Brandon E Taylor's Weblog Cogitations, Meditations, and Ruminations

Fabric of the Cosmos

Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality - Brian Greene (2004)

**** (out of 5)

Fabric of the Cosmos is Greene's latest foray into modern, and speculative, physics and cosmology. Like his previous book, The Elegant Universe, Fabric of the Cosmos tackles some weighty material. The subject matter of this latest book, as indicated by its subtitle, is no less than space, time, and the nature of reality.

The book contains 5 sections. Section I deals primarily with space. Greene starts with Newtonian physics, works through Einstein's Theories of Special and General Relativity, and ends with quantum mechanics. Section II focuses on time and its 'arrow'. Section III deals with spacetime and cosmology. Inflationary cosmology is given a fair amount of space, no pun intended, in this section. Greene deals with unification in Section IV. Superstings and M-Theory are featured. Section V, the final section, contains the most speculative material of the book - including time travel, teleportation, and the "Holographic Universe" theory.

I highly recommend this book to readers interested in modern physics - or readers wishing to develop such an interest. Greene's writing is enlightening and entertaining and his ability to clearly articulate and explain very complex notions is impressive - even quantum entaglement seems within cognitive grasp when he explains it. His metaphors are sometimes corny and his prejudices for string theory are evident. These, however, are relatively minor issues and detract little from a very nice book. The overlap with The Elegant Universe was a bit more irritating to me, as was the somewhat 'breezy' treatment of a few subjects (e.g. particle physics).

Also recommended:

• A Brief History of Time : From the Big Bang to Black Holes - Stephen W. Hawking (1988)
• The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory - Brian Greene (2000)
• The Universe in a Nutshell - Stephen W. Hawking (2001)