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A review by gregbrown
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
4.0
Well-written, fascinating look at the development of special and general relativity—and the omissions that are driving theoretical research ever since. HOWEVER, and this is a huge caveat, most of the book may be chronicling a misfire. (Lee Smolin's book THE TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS makes a good case for String Theory's failures; I'm about to re-read it to refresh my memory, so I can't go into too much detail yet.)
Greene's storytelling is certainly seductive, but a lot of String Theory's appeal is getting the same results as other theories, but in a more elegant fashion. This is a good thing because it means the theory avoids being outright wrong, but makes it difficult to find results that'll uniquely support strings, and not just the mass of other popular theories.
More troublingly, the experimental evidence that might support strings or these other theories simply isn't showing up. The Large Hadron Collider found the Higgs Boson, but has yet to uncover ANY signs of supersymmetry—the linchpin of string theory and other popular proposals. Oops. Of course, there are always other variants that hold out the hope that supersymmetric partners are just higher mass and harder to reach, but constant tweaking and adjustment kinda undermines the original claims to elegance!
When the book is standing on firmer ground, it's marvelous; Greene is a fantastic writer and explainer. But as an argument for String Theory? Reader beware.
Greene's storytelling is certainly seductive, but a lot of String Theory's appeal is getting the same results as other theories, but in a more elegant fashion. This is a good thing because it means the theory avoids being outright wrong, but makes it difficult to find results that'll uniquely support strings, and not just the mass of other popular theories.
More troublingly, the experimental evidence that might support strings or these other theories simply isn't showing up. The Large Hadron Collider found the Higgs Boson, but has yet to uncover ANY signs of supersymmetry—the linchpin of string theory and other popular proposals. Oops. Of course, there are always other variants that hold out the hope that supersymmetric partners are just higher mass and harder to reach, but constant tweaking and adjustment kinda undermines the original claims to elegance!
When the book is standing on firmer ground, it's marvelous; Greene is a fantastic writer and explainer. But as an argument for String Theory? Reader beware.