Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3410 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-02
• Released on: 2006-02-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 1140 pages

Synopsis
The Road to Reality is the most important and ambitious work of science for a generation. It provides nothing less than a comprehensive account of the physical universe and the essentials of its underlying mathematical theory. It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, so that, for example, the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background to the physical theories explored later in the book. Roger Penrose's purpose is to describe as clearly as possible our present understanding of the universe and to convey a feeling for its deep beauty and philosophical implications, as well as its intricate logical interconnections. The Road to Reality is rarely less than challenging, but the book is leavened by vivid descriptive passages, as well as hundreds of hand-drawn diagrams. In a single work of colossal scope one of the world's greatest scientists has given us a complete and unrivalled guide to the glories of the universe that we all inhabit.

From the Publisher
'A truly remarkable book-this is just the sort of book that could inspire mathematical awakenings' Sunday Times

About the Author
Roger Penrose:
Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their joint contribution to our understanding of the universe.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Book, though not for the true layman
This book is a real tour-de-force. My A-Level Maths of 18 Months ago was definetley a sufficient starting block for understanding almost everything in the book to an o.k. sort of standard, i plan to read it through at least twice more to make sure i really understand everything to the level that i want to. (I'm doing a MSc in Mathematics now, but plan to Do a 2nd MSc in Theoretical Physics later on, as that is where my true interests and ambitions lie) The explanations of the physics are possibly even better than those of the mathematics, although it is virtually impossible to really understand quantum mechanics without many years of proper study, this book really gives a nice intro to the wierd and wonderful world of the quantum.

Not a book for the "popular science" market
I'm an extremely keen reader and viewer of what is now commonly called Popular Science. I have a great amateur interest and knowledge of cosmology, quantum physics and related physics. I am also a (qualified) and pretty darn good computer programmer in languages from BASIC to 68000 assembly language and have contributed to professional games releases and written 3D engines, amongst other things.

I haven't said this to show-off how smart I am by any means, merely to illustrate just what an Everest this book is to the casual reader, including myself.

If one were to pick this book up from the shelf and note the blurb on the back which says "It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader" and that "the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background", you might assume that it was accessible to pretty much everyone who had the capacity to read, learn and could add up.
Not so. This blurb is seriously misleading, requiring at least- in my view- an understanding of mathematics to college level, if not university level.

It is true that the early parts of the book are largely devoted to explaining the maths involved to getting deeper into the physics of the rest of the book, but from very simple beginnings they rapidly fall into a whole host of symbols and equations most people won't understand. Including myself.

We start off with mathematical proofs, which are nicely explained, interesting and fairly straight forward for the novice to get to grips with, but are then remarkably quickly plunged into the topic of hyperbolic geometry and the terrible, mystical symbols crop up without any explanation of what they mean.

It's been said that once can fill in one's gaps of knowledge on the maths involved here by Googling the terms and studying the results, and that the book then opens up quite well to the reader- I've even seen it suggested that one can do it a page-a-day. That may be true, but I find Googling symbols rather difficult and I also think that studying a page-a-day of a 1000+ page book might require a lot more commitment than the interested amateur would be prepared to give.

From what I can ascertain, this book is- in its scope and ambition- a bit of a stunner and pretty much a definitive guide to most of the current thinking in the world of physics. For that reason, I'd dearly love to be able to read it.

However, the assertions of "no specialist knowledge" is extremely misleading. I can't help feel that, if the author had spent a dozen or so more chapters at the beginning explaining the maths and symbols behind the maths and symbols in the next dozen or so chapters, the reader would not only be much more involved but much more educated and willing to tackle the rest of the book.

As it is, I've put the book aside rather quickly until I can educate myself in the mathematics involved to even begin to get beyond the first few chapters.

A bit of a missed opportunity, in my view and this is solely why I have given it such a low star-rating- I have no doubt the book is excellent on its topic; probably worthy of a five-star; but to mislead the buyer by its blurb is rather unforgiveable. Probably the fault of the publisher rather than the author, admittedly, but the author could have offered more by way of a foundation class in the maths needed.

For the mathematically literate only
Sorry but you *have* to understand your maths before you can get to grips with this. As for me, I've got an MMath with Quantum Mechanics and Electromagnetic Theory under my belt, but I was *still* having trouble with it.

If anyone can explain the mathematics behind the state of play of theoretical physics, then surely Penrose can. His style is not quite as impenetrable as it was for some of his earlier works, but it's not as easy as you'd like it to be. Having said that, I wouldn't be able to do any better so fair play to him.

I struggled through to the end (and I admire anyone who managed six chapters and commiserate with those who couldn't get that far) but I still feel short-changed by my own mathematical limitations as I had to take so much of it on trust (and sorry, but life was too short to do the exercises, I've got too many other projects on the boil).

I have a dream of being able to boil this thwacking great tome down into an account that "the layman" *will* be able to appreciate, but by the time I'd have managed to do that, it would be out of date. Apparently things move faster than you'd think out on the edges of thought.

If you can't quite handle the mathematics in this, but want to, then it's worth considering whether to take a degree in the subject. If this book encourages anyone out there to embark on such a course of study, then it's more than paid for itself.