Three Roads To Quantum Gravity (Science Masters) Reprint Edition

by Lee Smolin (Author)

77 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0465078363

ISBN-10: 0465078362

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"It would be hard to imagine a better guide to this difficult subject."

--Scientific American

In Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Lee Smolin provides an accessible overview of the attempts to build a final "theory of everything." He explains in simple terms what scientists are talking about when they say the world is made from exotic entities such as loops, strings, and black holes and tells the fascinating stories behind these discoveries: the rivalries, epiphanies, and intrigues he witnessed firsthand.

"Provocative, original, and unsettling." -The New York Review of Books

"An excellent writer, a creative thinker."-Nature

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It would be hard to imagine a better guide to this difficult subject." -- Scientific American

"Lee [Smolin] is a brilliant, original thinker." -- Roger Penrose, quoted in The New York Times Magazine

"This is real twenty-first-century science." -- Allen Lane, Independent

"[Smolin] argues lucidly and effectively ...This is a deeply philosophical work." -- New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Royal Society of Canada, Smolin was awarded the 2009 Klopsteg Memorial Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers and in 2008 was voted 21st on a list of the 100 most influential public intellectuals by Prospect and Foreign Policy Magazines. He is again on that list in 2015. This year Marina Cortes and he were also awarded the Inaugural Buchalter Cosmology Prize. He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and numerous essays and writings for the public on science, as well as four books.

Series: Science Masters
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Reprint edition (July 4, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465078362
ISBN-13: 978-0465078363
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 9.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 77 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #992 in Quantum Theory (Books)
- #457 in Relativity Physics (Books)
- #162 in Physics of Gravity (Books)

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Robert A. Navarro

what the current thinking in physics is about

May 22, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Lee Smolin highlights string theory as being the best theory for quantum gravity.
However, loop quantum gravity theory is better, especially since it does not need
multiple dimensions--nor a fixed framework. Smolin does present a very cohesive
and lengthy explanation of string theory, which is why the title is somewhat misleading.

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Mark Abrams

An easy to read book about a complex subject!

March 1, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As a layperson (and closet science geek), I really appreciated the author's straightforward and mostly non-mathematical approach to a difficult and incomplete new theory about quantum gravity. It covers three approaches which include super strings and M theory and black hole thermodynamics, both of which I hadn't really looked into before. It was great fun and I really enjoyed reading this book!

I found this work to be brilliant and very thought-provoking and would highly recommend it to anyone who may not be a physicist, but has some basic knowledge of science and would like to learn more about a fascinating subject!

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Pedro B. Celis

Finally someone that understands Thermodynamics !!!

February 21, 2002

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Lee Smolin indeed accomplishes the tasks of explaining the thermodynamics of the universe to the layman. This is something that I have only seen in this book. All other authors do not like to get entangled in the intrincacies of thermodynamics, even though thermodynamics is actually the science that allows to relate the macro and the micro. In this book you will get a much better idea of how thermodynamics plays such an important role in our universe.
But Lee Smolin does not stops there. This is a book that also teaches us how the concepts of philosophy and social sciences, and the concepts of pure hard science are so closely related. In the wonderfully laymans vocabulary of physics, mathematics, thermodynamics and philosophy, Lee Smolin tells us about Plato and about Hawkins in the same context.
We come to understand how the newtonian concept of the universe took us too far from the understanding of social sciences, and how after a journey through Einstein, science is slowly coming back to be closely related to the social sciences.
We used to think that an observer should be independent, and we made every effort to accomplish that. However, to understand the universe, we can not be independent observers. We are inside!!! It is the same as in sociology or any other social science. We can not be independent observers and we have to accept it.
We learn to understand that our universe is not a thing but a story that has to be told. The universe can only be explained by the logic of plurality; the logic of many logics. The logic of many dependent observers added together. We understand that nothing is absolute and everything is relational just as should be in social sciences.
The view that Lee Smolin gives us about the task ahead for scientists searching for the unified theory of the Cosmos is a view that may finally eliminate the division of hard science and social sciences. It may also help develop new points of view in our view of our society.
At the end, as incredible as it may seem, we are back to square one, we are somehow back to Plato's philosophy, but with the added value of a story of the Cosmos that Plato never dreamt of.
Five Stars to this book that get us a step closer to understanding ourselves and our environment.

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Douglas Mckenzie

This book got me started on a 2 year study of QFT

November 10, 2004

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Smolin's presentation of the three theories was so thought provoking for me that I realized that I wanted to learn more. I had majored in Physics 35 years ago so I had QM and SR under my belt but nothing more modern. One thing that I particualry liked about Smolin's presentation of the three theories currently being worked on - superstring theory, quantum loop theory and blackhole thermodynamics - was the balanced way he kept saying how all three undoubtedly would contribute to the ongoing progress rather than trying to say one has to be right to the exclusion of the other two - it's simply too early to tell. I've spent 2 years (with a tutor) studying QFT in order, hopefully, to be able to at least approach the mathematics behind these theories. I've just ordered a "First Course in String Theory" and realized that I had never written a review of Smolen's book to so-to-speak thank him so I now fill that gap.

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