Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cosmological natural selection, September 4, 2003
Lee Smolin's speculative book is revolutionary.
For him, physics are not mathematics, but biology. Cosmology is a question of natural selection. This selection happens via black holes, where universes are created with slightly different random new values for the parameters of the standard model in physics.
There are no eternal laws, only worlds which are the result of random and statistical processes of self-organization.I agree, there are a lot of ifs in this book, with a crucial one on p. 93: 'If quantum effects prevent the formation of singularities ... then time does not end in the centre of black holes, but continues into some new region of space-time.' Smolin explains that behind the central principles of relativity and quantum mechanics lies the essential fact that 'All properties of things in the world are only aspects of relations among real things, so that they may be decribed without reference to any absolute background structures.' (p.259)
For Smolin, the future of physics is to find a solution for the tension between the atomist description of elementary particles, and their relational use in the gauge principle. He believes that string theory is part of the solution. Smolin's point of view is partly shared by the late Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine in his difficult book 'The End of Certainty'. Even if his theory is falsified, this book is a real bargain, because it contains magnificently clear (a real bonus) explanations of the 4 basic forces in physics, the gauge principle, symmetry breaking, quantum mechanics, gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, the theory of natural selection, Leibniz's philosophy, the reason why mathematical and logical truths may be eternal ... I could go on.
Into the bargain, it contains a deadly attack on determinism and a very polite but definitive refutation of the anthropic principle. A great book by a true and free humanist.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeper into the Cosmological Argument, December 13, 1999
By A Customer
Smolin attempts two things in this book: to put forth a novel idea of how the laws of nature have come to be as they are, and to develop for the non-expert reader the context of why such an explanation of the laws of nature is necessary. The novel idea, cosmological natural selection, which has been described in other reviews, is fascinating. Whether or not it is true, or how it could be proven either true or false, is deeply problematic. Regardless, Smolin has demonstrated that we can provide a consistent answer to the cosmological argument without resorting to theistic reasoning. And unlike the extreme reductionists, he accounts for the full intricacy of the physical, biological, and cultural world we live in. The second function of this book, providing a context for his theory, is an even more successful endeavor. The subject matter here is much the same as Paul Davies' "The Mind of God," but Smolin's book is more comprehensive. Despite being the most poorly copy-edited book I have ever encountered, I consider this a great book.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book, if not the greatest, January 6, 1999
A unified theory that would give us an objective and complete view for our world has always been the dream of physicists.Lee Smolin in his extraordinary book illustrates many significant views of the obstacles facing the unification of general relativity and quantum theory into one universal cosmological theory that could provide us, in principle, an objective and complete understanding for the universe as a whole. In his masterpiece, he does not only explains the previous efforts to approach such a theory like the string theory or inflationary models, but also discusses the philosophical obstacles facing them in a very persuasive and intellectual way. Furthermore, he proposes a theory, which he calls "The cosmological natural selection", that is similar, to a certain extent, to the evolution theory in Biology in which universes are a product of a bounce or explosion in a black hole when the matter reaches a certain density. Unlike the case of singularity in which time just ceases, Smolin proposes the continuity of time and an explosion which will 'slightly' change the parameters of the elementary particles, or their physical properties (mass, charge, etc.), in that new created universe. These parameters are the rule for creating more universes if their settings allow the universe to have more black holes and thus, more new created universes. What is most interesting I think is the type of questions that the author poses in each chapter. For they spark a very deep, yet casual, philosophical wonders that puzzled our world for centuries. This book is for anyone who would like the taste the joy on an intellectual philosophical and scientific journey that tries to unveil some of the mysteries of this world.
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