by Brian Greene

isbn: 0375708111
subject: Nonfiction, General Science
finished: 9/1/2001

Until I read The Elegant Universe, superstring theory was merely a phrase I'd run across while leafing through Scientific American. Greene informs us that rather than being some crazy nonsense about a 10-dimensional universe, string theory is a revolution in how we think about physics: it not only unifies the previously incompatible theories of gravity and quantum mechanics, but also solves a host of other problems left unanswered by the standard model.

Greene's book follows in the tradition of good popular physics books such as QED and Mr. Tompkins in Paperback: it provides a considerable amount of background material, it explains what string theory is, why it has continued to move forward while the standard model has stagnated, and what it may look like in the future. The keys to good pop science are (1) to make analogies between difficult technical concepts and those familiar to the reader while maintaining a fine balance between being too detailed and just saying the words without giving the reader an idea of their real meanings, and (2) to throw in a certain amount of historical and anecdotal material in order to motivate the technical content and keep things interesting. The Elegant Universe succeeds at these and other levels. Recommended.