The Black Hole War, Leonard Susskind

Title:		The Black Hole War
Author:		Leonard Susskind
Rating:

Some time back I read two books on string theory by Brian Greene. Both were interesting, well written, and managed to explain complicated physics in a manner that made them somewhat easier to understand.

It turns out that a lot has changed in physics since those books were written, or that those books don't cover a bunch of things going on in the field. The Black Hole War describes many thing Greene doesn't, but does so in passing, as it tells the story of a significant disagreement over the fate of information that gets sucked into black holes.

The resolution of that argument took a long time. Susskind describes a meeting in 1981 where Stephen Hawking made the claim that any information entering a black hole is lost forever. Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft were bothered by this - it violated a fundamental principle - and began trying to prove it incorrect. It took until 2007 before Hawking admitted he was wrong.

In those 26 years physics saw huge changes. String theory, among other things, made a big impact. But many other discoveries were made as well, and a lot of physicists were involved. Susskind describes all kinds of interesting physics in this book, and credits many other physicists with important discoveries that helped make his case.

Overall The Black Hole War is a good read, and it explores some fascinating ground, but there is a problem. Maybe it's that Susskind has too many things to cover to make his case, so he cannot cover individual topics in enough depth to make them clear. I suspect, though, that Susskind isn't quite as good at explaining these non-intuitive concepts as Greene is.

For example, a few hours after finishing the book I couldn't explain the holographic principle to my wife, and it's a key element of the proof Susskind is making.

Perhaps the failure is mine, or the material is so strange that it doesn't make sense to humans given the way we've evolved, but I think it could be described more clearly, even without resorting to the incredibly complicated math that backs it up. At least I hope so.

In any case it is clear that there is a lot of current physics that I don't understand, and didn't know was being researched before I read this book.

Recommended, but I hope that Warped Passages by Lisa Randall - when I get to it - provides a clearer explanation of at least some of the underlying physics.

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene

Title:		The Fabric of the Cosmos
Author:		Brian Greene
Rating:

This is a book on cosmology for the lay reader. Green starts with Newton and works his way though Einstein, the various people involved in the discovery of quantum mechanics, and eventually into his own specialty, string theory.

I found Greene's book very readable and helpful in understanding those parts of physics that are pretty well established. His discussions of string theory are also well done, but here we hit a slight issue with more recent events.

The book was published in 2004, and in the time since there is a growing movement (as far as I can tell, anyway) among some physicists to call string theory a crock and abandon it. Greene isn't among those ranks, of course, and I have no way to assess the validity of the arguments on either side as the math is way, way beyond my abilities.

Still, I think the major objection is that string theory doesn't necessarily appear (and may not be) testable. Greene argues that there are things that can and will be tested. How well his arguments hold up against the growing group of people dissatisfied with string theory I don't know.

In any case, there are some very good discussions in here about Relativity, QM, Newtonian mechanics, absolute vs. relative space and time, and several other topics. If you want to know more about these things without being required to take 15 or 20 courses in advanced math, Greene's presentation is quite good.

Recommended.

Intelligent Thought, John Brockman

Title:		Intelligent Thought
Author:		John Brockman
Rating:

This is the second book edited by Brockman that I've read, and they both follow the same general pattern: ask a group of "great minds" to write essays about some topic and put them all together. In this case the topic is "science versus the intelligent design movement".

As with the previous book - What We Believe But Cannot Prove - the result isn't as interesting as I'd have hoped. There are a lot of great names here, but some of the resulting essays are less than well thought out, and others are simply boring or obvious. One I greatly disagreed with and only a couple hit anything like new ground for me. (It appears there may be some very interesting things happening in deep physics, but it will be years before it gets digested to the level where I'll easily understand it, if it even pans out at all.)

Intelligent Design is a crock of you-know-what. I knew that going in, but I'd hoped to get some new arguments against it. That didn't happen.

Oh well. Someone else on paperbackswap.com wants a copy of this, so I'll send it off and get a credit for it.

Unless you don't know much about the so-called Intelligent Design debate and/or your understanding of evolution isn't as good as it could be, I'd probably skip this. If you're well read it won't teach you much.

