwhelmed by the complexity of string theory; being a scientist myself, I have a hard time watching details get glossed over. That said, it's hard to know the extent to which this issue was a result of some flaw in Turok's writing or editing, rather than simply the seriously challenging nature of the material. Simplification of string theory or M theory, for example, is no small feat. Moreover, I may not be the target audience for a book like this... I'm no physicist, but I know a little about a lot of scientific fields. I almost feel I should be reading less and less accessible books on these topics to satisfy my curiosity.

One further caveat on my enjoyment of this book: despite the title and the image of a human brain on the cover, there is nothing in here relating to neuroscience at all. That will teach me to judge a book by its cover...