Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions 1st Edition

by Lisa Randall (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0060531089

ISBN-10: 0060531088

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The universe has its secrets. It may even hide extra dimensions, different from anything ever imagined. A whole raft of remarkable conceptsnow rides atop the scientific firmament, including parallel universes, warped geometry, and threedimensional sink-holes. We understand far more about the world than we did just a few short years ago -- and yet we are more uncertain about the true nature of the universe than ever before. Have wereached a point of scientific discovery so advanced that the laws of physics as we know them are simply not sufficient? Will we all soon have to acceptexplanations that previously remained in the realm of science fiction?

Lisa Randall is herself making these extraordinary breakthroughs, pushing back the boundaries of science in her research to answer some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature. For example, why is the gravitational field from the entire Earth so defenseless against the small tug of a tiny magnet? Searching for answers to such seemingly irresolvable questions has led physicists to postulate extra dimensions, the presence of which may lead to unimaginable gains in scientific understanding. Randall takes us into the incredible world of warped, hidden dimensions that underpin the universe we live in, describing how we might prove their existence, while examining the questions that they still leave unanswered.

Warped Passages provides an exhilarating overview that tracks the arc of discovery from early twentieth-century physics to the razor's edge of today's particle physics and string theory, unweaving the current debates about relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity. In a highly readable style sure to entertain and elucidate, Lisa Randall demystifies the science and beguilingly unravels the mysteries of the myriad worlds that may exist just beyond the one we are only now beginning to know.

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The concept of additional spatial dimensions is as far from intuitive as any idea can be. Indeed, although Harvard physicist Randall does a very nice job of explaining—often deftly through the use of creative analogies—how our universe may have many unseen dimensions, readers' heads are likely to be swimming by the end of the book. Randall works hard to make her astoundingly complex material understandable, providing a great deal of background for recent advances in string and supersymmetry theory. As coauthor of the two most important scientific papers on this topic, she's ideally suited to popularize the idea. What is absolutely clear is that physicists simply do not yet know if there are extra dimensions a fraction of a millimeter in size, dimensions of infinite size or only the dimensions we see. What's also clear is that the large hadron collider, the world's most powerful tool for studying subatomic particles, is likely to provide information permitting scientists to differentiate among these ideas soon after it begins operation in Switzerland in 2007. Randall brings much of the excitement of her field to life as she describes her quest to understand the structure of the universe. B&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Randall, a professor of physics at Harvard, offers a tour of current questions in particle physics, string theory, and cosmology, paying particular attention to the thesis that more physical dimensions exist than are usually acknowledged. Writing for a general audience, Randall is patient and kind: she encourages readers to skip around in the text, corrals mathematical equations in an appendix at the back, and starts off each chapter with an allegorical story, in a manner recalling the work of George Gamow. Although the subject itself is intractably difficult to follow, the exuberance of Randall's narration is appealing. She's honest about the limits of the known, and almost revels in the uncertainties that underlie her work—including the possibility that some day it may all be proved wrong.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Product details

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Ecco; 1 edition (August 30, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060531088
ISBN-13: 978-0060531089
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.5 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 261 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #759,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #105 in Books > Science & Math > Physics > Nuclear Physics > Particle Physics
- #818 in Books > Science & Math > Astronomy & Space Science > Cosmology
- #2102 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Physics

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Top customer reviews

A nice job, but wasted on me

ByAndy in WashingtonTOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICEon February 20, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

It has been on my bucket list for quite some time to update my knowledge of physics. I am an electrical engineer, concentrating in semiconductors, so I have at least a "working knowledge" of particle physics and quantum dynamics. I wanted to understand a little more about multidimensional thinking and string theory, which are essential to the most modern physics.

Lisa Randall does a great job of explaining these concepts to the layman. She takes the reader through some marvelous explanations of spaces with more than three dimensions, and gives a great overview of the thinking that lead to string theory. While I do not have the most "conceptual" of minds, I did at least develop an understanding of what she was trying to explain.

While I have a decent background in higher level math, I am not sure if that was an advantage in reading this book or not. I think if I knew a little less math, I would have been more comfortable with her simplifications and handwaving. As it was, I kept getting bogged down in "fighting" with her explanations, trying to square them against the math I do understand. I have the feeling that if my math had stopped at HS calculus/geometry, I would have been much more open to the material.

But the biggest problem I had with the book was probably me. I discovered that in spite of my bucket-list, I was really not all that interested in the topic. I think I am just too old to upset my limited understanding of higher-level physics and starting all over. 6-dimensional spaces just give me a headache, and string theory isn't going to help my golf game as much as I had hoped.

So I would say that this book is as good an effort as you will find for walking you through these concepts, but just be careful what you ask for.

