Product Description

'A magnificent challenge to conventional ideas' Financial Times 'I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It manages to be both challenging and entertaining: it is highly recommended' the Independent '(Greene) send(s) the reader's imagination hurtling through the universe on an astonishing ride. As a popularizer of exquisitely abstract science, he is both a skilled and kindly explicator' the New York Times 'Greene is as elegant as ever, cutting through the fog of complexity with insight and clarity; space and time become putty in his hands' Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5012 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos with its questions about the limits of space and time and the texture of reality certainly looks a bit daunting to the uninitiated. Cosmic ripples, 11 dimensions to the universe and string theory that is somehow connected to a "Theory of Everything" are all a bit alien if you never really got to grips with Newton, let alone Einstein. It might look very heavyweight, but Greene is an excellent communicator and what he's writing about is perhaps the greatest intellectual challenge we face.

There is no doubt that speculation about the nature of the heavens is very ancient. After centuries of thought "we still can only portray space and time as the most familiar of strangers". But enormous advances in understanding have been made especially over the last few decades. Whether we are high-flying city slickers or impoverished cattle-herders in the third world, speculation about space-time "takes on an almost mystical quality: we're considering the fate of the very things that dominate our sense of reality" according to Greene.

Over the last century we have become much better acquainted with previously hidden features of the Universe, especially thanks to Einstein. Greene summarises these as

"the slowing of time, the relativity of simultaneity, alternative slicings of spacetime, gravity as the warpings and curving of space and time, the probabilistic nature of reality, and long range entanglement were not on the list of things that even the best of the world's nineteenth-century physicists would have expected to find just around the corner."

And yet they are attested to by both experimental results and theoretical explanations. Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, is one of the foremost players in contemporary string theory and authored a bestselling book The Elegant Universe for which he won the Aventis Prize in 2000.

In The Fabric of the Cosmos Green avoids mathematical formulae, which can be an immediate turnoff for most general readers. Clearly he knows that visually we can deal with abstract and/or difficult concepts much better than when they are presented in words. Consequently, he uses a very clever selection of excellent and well designed illustrations to help get his ideas across. There is an excellent index, plenty of notes and suggestions for further reading, which will allow those more in the know to take matters further. And, there is a glossary for us ordinary mortals who need every now and again to check up on our understanding of things such as quarks, Higgs particles, braneworld scenario and M-theory. --Douglas Palmer

Financial Times
'The Fabric of the Cosmos is a magnificent challenge to conventional ideas'

the Independent
'I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It manages to be both challenging and entertaining: it is highly recommended'

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Customer Reviews

A great intro to physics
After having read other (shorter) books on quantum physics etc. I decided to go for something a bit more dense. And what a book I chose! Not only does it cover the main areas of the history of the development of Physics, but it does so in an easy to understand way.
Greene uses lots of fun analogies and examples to put across complex ideas, making Physics an accessible subject for even an AS student (as I am). A great book to pick up facts to confuse your parents and even better- your teachers!
He soars from chapter to chapter, sweeping over Newton's laws, Einstein's theories of relativity, quantum theory, the quantum measurement problem, Higgs fields, string theory....the list goes on! And all very readable, with lots of subtle repetitions which are good for me as I usually read it at 11.30pm and my brain needs them in order to take it in!
A great book, I just cannot praise it enough! Buy it, buy it, buy it! if you are at all interested in science. I promise you you will not regret it!

Absorbing and accessible
This thought-provoking book has a wider perspective than Greene’s Elegant Universe, in which he expounded on String Theory. Fabric Of The Cosmos discusses the latest findings in theoretical physics in a style accessible to the ordinary reader.

The book contains a short summary of string theory. In brief, this theory proposes that particles like quarks, electrons et al. are not dots but minute filaments of vibrating energy that produce various particle properties. Superstring Theory reconciles general relativity with quantum mechanics in a single theory, making it a strong candidate for Einstein’s elusive Unified Theory.

The author explores the two most prominent concerns of modern physics: The historical development from Galileo and Newton to Einstein and Hawking, and the very latest theories that arose from this development.

Chapter 12 is basically a summary of The Elegant Universe, whilst the following two chapters explore the possibilities of experimentally testing the string theory.

A very important component of he book is the irreconcilable gap between the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity only hold valid for large objects, whilst quantum mechanics explains the subatomic composition of matter/energy. Since the two are incompatible, Greene maintains that a theory of quantum gravity must be developed, one that holds true for both small and large objects.

In the chapters Time And The Quantum and Entangling Space, the author looks at quantum mechanics and the strange phenomena of entanglement. He rejects Niels Bohr’s dualistic interpretation of the world of facts and the world of probabilities, postulating a hidden reality composed of 9 spatial dimensions and 1 of time.

Fabric Of The Cosmos is a most engaging investigation of cutting edge ideas in physics and cosmology. It is highly stimulating and far more readable than Elegant Universe. I highly recommend this brilliant work.

Blows Hawking out of the Water
Just before reading this book I finished reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and, though I found it fascinating, it left me feeling unsatisfied - too many topics touched upon and not expanded; too many questions I already had not touched upon at all. All the questions that book left me with, this book answered...and that was before I'd made it half-way. This book opened the world of physics up for me imaginatively, authoritatively and simply, clearly explaining concepts that should be far beyond me. I can not reccommend it enough. Just got to get my girlfriend interested now.