Great book - don't be put off
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I'm working my way through this at the moment and I fully agree with other reviewers that it is a life changing book on a par with Blind Watchmaker.
I was a little daunted by the subject material to begin with, but soon lost my inhibitions - it's not half as bad as I expected and I'm actually finding myself second-guessing some of the directions and explanations that author is taking in explaining the wierdness of the relativistic and quantum worlds. Either I'm not as deeply stupid as I thought or Greene's treatment is perfect for the non-expert reader.
It's still a challenging book, and I'll need a re-read at sometime in the near future to fix the concepts in my head, but I'm looking forward to the prospect.
A few minor gripes:
- The illustrations don't seem to have transferred well to the paperback version - they're on the small side and difficult to interpret and return to. Perhaps larger, colour illustrations, gathered in a central section would have been better.
- Some of Greene's analogies grate a little. He makes a lot of use of analogies, which I guess is inevitable and necessary given the esoteric nature of the subject matter. However, one is occasionally left wondering whether these analogies tell the whole story or if there's something important that's been left out for the benefit of the reader's sanity. The early ones on relativity are played out by The Simpsons (obviously Greene is a fan!) which comes across as a little patronising and later ones relate to baseball, which doesn't translate well for the British reader.
- Although the conclusions are mind-boggling (quantum entanglement, string theory) a degree of shell shock is setting in - can the universe get any wierder? I'm only 3/4 of the way through! and it is difficult to lift oneself to the heights of admiration and wonder that Green obviously reaches - Ho hum! More strangeness!
Nevertheless, this is well worth a read and don't be put off by the subject material. You'll never look at the world in the same way again.
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Wow. Seriously amazing reading.
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It's taken me several attempts to fully absorb and gets heavy going at times (perhaps because it is my first cosmological read) but we live in a very strange and amazing universe.
I want to come back in fifty years to see if the current theorys are anywhere near correct. It has me hooked on the subject.
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Excellent, but limited
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It was an excellent book, accesible to readers of all ages and interests. Everything was well explained, such that it leaves the reader feeling proud to have understood such advanced areas of physics! However, the constant references to the simpsons gave a feeling of being talked down to, as if the reader would be too stupid to understand a physical concept if it werent explained by use of cartoons! Said referrences became more and more frequent to the point that one wondered whether the book was about the simpsons or about spacetime. I'll leave it to you to judge though, as i definitely think it a book worth reading.
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Physics at it's most accessible
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Let's make no mistake, for the layman some physics concepts can be mind blowing. Briane Greene understands this at the most fundamental level and has successfully produced a book that puts you in the driving seat of discovery. The book makes you quite literally "think again" about what we are and how we fit into the cosmological scheme of things. This is truly a life changing book that through analogy, reduces the etherial world of particle and cosmological physicists into everyday language that will change your worldview forever. This book is exceptionally written and is testimony that the author feels the need to convey the excitement he feels in new discoveries, as well as explain established concepts to a much wider audience. It comes very highly recommended.
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Well-written and deep but...
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Like most people, I imagine, I'm in no position to challenge or question Brian Greene's views on any of the diverse topics he goes into in impressive detail in this erudite romp through the world of subatomic physics and cosmology. The author is far smarter than I am and that's not self-deprecating modesty but plain fact. I got through the book understanding, on a good day, just about what he was getting at. Black holes, gluons, branes, what-have-you; in fact a whole menagerie of exotic players take the stage in due turn and get the full treatment and are explained, as far as it is possible to explain such complex stuff, in loving detail. I found I learned a lot along the way.
What I can point out in this short review is how well this lengthy book compares, for me, to a couple of others I've read in the same field in terms of how much it engaged and held my interest.
Simon Singh in his `Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About It' is less comprehensive yet I couldn't put Simon Singh's book down and somehow `The Fabric of the Cosmos' I found I could... It's difficult to put my finger on why but one reason for this lies possibly in the crystalline and lively prose of the former and, if you'll forgive a practically meaningless made-up expression, the book's `fun-value'. (But that's not to say that Brian Greene's book is in any way dry for he tries hard to keep the humour coming.)
John Gribbin too in many of his excellent writings is, for me, Simon Singh's equal as a fascinating writer on cosmology and science and Bill Bryson, while not going into the depths as the others I've mentioned here has produced a real page-turner in his broader and genial `A Short History of Nearly Everything'.
Of course, I recognize the above comparisons favouring the other three authors above may be all my fault because Brian Greene is writing at a level difficult for me personally to follow and brighter folks might feel differently but one can only speak as one finds so I have.
While `The Fabric of the Cosmos' makes every effort to analogize everything because the esoteric subject matter demands homely comparisons for non-technical readers I did sometimes feel `analogized to death' by the sheer weight and number of analogies and some were not as easy to follow as the author obviously intended them to be. Also, the author is an American so, understandably and naturally, he uses his home territory for his imagery. Such imagery isn't difficult to understand simply because it's American but it's just less familiar for a reader more used to British popular life, culture and mores. Finally, I found the lead-ins and introductory sections to chapters more enlightening than the full exposition that followed in the same chapters, on the whole.
Re-reading the above I've realized I'm giving the wrong impression and I do not want to do the book or its author a disservice. It is an incredibly well-researched and deep book, worth reading and very good in parts but I have to say I think I've read better.
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