By Sheilla Jones
The Globe and Mail
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Page D12
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality
By Brian Greene
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
569 pages
A ripple of diaphanous gossamer floats across the cover of Brian Greene's latest book, but it is hardly an accurate picture of the reality he weaves in The Fabric of the Cosmos. Instead, Greene's picture of the cosmos is a lumpy theoretical tapestry, and the handful of exquisitely woven patterns that enchant and enthrall cannot distract from the gaping holes, dangling threads and the bits held together with safety pins.
It's a tall order to weave together the past 300 years of science into a cohesive picture of scientists' best understanding of reality, especially if the threads you're using are the ephemeral concepts of space and time. But Greene gives it a good shot. The Fabric of the Cosmos is his follow-up to The Elegant Universe (1999), a bestseller that rendered the bizarre world of string theory accessible to the general public. Greene is a professor of physics at Columbia University in New York, and has cemented his status as popular explicator by also proving himself an engaging host in the highly rated PBS/Nova series on string theory that aired last fall. Not only can he write, he can perform on camera. Move over, David Suzuki!
Still, The Fabric of the Cosmos is not for the faint of heart or those who insist that space and time are obvious and well-understood concepts. While The Elegant Universe served as a tutorial on the many counterintuitive aspects of current physics and cosmology—superposition and uncertainty in quantum theory, the curvature of space-time in general relativity and the 11 dimensions of string theory—this latest book kicks it up a notch by trying to weave together a picture of what it all means.
Greene is an engaging writer with a real talent for describing truly weird science in a way that is accessible to people without a degree in physics. He invokes pop culture figures such as Marge and Lisa Simpson, Itchy and Scratchy, Fox Mulder and Larry King to help explain complicated ideas, a device that works well most of the time but can sometimes feel a bit patronizing.
There are problems in trying to weave a picture of reality, the author notes, beginning with the warning that "physicists such as myself are acutely aware that the reality we observe—matter evolving on the stage of space and time—may have little to do with the reality, if any, that's out there."
The first two chapters of the book are a lesson in the dissonance between what we perceive as reality and what's really going on according to the latest theories of space and time. Another chapter focuses on cosmological models of the universe (or multiverse, since there's no consensus on how many universes might be out there).
The problem, as Greene notes repeatedly, is how much of the current model of reality is provisional or largely unknown. For instance, cosmologists really only have a handle on about 5 per cent of what makes up this universe, never mind any other universe. Another 25 per cent is suggested to be dark matter (unknown matter that has a measurable gravitational effect) and the other 70 per cent could be dark energy (unknown energy coming from an unknown source that appears to be causing the expansion of the universe to speed up). Those unknowns make for some pretty big holes in the fabric of reality.
Then there are the problems with interpreting quantum weirdness. Even though quantum theory has been around for about 80 years, there is still considerable disagreement about what it means and how to weave ideas such as quantum entanglement and teleportation into a sensible picture.
Greene is a string theorist, so it's not surprising to have a chapter that examines the promise of string theory to finally bring together the threads of quantum theory and gravity into a coherent picture that marries the very, very small to the very, very large.
For all its explanatory potential, string theory remains untestable and may have to be thrown away at some future point. It's one of the bits that gets attached with a safety pin.
The Fabric of the Cosmos covers a lot of territory, but much of it has already been explored by Stephen Hawking in The Universe in a Nutshell (2001) and David Deutsch in The Fabric of Reality (1997). Deutsch also attempts to knit together the threads of current scientific theory into a Theory of Everything, mentioning string theory only in passing, but elevating life and thought to the same status as quantum theory and general relativity.
One of the flaws in Greene's book is his neglect of biological systems and consciousness -- without which there would be no need for weavers or books. Another is the poor quality of the illustrations. The stunning graphics in The Universe in a Nutshell put the efforts in Greene's book to shame. Frugal readers who already own the books by Deutsch and Hawking may not find The Fabric of the Cosmos contains enough new material to make it a worthwhile investment.
However, those who enjoyed Greene's first book, or those who just savour the intellectual challenge of wrapping their heads around mind-bending concepts, are likely to get a good workout with it.
In the meantime, the weavers continue. "We envision each new theory taking us closer to the elusive goal of truth," Greene says, "but whether there is an ultimate theory—a theory that cannot be refined further, because it has finally revealed the workings of the universe at the deepest possible level—is a question no one can answer. Even so, the pattern traced out during the last three hundred years of discovery gives tantalizing evidence that such a theory can be developed." Weavers are a tenacious and optimistic bunch.
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