What We Believe But Cannot Prove, John Brockman

Title:		What We Believe But Cannot Prove
Author:		John Brockman
Rating:

What We Believe But Cannot Prove came to my attention via a mention in the back of a copy of Science News. In each issue of that weekly magazine they recommend a set of science related books. This book was in such a list and it sounded interesting, so I got ahold of a copy via paperbackswap.com.

Capsule review: it was OK, but it could have been better.

The book consists of a series of very short (1 sentence to 4 page) essays by leading thinkers - mostly in scientific fields - about exactly what the title says: what they believe but cannot prove. There exists a web site - http://edge.org/ - that provides these people a place to publish articles on "third culture" topics. (Don't ask me to explain what "third culture" means. I don't know, but a quick look a the web site suggests that I need to spend some time there.) Each year they also ask a question - the "Edge Question" - of their contributors and publish their responses. This book is the collected responses to the 2005 question, which is (again) the title.

A lot of people contributed to this little book. I just wish there was more to it. My wife - always one with a good quote - scanned it one evening and called it the mental equivalent of potato chips.

For me, the reaction is a bit more complicated. A few of the contributions were genuinely interesting, and those I wanted see fleshed out in more detail so I could learn more about the issues presented. A few more of the essays were just plain stupid or wrong to my mind. (Yes, I know, I am not on the same intellectual plane as these people. Tough. Anyone who says that there is no physical world "out there" lives in an entirely different universe from me. I'll be judgmental in such a case if I want to be, and I do.) Most of the contents, though, were pretty much what I would expect. Not at all surprising to me - someone reasonably well read on science related issues. But even those items needed better fleshing out to help people less familiar with the concepts understand what is being discussed.

So there's part of the problem for me: perhaps 10% of the book was interesting enough to hold my attention in depth. The rest was ho-hum or caused me to wonder what the authors were smoking. Not a very fulfilling reading experience.

And there is another issue with this book: I don't know who the target audience is. If it is intended for the scientifically literate it needs to be deeper on each topic, or provide references to relevant literature, or something. If it is intended for the layperson it fails for lack of enough detail to even start to draw someone into the concepts presented.

So while I give this book an "OK" review, I'm not sure I recommend it.

The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene

Title:		The Elegant Universe
Author:		Brian Greene
Rating:

Wow. If you have any interest in physics or cosmology, read this book. Now.

My father gave it to my for my birthday a few months back. When I got to it, I discovered I was in for a treat.

The first couple of chapters give an overview of things like Relativity in a way that mostly made sense to me for the very first time. I say "mostly" because these concepts are fundamentally hard to grasp. I need to go back and read those chapters again. They were great, and they made a LOT of sense. I, however, am dense, and I was gulping the book down, rather than reading and pondering.

Then we learn about string theory: its past, present, and possible future. Wow. Greene makes this thing - which I had no real understanding of - come alive. I'd read a fair bit about it, but it was all pretty dry. Greene shows how it has grown, how it has fit into and enhanced existing theories, and where work still needs to be done. (And he's honest - there is a LOT of work that still needs to be done.)

Greene's prose is excellent, and his enthusiasm for the topic really comes through. He uses a lot of analogies to assist with the explanations, and he never bogs you down with the math. There are some hints at the math in the end notes, but the real stuff is so far out that I'm not sure how doctors Shaw and Eisworth would handle it. I suspect it would be nice to know the math, but honestly, I'd have to start all the way back at trig to get it into my brain again. And I'm the one that couldn't grasp the introduction for the layman in Doug's doctoral thesis.

Another great thing about the book is how often Greene acknowledges the people in the field. He shows just how big an enterprise string theory is, and how many people have been involved, and provides some insight into the cooperative nature of the research. There are a lot of people working on string theory, and after reading this, I hope they all get to keep at it for as long as it takes.

There is a newer book out by Greene as well, titled The Fabric of the Cosmos. I am fortunate enough to have been given that book as well, and I am looking forward to digging into it. I will put it off for a few days, though, to give me time to finish all of our holiday stuff. But then...

In all seriousness, if you have any interest in physics or cosmology, this is the book to read. From what I can tell, it provides both excellent background, history, and then follows all that up with current theory and future research directions.

Highly, highly recommended.