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

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:

Print: COPYRIGHT ©: February 10, 2004; ISBN: 978-0375412882; PUBLISHER: Knopf; First Edition; PAGES: 576; (Hardcover info from Amazon)

Digital: ©: December 18, 2007; ASIN: B000XUDGV2; PAGES: 594; Unabridged (Info from Amazon.com)

*Audio: COPYRIGHT ©: February 12, 2004; PUBLISHER: Random House Audio; DURATION: 22 hrs. 36 min; Unabridged; (Info from Amazon.com)
Feature Film or tv: There are PBS Specials

SERIES: No

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
SELECTED: This was one of my husband’s Audible selections. He hadn’t listened to it, and I didn’t want it to “go to waste”, so decided to listen. I have only a passing interest in Quantum Mechanics and physics theories, but am always keen to learn stuff.

ABOUT: Scientific theories—too many to list—all well described.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: It’s a darned good thing the author employs humor, otherwise I couldn’t have made it through all of these lengthy explanations, somewhat comprehendible though they may be, of so many theories. I confess, more than once, I thought, “and so?”. It begins to feel like so much fiction, but I’m sure for those who devote their lives to the study, it’s much much more, and the author does convey this well.

AUTHOR:
Brian Greene: (From Wikipedia)
“Brian Randolph Greene[1] (born February 9, 1963) is an American physicist. Greene was a physics professor at Cornell University from 1990–1995, and has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008. Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi–Yau manifolds (concretely relating the conifold to one of its orbifolds). He also described the flop transition, a mild form of topology change, showing that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point.
Greene has become known to a wider audience through his books for the general public, The Elegant Universe, Icarus at the Edge of Time, The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Hidden Reality, and related PBS television specials. He also appeared on The Big Bang Theory episode "The Herb Garden Germination", as well as the films Frequency and The Last Mimzy. He is currently a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[2]”

NARRATOR:
Michael Prichard- Excerpt from Wikipedia:
“Michael Prichard is an American actor and audiobook reader.
Prichard grew up on a farm in Kansas, and first developed his baritone voice by singing.[1] He earned an MFA in theater from the University of Southern California.[2]
He is best known for narrating audiobooks, including the complete Nero Wolfe mystery series by Rex Stout and the complete Travis McGee thriller series by John D. MacDonald. During his career, he has narrated more than five hundred audiobooks.[3]
In recognition of his narration work, he received the Audie Award for History in 2010,[4] as well as multiple AudioFile Earphone Awards.[3]
In addition to recording audiobooks, Prichard has acted on stage with Ray Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company and with the Pacific Resident Theatre.[1]”
ME: Michael is perfect for this narrative.

GENRE:
Nonfiction; Science

SUBJECTS: (Not comprehensive)
Physics theories; classical science; Entanglement; Relativity; String; Quantum Mechanics; Time; Space; Parallel Universes; Philosophy

DEDICATION:
“To Tracy”

