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A review by ashrafulla
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
5.0
This is a very well-written and deep book explaining string theory to people. I had to read it at a slower pace because the only filler is the historical anecdotes around the science. As a result, the book took longer than expected.
By reading slower, you are forced to reread a few pages before every time you pick the book back up. This is very important; if you don't, then you will get lost in the first 15 minutes of every reading segment. It takes that long to remember the science behind the story. I had to learn that the hard way at the beginning, mainly because the concept of a "string" didn't make sense to me. I did find myself sometimes eschewing the analogies and thinking of everything as functions (a string is a function on C1, etc.). I assume that's how the actual papers are being written, too.
One of the surprising feelings I got with every chapter was this dual sense of "this is really smart!" and "this is really simple!" That's mainly because we are a) taking certain steps on faith and b) reading a very well written argument. Part of me will always want to delve deeper and be skeptical about the math behind the arguments. However, you have to silence that skeptic, especially during the thought experiments, because otherwise you will get lost in the weeds. This book is meant to be at a overview level.
There is nothing to assail here regarding the arguments. Even if I thought there was I'd go nowhere because I'm not an expert. Taking the experience forward, I really just enjoyed the art of learning about the sky-level view of string theory. I won't sound smarter to physics grads and I won't do anything more than stumble when talking about string theory to non-physics grads. I just took the journey for what it was. That's what makes this book appealing, as much a novel as it is a work of education.
By reading slower, you are forced to reread a few pages before every time you pick the book back up. This is very important; if you don't, then you will get lost in the first 15 minutes of every reading segment. It takes that long to remember the science behind the story. I had to learn that the hard way at the beginning, mainly because the concept of a "string" didn't make sense to me. I did find myself sometimes eschewing the analogies and thinking of everything as functions (a string is a function on C1, etc.). I assume that's how the actual papers are being written, too.
One of the surprising feelings I got with every chapter was this dual sense of "this is really smart!" and "this is really simple!" That's mainly because we are a) taking certain steps on faith and b) reading a very well written argument. Part of me will always want to delve deeper and be skeptical about the math behind the arguments. However, you have to silence that skeptic, especially during the thought experiments, because otherwise you will get lost in the weeds. This book is meant to be at a overview level.
There is nothing to assail here regarding the arguments. Even if I thought there was I'd go nowhere because I'm not an expert. Taking the experience forward, I really just enjoyed the art of learning about the sky-level view of string theory. I won't sound smarter to physics grads and I won't do anything more than stumble when talking about string theory to non-physics grads. I just took the journey for what it was. That's what makes this book appealing, as much a novel as it is a work of education.