The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory Reprint Edition

This is an excellent book to explain concepts of space and time. Some may say that this 1999 book is slightly dated from the latest findings, but for the the majority of people who want to understand how the universe works, this is perhaps the best so far. Deep concepts are explained clearly and in detail that will explain the development of physics from ancient times, through Einstein and to current thinking about String Theory. For me this has been a must read and I know that I will read it again when finished!

This is an impressive work that explains the highly complex non-intuituve string theory in amazingly lucid clear writing style to the general public. Similar to many physics books which survey classical theories for the readers, Greene offers his own elucidation on relative motion in special relativity and in warped space in general relatvity that is even more detailed and clear than some physics text books. His transition of how String theory offers a solution to bridge general relatvity and quantum mechanics because of String theory's geometry to cope with quantum undulation at the microscopic scale is very intuitive and helpful. His explanations on how the 3 families of particles in Standard Theory are best explained by just variations of vibrating strings frequency and strength are also relatable and convincing.Greene's use of the garden hose universe to explain the curled up dimensions in string theory and how they are hidden from and connected to extended dimensions is exceptionally lucid and helpful, making us easy to grasp how 3 extended space dimensions we experience are related to 6 curled up space dimensions, together with time making up 10 dimensions. The 9 dimensions don't just crumbled up in any shape but in a unique 6 dimensional Calabi-Yau shape derived from many researchers calculations. Hence, the universe is made up of the Calabi-Yau shape manifold in curled up 9 dimensional space configuration together with time. The final 11th dimension space is explained by the need of the two dimensional membranes in M theory which is used to resolve the dilemma of 5 version of string theory. Greene further explained that the five versions are just different depiction of string theory with three of which Type 1, Herotic O, and Herotic E being large/small radius duality equivalence of each other and with the rest of the two, Type IIA and Type IIB, having the same reciprocal dualiy. This whole 11 dimensional geometric scheme development is carefully and lucidly written with unmatched clarity over these connected concepts of Kaluza-Klein theory, Calabi-Yau, shapes and M theory.Though Greene does not use the actual equations from perturbation approach and Kaluza-Klein geometry of String theory to flesh out his explanations, it is still not easy to conceptually grasp the concepts of String Theory for anyone who does not have university level education in physics or mathematics. Greene actually warns his readers about the difficulty of the subject despite his best effort. It takes work to get through this work.Another feature I like in any physics books is the anecdote stories of the journey of the physicists doing research. Greene shared his stories of his journey in String theory. The separate research efforts on the mirror symmetry Calabi-Yau shapes for space tearing flop between Greene's group, to include Aspinfall and Morrison, while at Princeton, and Witten is an interesting story. Greene also included various stories of String theory second revolution in 1995.Overall, this book is a brilliantly clear introduction to string theory that is going to be a classic.

For me, this was like two books in one. Let me explain:The first third of the book is truly amazing. This 'book within a book' explains in layman's terms the physics of the universe which is already accepted as 'truth'. These concepts are ordinarily difficult for the non-physicist, non-mathematician to grasp. With beautiful clarity and eloquence, the author is able, using understandable examples, to explain concepts such as time moving more slowly and physical dimensions changing as the speed of light is approached. The probability concepts of quantum mechanics and the problem of reconciling quantum mechanics with the physics of large fast moving objects are discussed in a very understandable way. This part of the book gets a strong 5 star rating for sure.But the last 2/3 of the book was, to me, less impressive. This is the portion that explains string theory and how it integrates with classic physics. The discussion goes through a history of the development of string theory. Perhaps, given the relative 'newness of the theory, there may not be any other way to go about the discussion. But I found it somewhat tedious, difficult and certainly less exciting to go through the theory's evolution than trying to understand where it stands today.Additionally, in my opinion, the explanations involving string theory discussion did not have the same clarity as the first part of the book and I don't believe that it is simply because the theory is 'harder' to understand. It seemed like it was written in a totally different style, and if you told me that there were separate authors for the 'classic physics' portion of the book and the string theory portion of the book I would have no trouble believing it.So, all in all, a strong 5 stars for the first third of the book and 3 stars for the last 2/3...and an overall 4 stars. I should note that I did glean a great deal from the last 2/3, but I just wish it were written 'by the same person' that wrote the first part. Still...I think there is so much information here that the book is one that should be read by anyone who wants to try to understand our universe more deeply. Just remember that string theory is just that...a theory, albeit a seemingly strong and elegant one.As an aside, I have a Kindle DX and when I downloaded the book all the diagrams and figure were there. So, while I am sure it was true that at one point the figures were missing, as noted by many prior reviewers, the figures are now in the Kindle download and display beautifully on the DX. I don't have a K2 so I can't say anything about how they display on that.