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A review by zeteticzymurgy
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time by Sean Carroll
4.0
This book was good, but very dense. I don't think I would have appreciated it without having a pretty hefty background of popular physics book. That said, it was nice to read a book that took a deep dive into topics that usually get glossed over in popular science books. In particular, I learned a lot about both inflation theory and the holographic principle, which were really interesting. I especially appreciated the discussion of the holographic principle, because it seems (after reading the discussion here) that every popular-level discussion of it I've ever consumed is mis- and/or overstating it.
I docked a star because the book ended with a whimper rather than a bang, but I'll admit that's not entirely fair. The book was more of a "call to arms" regarding the problem of the arrow of time, and thus wasn't aiming to provide an answer, but rather explicitly posing the problem in full. Also, I'm sure this will let the book age better than other science books that finish by getting lost in aimless speculation or wetting themselves over the flavor-of-the-month experimental result at the time of publishing. (Carroll basically admits consciously avoiding this in the postscript.) Nevertheless, I can't deny the book somewhat fizzled out at the end, and that detracted a bit from the reading experience.
I'd recommend this to people who've already consumed a healthy amount of popular physics books (Hawking, Brian Greene, etc), but probably not for folks without that background.
I docked a star because the book ended with a whimper rather than a bang, but I'll admit that's not entirely fair. The book was more of a "call to arms" regarding the problem of the arrow of time, and thus wasn't aiming to provide an answer, but rather explicitly posing the problem in full. Also, I'm sure this will let the book age better than other science books that finish by getting lost in aimless speculation or wetting themselves over the flavor-of-the-month experimental result at the time of publishing. (Carroll basically admits consciously avoiding this in the postscript.) Nevertheless, I can't deny the book somewhat fizzled out at the end, and that detracted a bit from the reading experience.
I'd recommend this to people who've already consumed a healthy amount of popular physics books (Hawking, Brian Greene, etc), but probably not for folks without that background.