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Randall the best of all

ByAlbert Soon December 11, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I have read more than ten books on similar topics over the past ten years and I would rate this book by Prof. Randall the best of all. It seems that she fully understands what a pop-science reader really needs and lacks. Every time when a new idea was introduced, some questions and confusions immediately popped up in my mind. Then, a few paragraphs down there, she could foresee my confusions and explain them in details. Though it is a pop-science book for non-physicists, all concepts discussed are based on the most conscientious derivation of theories at the frontier of modern physics. Moreover, she always repeat talking about something novel and difficult from different angles so that a reader can continue to do revision until the concept is clearly understood. I still have no reservation to highly recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the forefront of development of physics though it was written some ten years ago.

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Hang With It

ByMichael L. Patrickon May 10, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I first heard Lisa Randall flogging here latest book on Science Friday earlier this year. She was compelling enough that I thought I wade into one of her books so I went back to one of her earliest efforts. Unfortunately it's a little bit out of date as the LHC has since become operational and few of her points were awaiting proof.

I'd tried a book on string theory about a decade ago by Brian Greene and a book on quantum mechanics by Richard Feynman and like those I found myself having to back track occasionally to remotely grasp the concepts. I'm a chemical engineer by training who has followed particle physics since the time there were only 4 elements. I think she's done a bit better than Greene in explaining the materials. Good enough in fact that I'll proceed to her next book and see if she improved her writing for the general public.

I guess one way to look at it is read this and compare where the science was in 2005 with what has happened since the LHC has come on line.

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Not Her Best Book

ByDonald G. Zeiteron May 21, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Let me say right off that the author is way smarter than I am and forgets more about physics than I will ever learn in my lifetime. String theory may or may not pan out but she knows an awful lot of the subject and I respect her greatly. I have read Knocking on Heaven's Door and Dark Matter and The Dinosaurs and found them both relatively easy to understand and informative. I don't mean this review of Warped Passages to diminish my respect for her knowledge of physics.

But the subtitle of the book is Unraveling The Mysteries Of The Universe's Hidden Dimensions and while it does a good job of talking about the hidden dimensions it never gets around to saying where these hidden dimensions are and why no one can find them.

Studying String Theory has to be frustrating. Because it seems to be all theory and no evidence. On page 61 there are 4 full paragraphs. Here is how each start (CAPS are mine):
1 - Other branes MIGHT be parallel to ours and MIGHT house parallel worlds.
2. - In a world in which branes are embedded in a higher-dimensional bulk, there COULD be some particles that explore the higher dimensions and others that stay trapped on Nranes.
3 - New forces confined to distant branes MIGHT exist.
4 - IF there is life on another brane, those beings, imprisoned in an entirely different environment, MOST LIKELY experience entirely different forces that are detected by different senses.

AGHHHHHHHHH!!!! It's all possible and speculative. String theory might or could or if. I could say there are parallel universe's that contain higher developed life forms and can direct actions in our world along the lines of the mythic Norse or Roman gods. And as I write that I should know that there really are people that believe in Norse or Roman gods and scoff at anything Lisa Randall or Brian Greene writes.

Eventually Randall gets to explaining the aspects of string theory and if you make it that far you get the feeling that it's all built on a base of sand. I doubt that there is a way to make ST exciting or interesting to those of us below Randall's IQ level like myself. If Einstein had come out with General Relativity with no way to ever test it he never would have been famous. But people can test his theories and space/time has pretty much stood up to scrutiny.

Unless you want to know more about ST and what makes up the different parts of the theory this book is probably not for you. Since it came out in 2005 there has a lot been done, especially with the LHC up and running, so maybe if she updated it today it could be a better read.

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Most recent customer reviews

WARPED - INDEED !

Tiny excited spiders weaving imaginary webs - the fragrance of Asperger .

Published 22 days ago by ratty

Five Stars

Fascinating book!

Published 1 month ago by Carl Nagel

Five Stars

just as described

Published 2 months ago by Joseph B Newland Jr

An Interesting read

Many interesting ideas with good explanations, my only real complaint is that they seem very repetitive saying the same thing multiple times in the same paragraph.

Published 2 months ago by Charles A. Lacour

Four Stars

Complex, sometimes hard to understand, but good

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer

Stunning

A very good and informative book. Thank you very much You have done well. I hope there are more books to follow.

Published 2 months ago by Kindle Customer

Warped Passages, a (relatively) simple walk-through advanced theoretical physics

It's some 50 years since my physics degrees, so a lot has happened in the field of elementary particles.Read more

Published 2 months ago by ANDREW R BEAN

Clear, Imagnative Explanations of Theoretical Physics

String theory, alternate universes and other unlikely seeming aspects of Physics are explained as clearly as can be done in words. A great read for Science Fiction fans.

Published 2 months ago by John Jennings

Interesting and complex

Not a beginners book. Very well written but concepts pretty complex.

Published 3 months ago by loumas77

Great read!

Published 7 months ago by Mike Galloway

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