EXCERPT from Part 1 “Reality’s Arena”, Chapter 1 “Roads to Reality: Space, Time, and Why Things Are the Way They Are”
“None of the books in my father’s dusty old bookcase were forbidden. Yet while I was growing up, I never saw anyone take one down. Most were massive tomes—a comprehensive history of civilization, matching volumes of the great works of western literature, numerous others I can no longer recall—that seemed almost fused to shelves that bowed slightly from decades of steadfast support. But way up on the highest shelf was a thin little text that, every now and then, would catch my eye because it seemed so out of place, like Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians. In hindsight, I’m not quite sure why I waited so long before taking a look. Perhaps, as the years went by, the books seemed less like material you read and more like family heirlooms you admire from afar. Ultimately, such reverence gave way to teenage brashness. I reached up for the little text, dusted it off, and opened to page one. The first few lines were, to say the least, startling.
“There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” the text began. I winced. “Whether or not the world has three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories,” it continued, “comes afterward”; such questions, the text explained, were part of the game humanity played, but they deserved attention only after the one true issue had been settled. The book was The Myth of Sisyphus and was written by the Algerian-born philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus. After a moment, the iciness of his words melted under the light of comprehension. Yes, of course, I thought. You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That’s what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail.
My chance encounter with Camus’ book must have occurred during an especially impressionable phase because, more than anything else I’d read, his words stayed with me. Time and again I’d imagine how various people I’d met, or heard about, or had seen on television would answer this primary of all questions. In retrospect, though, it was his second assertion—regarding the role of scientific progress—that, for me, proved particularly challenging. Camus acknowledged value in understanding the structure of the universe, but as far as I could tell, he rejected the possibility that such understanding could make any difference to our assessment of life’s worth. Now, certainly, my teenage reading of existential philosophy was about as sophisticated as Bart Simpson’s reading of Romantic poetry, but even so, Camus’ conclusion struck me as off the mark. To this aspiring physicist, it seemed that an informed appraisal of life absolutely required a full understanding of life’s arena—the universe. I remember thinking that if our species dwelled in cavernous outcroppings buried deep underground and so had yet to discover the earth’s surface, brilliant sunlight, an ocean breeze, and the stars that lie beyond, or if evolution had proceeded along a different pathway and we had yet to acquire any but the sense of touch, so everything we knew came only from our tactile impressions of our immediate environment, or if human mental faculties stopped developing during early childhood so our emotional and analytical skills never progressed beyond those of a five-year-old—in short, if our experiences painted but a paltry portrait of reality—our appraisal of life would be thoroughly compromised. When we finally found our way to earth’s surface, or when we finally gained the ability to see, hear, smell, and taste, or when our minds were finally freed to develop as they ordinarily do, our collective view of life and the cosmos would, of necessity, change radically. Our previously compromised grasp of reality would have shed a very different light on that most fundamental of all philosophical questions.
But, you might ask, what of it? Surely, any sober assessment would conclude that although we might not understand everything about the universe—every aspect of how matter behaves or life functions—we are privy to the defining, broad-brush strokes gracing nature’s canvas. Surely, as Camus intimated, progress in physics, such as understanding the number of space dimensions; or progress in neuropsychology, such as understanding all the organizational structures in the brain; or, for that matter, progress in any number of other scientific undertakings may fill in important details, but their impact on our evaluation of life and reality would be minimal. Surely, reality is what we think it is; reality is revealed to us by our experiences.”

RATING:.
4

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
6/1/2024 - 6/11/2024 ( )

My brain isn't in a physics mood right now. This is the only book on my Abandoned shelf I intend on coming back to, probably this summer.

It actually took me a few years to read this one. I had previously read Greene's "Elegant Universe". This is strictly for anyone interested in physics, string theory, quantum mechanics, relativity and other difficult physics type concepts. He does a good job of making the information accessible to the non-physicist, but having taken some physics courses and math courses are an advantage just to be a little more comfortable with the ideas here. There is NOT any high level math in the book, but as you probably know, most physics relies heavily on math so being comfortable with mathematical ideas will make the book more comfortable to read. Worth the time and effort, but do not expect to breeze through this book in a few weeks. ( )

What seemed to me to be a thorough overview of modern (2005) explorative physics, but what do I know? And perfectly pitched, for me, having gone over 10 or so similar books previously.

Will read again: 5 stars. ( )

Another excellent journey into the world of physics and cosmology by Brian Greene, this time with the focus on two of the most basic questions that we have been asking ourselves since the dawn of humanity:

1. What is space?
2. What is time and why does it flow (or seem to) in only one direction?

Before attempting to answer these questions, or more accurately, explaining what we've learned so far, Greene lays the foundation for a more in-depth understanding by explaining the basics of Newtonian physics, Einstein's special and general relativity, quantum mechanics and later on string theory and other theories beyond the Classical Model. Even though these topics have already been covered in The Elegant Universe, I didn't mind Dr. Greene covering them again. For one thing, many of these topics are fairly demanding, so having them explained multiple times is a boon, and for another, the focus was on what this means for the fabric of space-time and the direction of time's arrow.

In every succeeding chapter, the reader's understanding of space and time is deepened until we get to a point where our current understanding of these concepts lie. From quantum jitters, to entropy, to Higgs field (since discovered and confirmed), we are passengers on a journey of enlightenment and this journey has really only begun.

Another bonus are the latter chapters, which describe what contemporary science has to say about teleportation, time travel, wormholes and other popular phenomena known from science fiction. Certainly an interesting read, although this is where Brian Greene starts to rely a bit much on pop culture analogies involving The Simpsons and Springfield, which are fine in this book but get slightly out of hand in the multiverse book.

Definitely a great popular science book that one should read despite the not so promising data from the Large Hadron Collider regarding super-symmetry and other concepts beyond the Classical Model. But for me, it's time for a break from physics and cosmology for a while. Hopefully, they will crank the LHC to higher energies in the mean time and find some promising results. ( )