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| The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy Used: £3.00
You Save: £5.99 (67%)
New (28) from £4.21
Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 3153
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 009928992X
Dewey Decimal Number: 600
EAN: 9780099289920
ASIN: 009928992X
Publication Date: August 4, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Little River Books dispatch daily from South Wales. Customer satisfaction is our guarantee.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Full of wonder June 14, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read my brother's copy of this after he'd had his head stuck in it for about a month. I knew that anything which could keep him quiet for so long had to be good, and it is. Like Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" there are no equations to slow things down or put off the mathematically challenged (well, there are some in the helpful and insightful notes, but not in the main text). It begins with an overview of classical physics, explaining everything you need to keep up with the author once he delves into quantum and, beyond that, into string theory.
I did find myself having to read and reread parts of this - particularly from about half-way onwards - because it covers so much ground and it wasn't all sinking in, but it's well worth persevering with and Greene does a great job at explaining some of theoretical physics' concepts in a non-technical and enlightening way.
If you feel jaded about the world and have lost that sense of wonder, read this and be amazed all over again.
How does a single electron pass through two slits at the same time? It must move discontinuously... May 23, 2007
2 out of 14 found this review helpful
Greene gave a very popular introduction of the mysterious quantum world. His H-Bar is an ingenious pun. However, his explanation of Feynman's path integral was wrong. Maybe he inherited from Hawking. The paths in Feynman's approach are purely quantum states, not classical continuous paths at all, as Greene depicted in his book. Nor did Feynman claim that his method implied such a bizarre picture.
However, a single electron does pass through two slits at the same time in the double-slit experiment. But how does it pass through two slits at the same time? Nobody knew. In fact, it seems very evident that the single electron can only pass through the two slits at the same time in a discontinuous way. Therefore, its motion may be not continuous but discontinuous. To our surprise, such discontinuous motion is imaginable and comprehensible. This intriguing idea has actually been lucidly expounded in a recent book Quantum Motion - Unveiling the Mysterious Quantum World. A more popular introduction can be found at my name.
Once we realize that motion is discontinuous and random in reality, we may finally understand the mysterious quantum world, where an electron can pass through two slits at the same time.
good explanation March 24, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I got this book because I knew Einstein developed the theorys of relativity etc but I never knew what the theory of relativity was, what it meant and what developments were made in the field of physics since. So on that basis I was delighted to come accross a book that was written for someone like me. It explains the main areas of classical physics wonderfully by using descriptions and portraying images of well known things. The last chapter is particularly difficult and was over my head, however because of this book I have continued to buy more books on quantum theory and other related subjects.
 Has the emperor got any clothes? January 16, 2007
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
Based on the many very favourable reviews this book has received, I approached it with great hopes. The author has a relaxed and engaging style. The intoductory chapters on quantum theory and relativity are informative and entertaining as is the introduction to string theory. From then on my impression grew that string theory started as an interesting idea but has then been elaborated with much artificial-seeming mathematics to try to make it fit the known universe from subatomic to astronomic scale. I could not see anything convincing in the introduction of multi-dimensional spaces with the extra dimensions curled up to account for the fact that they cannot be observed. The book did not reveal or demonstrate to me what string theory actually succeeds in doing. Maybe this is clear to experts in the field but it did not become clear to me from this popular account. As far as I can see the emperor has no clothes. Over all, the book was a bit of a disappointment
Enlightening September 25, 2006
1 out of 12 found this review helpful
I read the book when I was 14 and Greene's clever writing allowed me to participate on a voyage of conceptual leaps through space-time. Brilliant!
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