The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

A good book which covers the below topics

1) Requirement of single physical law which brings together all the four fundamental forces: Electromagnetic, Strong nuclear, weak nuclear and gravity.
2) Disparity between theory of relatively (the world of the big) with quantum mechanics (world of the very small)
2) The need of a higher theory to explain the standard model (Explanation for the disparate mass and charges of the subatomic particles)
3) The concept of 11 dimensional space; Mass and charge of the numerous particles found in atom smashers being a result of frequency of vibrations of strings (closed or open) in different dimensions. Meaning a string vibrating with a certain frequency along one of the hidden 7 pinched up spatial dimensions (also termed calabi Yau spaces) will represent a subatomic particle
4) Membrane theory (2 branes, 3 branes etc)
5) M theory unifying the 5 known strings theories (by the addition of another spatial dimension)
6) Thus everything in this universe including the keyboard you are right now typing on is made up of tiny vibrating strings and below this level there is nothing. A string would be the last divisible entity beyond which it is not possible to divide anymore.

Basically everthing stripped down to strings. This is a book for the reader who doesn't know anything about string theory but wants to learn something. As a general reader, you are not in a position to take a stand for or against string theory, because the person picking up this book will be layman and hence rightly there are no equations, so you have to accept things at face value. If you were more deeply interested you would be a physicist doing his PHD and hence will read more dense and technical books as college courses.

But as a layman, you will also appreciate the paucity of physical evidence to support string theory. Particle physicists consider it the right theory because of its mathematical elegance in it's equations. As a layman, you and I are not able to see this elgance as we dont read equations. So I cant form a real opinion about this but I can say that this book will provide the uninitiated a quick cursory primer on string theory with the help of analogies. But this book wont make you believe or disbelieve string theory but you will become more aquainted with what this hype is all about.



regards, Vikram

This is simply a great book. My only concern is that as scientific discoveries continue, it will need revision. Hopefully, Brian will do just that. Especially upon completion of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. The DVD set of the same title is just as awesome as the book, however, I'd recommend you read the book AND see the series. It may help to work through some of the ideas as you read rather than have them all thrown at you in an hour and a half!

Mr. Greene has found a way to share the important new concepts of Superstring and M theory with those of us without the necessary mathematical expertise to understand the language of his colleagues. It's a very readable, very thought provoking book that I highly recommend.

Greene gave a very popular introduction of the mysterious quantum world. His H-Bar is an ingenious pun. However, his explanation of Feynman's path integral was wrong. Maybe he inherited from Hawking. The paths in Feynman's approach are purely quantum states, not classical continuous paths at all, as Greene depicted in his book. Nor did Feynman claim that his method implied such a bizarre picture.

However, a single electron does pass through two slits at the same time in the double-slit experiment. But how does it pass through two slits at the same time? Nobody knew. In fact, it seems very evident that the single electron can only pass through the two slits at the same time in a discontinuous way. Therefore, its motion may be not continuous but discontinuous. To our surprise, such discontinuous motion is imaginable and comprehensible. This intriguing idea has actually been lucidly expounded in a recent book Quantum Motion - [...]

Once we realize that motion is discontinuous and random in reality, we may finally understand the mysterious quantum world, where an electron can pass through two slits at the same time.

I read the posted reviews and I must say not to be discouraged if you had trouble reading it. If you have seen the DVD for The Elegant Universe, you will see some physics professors from MIT or other famous universities admitting that they don't have a good handle of quantum mechanics. I have a PhD in electrical engineering and took quantum mechanics. It was the hardest course I have ever taken, but it's the course I still ponder the most. Learning is a life long process. Keep plugging and the reward is simply fun. If you find reading this book difficult, you may consider watching the DVD first and then read the book or back and forth. I watched the DVD at least five times and each time, I learned something new. I still have not finished reading the book even once. We need scientists like Brian Greene that can communicate science to the public. I wish some day I could buy a copy of this book and DVD for all public libraries in the US.