The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality Brian Greene Date: 08 February, 2005   —   $10.85   —   Book product page Rating:

I occasionally try to stretch my mind by reading up on the latest in physics, math, chemistry, biology, or some other topic I don't deal with on a daily basis. Frankly, I usually can't finish the book because it's typically written for other scientists. That happened with the last book on modern physics I attempted (it was listed in the bibliography of Michael Chrichten's book, "Timeline", so I figured it'd be an easy read - wrong!), but Greene's book is very readable.

Greene wrote his book like a detective novel. He asks, what is space? And what is time? Then takes us on a journey that, step-by-step through the history of science, answers those questions.

The format makes the subject easy to digest and understand because Greene starts with the basics of Sir Isaac Newton, and incrementally builds a bridge that gets us from water swirling around in a bucket to quantum physics, and beyond to string theory and inflationary cosmology - all without a single mathematical formula! Physics is so much easier if I don't actually have to do the math.

That's not to say it's a trivial read. Often Greene asks a question like: You're probably wondering why strings are so important - what's so special about a single dimensional object? Dude! I'm still trying to wrap my head around a three-dimensional surface covering a four-dimensional space. If I'm supposed to be asking that kind of question, I'm the wrong target audience for this book! Luckily, it's just a rhetorical question for which Greene provides an easy to understand answer.

I also really liked the way Greene handles time travel and teleportation, "I am often struck by how few people realize that the theoretical underpinnings for one kind of time travel - time travel to the future - have been in place since the last century," Greene writes.

I know what he's talking about, because I once read Stephen Hawking's, "A Brief History of Time". When I fly to Los Angeles from Singapore this summer, relativity dictates that my time will slow down a bazillionth of a second relative to a stationary observer on the ground. When I get off the plane, I'll be stepping into the extremely near future.

Unfortunately, I'd have to speed along at a really large fraction of the speed of light to do any meaningful time travel. The same kind of daunting constraints apply to traveling into the past and teleporting from one place to another. They're physically possible, but highly unlikely any time soon.

The book is a great way for non-physicists to get up to date on the subject. I highly recommend it. Finding out that you're probably moving through nine (maybe ten) spatial dimensions - plus time - is a definitely mind stretching experience. Finding that you understand the concept behind it as well, is guaranteed to make you feel good. Thanks Mr. Greene!