by Brian Greene (Author)

The bestselling author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos tackles perhaps the most mind-bending question in modern physics and cosmology: Is our universe the only universe?

There was a time when "universe" meant all there is. Everything. Yet, a number of theories are converging on the possibility that our universe may be but one among many parallel universes populating a vast multiverse. Here, Briane Greene, one of our foremost physicists and science writers, takes us on a breathtaking journey to a multiverse comprising an endless series of big bangs, a multiverse with duplicates of every one of us, a multiverse populated by vast sheets of spacetime, a multiverse in which all we consider real are holographic illusions, and even a multiverse made purely of math--and reveals the reality hidden within each.

Using his trademark wit and precision, Greene presents a thrilling survey of cutting-edge physics and confronts the inevitable question: How can fundamental science progress if great swaths of reality lie beyond our reach? The Hidden Reality is a remarkable adventure through a world more vast and strange than anything we could have imagined.

Review

“If extraterrestrials landed tomorrow and demanded to know what the human mind is capable of accomplishing, we could do worse than to hand them a copy of this book.”

—Timothy Ferris, The New York Times Book Review“Few living writers write so lucidly about such complicated stuff. In

Greene’s prose, cutting-edge cosmology and particle physics become something a plucky and well-rested reader can apprehend. . . Greene might be the best intermediary I’ve found between the sparkling, absolute zero world of mathematics and the warm, clumsy world of human language.”

—Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe

“Mr. Greene has a gift for elucidating big ideas . . . Exciting and rewarding . . . [The Hidden Reality] captures and engages the imagination.”

—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“It's impossible to summarize every step of Greene's balletic footwork, by which, like some multi-limbed Asian deity, he dances into being each different theoretical framework that could support multiple universes. . . His arguments are constructed like classical cathedrals, with intricate arches and buttresses that all uphold the central spire. Sometimes you think he's lost in the details of some sculpted gargoyle, only to realize how essential to the whole structure this particular feature is.”

—Paul di Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review

“[Greene] leads the general reader on an excursion to the farthest and most mind-bending reaches of speculative physics . . . An exhilarating—if sometimes vertigo-inducing—journey.”

—Alden Mudge, Bookpage

Categories : Quantum Theory, Cosmology, Astrophysics & Space Science

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004C43ETO

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 0 edition (January 25, 2011)

Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 25, 2011

Language ‏ : ‎ English

File ‏ : ‎ EPUB, 1600 KB

Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported

Print length ‏ : ‎ 527 pages