Customer Reviews

String Theory For Dummies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Andrew Zimmerman Jones, who is the Physics Guide for About.com, does a fabulous job of making the most complex scientific theory ever devised absolutely understandable. This is a first-rate introduction to the field. One would almost think it impossible to make something as recondite as sting theory clear to laypeople, but Jones pulls it off with wit and panache. Despite being part of the well-established "For Dummies" publishing franchise, this book is a worthy companion to Hawking and Mlodinow's A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME. Highly recommended.

I would recommend this book to anyone! As a physics student I was attracted to the notion of getting a better grasp on string theory. String Theory for Dummies does that, but not just that. It also provides a firm base for classical physics as well. Want to know the current science behind wormholes, time travel, or dark matter? It does that too.
Mr. Jones' apparent love for physics education shines through as he leads you step-by-step, subject-by-subject. He lays it out for you in a way that everyone can understand. Whether you just have an interest in how things may work in our universe, or you need more perspective on that topic you just discussed in class, String Theory for Dummies will work for you.

This is a very good introduction to the string theory. No math and the author does a pretty good judge of exampling very complex science in plan English. It also goes somewhat beyond String theory, by laying a good background in Newtonian Physics, Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. My only real knock against the book is that it does seem to skip around a bit. Clearly the author wanted to make it easy to pick up, look at the index and jump to topics. But if you read it front to back, it can be just a bit distracting. That is just a minor complaint though. I recommend String Theory for Dummies to any novices who are interested in the topic.

Andrew Jones has taken on a monumental task: explaining string theory, with all the underlying science and universe-wide implications, without much math and without any more technical terms than necessary. It's impressive how well he's succeeded. If that success is short of perfection, that only reflects, as he notes himself, how vast and complex the task is.
Jones opens by noting that some of the ideas presented here will be proven false. I like that: it prepares the reader for the convoluted story which begins with the first attempts at a science of physics and ends with a theory so esoteric that the mind really can't grasp it the way we do most scientific notions (try visualizing "rolled up" dimensions some time).
Jones opens with the why of string theory: the way relativity and quantum physics have been stopped short by the unsolved mystery of quantum gravity. He then steps back to the origins of physics and leads readers through the fits, starts, progress, blind alleys, and reversals that led to string theory being discovered, abandoned, revived as superstring theory, and modified into its current form, M-Theory.
Any theory will eventually die off if it can't be proven, and Jones explains the possibilities and problems of testing string theory, including either by observing the universe or in particle accelerators on Earth. He spends a chapter on the arguments that string theory is unprovable, simply wrong, or both. String theorists are split on how (or whether) whether the traditional scientific requirement that a theory be falsifiable applies to a theory of things we may never be able to observe directly. Another chapter looks at the main competitor, loop quantum gravity. There are string theorists and LQG theorists who think there is an underlying conenction, while others are convinced the opposing camp is more of a groupthink cult than a scientific approach. Other chapters cover the implications if strong theory is correct: what it means for parallel universes, the Big Bang, time travel, and other concepts of scientific and popular interest.
Jones closes by outlining the ten questions he suggests any "theory of everything" must answer and introducing the most influential people in string theory.
There really isn't a conclusion that sums up where Jones and his physicist Ph.D. co-author think the whole argument stands today. I was looking forward to that: the information is in the Introduction and Chapter 1, but there's no law against recapping it. There also isn't a glossary, an omission which I don't understand.
The basic question in evaluating a book like this, though, is whether it leaves a nonspecialist with a better understanding of the topic. I do understand it better, much better. If you're curious about this whole business of string theory but are not interested in getting a graduate degree, String Theory for Dummies is well worth your time.
- Matt Bille
author, The First Space Race: Launching the World's First Satellites (Texaas A&M, 2004)

This is a book in the Dummies series and being a book in the Dummies series, you've got to put the value of the book in terms of the intended audience. Even though it seems contradictory, nearly everyone knows, or should know, by now that "Dummies" doesn't mean "stupid". It's meaning is closer to "ignorant"; that is, "not knowledgeable about". In other words, for relatively intelligent people who want to know and understand more about a subject than what they currently do.

This isn't easy to do, but Mr. Zimmerman-Jones does it well. He introduces all the topics necessary for understanding string theory, and all the issues surrounding it, one at a time. A lot of background is needed, but he doesn't dwell on any of those topics. He gives you the essential basics and then refers you to other books (Dummies and otherwise) if you want to know more.

He does indeed repeat information, but only as a means of tying everything together and his repetitions are not exhaustions of what he has explained before (and, in fact, he tells you where to look back at if you need a further review).

The book has good illustrations and lots of sidebars that inform the reader about related, but nonessential, topics and issues that needn't be wedged into the regular narrative.

One final word: I, too, enjoyed Pagels' books and was saddened years ago when he died in a mountain-climbing accident. But while his writing was clear, and I'd still recommend the Cosmic Code even though it's thirty years old, I don't think it's necessary to contrast String Theory for Dummies to Pagels' books To understand the subjects that he and Zimmerman-Jones are writing about require coming at them from several directions and I'd certainly recommend String Theory for Dummies as one of those directions.

It's a fun read that gives an overview of the development of String Theory with no math. If the reader has a strong background in science and math this book will have you wanting more.

This book does an excellent job of making String Theory - a very complex topic - extremely clear, even to the reader who doesn't have much background in science. There's virtually no math in the book, with all of the concepts explained in plain-language and using clear examples.

I was really looking forward to a lucid explanation of string theory. For me, a lucid and interesting explanation would follow the lines of Heinz Pagels, who wrote "The Cosmic Code" and "Perfect Symmetry." Both wonderful books that leave the reader feeling like they learned something. When I read the reviews of this book, String Theory for Dummies, I was impressed and thought I would give it a try. I was dismayed. I read the intro, which laid out the game plan of the book, then in Part 1, I found that I was reading a re-run of the introduction, another game plan of the book. So now I had two parts of the book telling me what the book was going to tell me. The first goal of the book was my main interest - that is, "...to understand sting theory..." However, in no place in the book can I find an explanation of string theory, other than "...the universe is composed of vibrating filaments of energy, expressed in precise mathematical language." After that, all the author does is say that that is what it is. Then, the book continues on never explaining strings but only repeating that they are mathematical things. The author states: "if you subscribe to Popper's view (and many scientists don't), then string theory is certainly not scientific - at least not yet." Indeed, I am a scientist and I know many others, and the general trend is that we do follow Popper as correct most of the time. So now we see that string theory isn't even scientific. Basically, I got so disappointed with the book that I couldn't read it through, and instead, skipped and jumped around to see if it got better, and when I found that it didn't, I gave up. Now I am still looking for a good book to explain string theory. Or, perhaps I am looking for another physicist writer, such as Pagels (may he rest in peace), who can actually explain something - Greene, Randall and Smolin are also certainly NOT Pagels.

I'm about half-way through the book so my assessment at this point may be premature. It is great on identifying scientific terms, nomenclature, history, etc., and results but so far doesn't really demonstrate string theory at work.