Skip to main content

The Hidden Reality – Brian Greene *****

I hugely enjoyed Brian Greene’s previous books, The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, so when I saw this title had been released I was looking forward to reading it. In The Hidden Reality, Greene explores the various possibilities of there being parallel universes beyond our own. He takes us through, in all, nine conceptions of the multiverse that seem to emerge naturally from the mathematics behind some of our most successful physical theories. The book turns out to be an absolute delight.
We start with the fascinating idea that, if the universe is infinite in extent, this implies the existence of an infinite number of places in the universe where physical conditions are identical to those we find around us, and therefore an unending number of worlds in which ‘you’ and ‘I’ are going about their lives in exactly the same way as we are doing, here. Later in the book, we look at, among other things, the ‘braneworlds’ scenario that comes out of string theory, and the idea that we live in one universe among many in a computer simulated multiverse.
For each variation on the multiverse theme, Greene first brings us up to speed on the physics we need in order to make sense of the ideas to be looked at, bringing in discussions of quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory and thermodynamics where necessary. This background information is incredibly useful in its own right – Greene’s explanation of the difficulties of merging quantum mechanics and general relativity, for instance, is better than I have seen anywhere else. Whilst good across the board, the best chapter is the one on the ‘Many Worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics – the summary here would be ideal to read before going on to look at a more full exploration of the subject.
Greene clearly appreciates the difficulties the layperson is likely to have in coming to grips with the tricky concepts being introduced, and he knows how to take the absolute beginner along with him, and to bring them to a good level of understanding. His analogies always get across the main ideas well, and when things get tough, the reader is warned.
Many of the ideas here do seem highly speculative, and some will argue that, because they appear not to be falsifiable, this is not good science. Greene anticipates this reaction, however, and devotes a chapter to it. He outlines the experiments and observations that could, in fact, give us an indication as to whether any of these ideas are on the right track. He sensibly emphasises that we shouldn’t consider sound any theory that cannot be verified by observation or experiment, and, ultimately, he is convincing that the ideas discussed in the book are at least worth considering for the time being.
If you have read Greene’s previous books, there will be occasions where you may want to skip a section or two, where the discussions overlap a little with those covered in the previous books. But whatever background you to come to this book with, you’re likely to be very impressed with the presentation of the science and hugely intrigued by the ideas themselves. I have no hesitation in giving this book five stars, and can easily see it being among the best popular science books of 2011. Highly recommended.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Matt Chorley
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Laws of Thought - Tom Griffiths *****

In giving us a history of attempts to explain our thinking abilities, Tom Griffiths demonstrates an excellent ability to pitch information just right for the informed general reader.  We begin with Aristotelian logic and the way Boole and others transformed it into a kind of arithmetic before a first introduction of computing and theories of language. Griffiths covers a surprising amount of ground - we don't just get, for instance, the obvious figures of Turing, von Neumann and Shannon, but the interaction between the computing pioneers and those concerned with trying to understand the way we think - for example in the work of Jerome Bruner, of whom I confess I'd never heard.  This would prove to be the case with a whole host of people who have made interesting contributions to the understanding of human thought processes. Sometimes their theories were contradictory - this isn't an easy field to successfully observe - but always they were interesting. But for me, at least, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI Paradox - Virginia Dignum ****

This is a really important book in the way that Virginia Dignum highlights various ways we can misunderstand AI and its abilities using a series of paradoxes. However, I need to say up front that I'm giving it four stars for the ideas: unfortunately the writing is not great. It reads more like a government report than anything vaguely readable - it really should have co-authored with a professional writer to make it accessible. Even so, I'm recommending it: like some government reports it's significant enough to make it necessary to wade through the bureaucrat speak. Why paradoxes? Dignum identifies two ways we can think about paradoxes (oddly I wrote about paradoxes recently , but with three definitions): a logical paradox such as 'this statement is false', or a paradoxical truth such as 'less is more' - the second of which seems a better to fit to the use here.  We are then presented with eight paradoxes, each of which gives some insights into aspects of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Einstein's Fridge - Paul Sen ****

In Einstein's Fridge (interesting factoid: this is at least the third popular science book to be named after Einstein's not particularly exciting refrigerator), Paul Sen has taken on a scary challenge. As Jim Al-Khalili made clear in his excellent The World According to Physics , our physical understanding of reality rests on three pillars: relativity, quantum theory and thermodynamics. But there is no doubt that the third of these, the topic of Sen's book, is a hard sell. While it's true that these are the three pillars of physics, from the point of view of making interesting popular science, the first two might be considered pillars of gold and platinum, while the third is a pillar of salt. Relativity and quantum theory are very much of the twentieth century. They are exciting and sometimes downright weird and wonderful. Thermodynamics, by contrast, has a very Victorian feel and, well, is uninspiring. Luckily, though, thermodynamics is important enough, lying behind ...
Post a Comment
Read more