The Elegant Universe

[prescient63]

Amazon.com: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory: Books: Brian Greene


It's been a while since I've read that book, but it was really enjoyable. I was just reading some sci-fi thread and thought about it. Figured I would point it out if some people are interested in the way physics work. I have no way of judging how accurate or inaccurate the book may be but it was definitely enjoyable and can be read without any real knowledge of physics. When he starts talking about eleven-dimensional space-time it hurts my fuckin brain, but whatever it was interesting anyhow.

One thing I took away from the book was just how utterly brilliant some people are to come up with that shit.

[Faille]

I saw a documentary about string theory and I don't really think it is the solution they are all looking for. Everything about it smacks of juggling the numbers to make it work, without much foundation and almost no chance of gaining empirical evidence to support it.

[Eomer]

CERN should be able to come up with some evidence for or against string theory this year (2007), if my understanding is correct. They're firing up a new collider that should be capable of producing particles predicted by string theory but not yet discovered. It wouldn't outright confirm string theory, but would indicate that at least physicists are working in the right direction.

And yeah, I watched this on Nova. Very interesting TV show, I'd imagine the same for the book.

[Kiroy]

Originally Posted by Eomer

CERN should be able to come up with some evidence for or against string theory this year (2007), if my understanding is correct. They're firing up a new collider that should be capable of producing particles predicted by string theory but not yet discovered. It wouldn't outright confirm string theory, but would indicate that at least physicists are working in the right direction.

And yeah, I watched this on Nova. Very interesting TV show, I'd imagine the same for the book.

You are correct:

Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Eomer]

Ah, got my years wrong, I thought they'd just fired that puppy up and were working up to full energy in 2007.

[Burf]

If nothing else, it's very good at explaining General Relativity and how they got to where they are now. When it gets to the String Theory stuff, especially toward the end of the book, it gets pretty involved. There's one chapter where he basically says--don't expect to understand this chapter after one, or even several, readings.

I got to bust out some extreme nerdyness a few weeks ago when someone at work thought radio waves traveled the speed of sound.

[Ham n Cheese]

The show the elegant universe was sweet. NOVA | The Elegant Universe | PBS

PBS NOVA The Elegant Universe 3 part series DIVX » Torrentspy.com

[Khorum]

meh SSC > LHC Fucking Clinton, we would've found the Higgs boson years ago.

Since this is the book forum, there's an EXCELLENT book built around the tragic loss of the American SSC called Einstein's Bridge, written by John Cramer a celebrated particle physicist who was witness to the liberal betrayal of American Science.

The money saved for closing what could've been the greatest scientific monument since the Library of Alexandria was then used to subsidize life-affirming things like hemp research, college admission quotas, and making sure that people who dropped out of grade school to pursue a life lived under heroin get a fair shake at your children's job.

Like practically every other published American physicist, Cramer now works at CERN.

[Kiroy]

Originally Posted by Khorum

meh SSC > LHC Fucking Clinton, we would've found the Higgs boson years ago.

Since this is the book forum, there's an EXCELLENT book built around the tragic loss of the American SSC called Einstein's Bridge, written by John Cramer a celebrated particle physicist who was witness to the liberal betrayal of American Science.

The money saved for closing what could've been the greatest scientific monument since the Library of Alexandria was then used to subsidize life-affirming things like hemp research, college admission quotas, and making sure that people who dropped out of grade school to pursue a life lived under heroin get a fair shake at your children's job.

Like practically every other published American physicist, Cramer now works at CERN.

Nothing peeves me more then politicians being so short sighted when it comes to science. NASA, SSC - these type programs are really the only future humanity has.

The world economy will collapse due to a lack of key naturaul resources, and if we aren't on our way to exploiting/colonizing space by the time this happens then we're fuxxed. There's a book out somewhere (forget the name) that talks about the natural resource point of no return for colonizing and getting into space in a serious way - says if we don't do it by XXXX, then it will be next to impossible for it to happen because the resources/fuel won't be there. I can't remember the year quoted, but it was in the 2000's.

Was a pretty plausable book, but of course crazy advances in science can solve lack of resource problems - but that won't happen cause we're to busy trying to pay for brainless dolts to go to college so they can learn to hate there country and read poetry. Fuck.

[Pharazon]

I liked this clip from one article on the LHC, since they claim they will be attempting to create mini "big-bangs" and mini black holes:


* They estimate the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low.

* The risk is calculated at about 10 to the minus 40 - a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000 chance.


I mean really, with how little they know about the big-bang and black holes, dark energy, dark matter, extra dimensions, and in a nutshell pretty much everything they are trying to learn about with this thing, how the fuck can they even estimate something like that? They can have an idea that there's not much risk, but to come up with a number like that when they really don't know what will happen when they turn this thing on? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

[Kiroy]

Boy that would be a shitter.

[Goliath]

I bought the second edition a few months ago.

Amazing read and definitely worth it for anyone that has any interest in anything signifcant.

[Celebrindal]

Thanks for the reviews. I just purchased it on Amazon, along with The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams and Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris.