Only partially elegant

In the first part of “The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory”, the foundations of relativity and quantum mechanics are explained vividly and with great examples. It is the best introduction I have read so far and clearly 5 stars.

However, I have problems with the second part because it isn’t grounded enough. For example, in Chapter 11, the author writes as a “first-person narrator” about his discoveries and which professors he discussed them with. This doesn’t read like a non-fiction book, but like an autobiography. The author loses critical distance from his own research here. And in my opinion, he also forgets too often that string “theory” is merely a hypothesis.

In physics, mathematical models are created to represent physical reality as accurately as possible. First, a conjecture—a hypothesis—is established as a set of formulas. Only when the formulas have been tested or verified often enough in experiments and provide sufficiently accurate results are they classified as “correct,” and the model is then referred to as a “theory.” Strictly speaking, one should therefore not speak of “string theory” or “big bang theory,” as they are still hypotheses.</p>

At this point in time, “string theory” is just a mathematical model, a concept. It is theoretical mathematics rather than physics. String particles are so small that they can neither be physically investigated nor meaningfully simulated with computers.

It is probably still too early for string theory (or superstring or M-theory). Thus, researchers are doing “advance research” in the hope of finding the missing puzzle pieces. Whether it makes economic sense to look for a needle in a haystack is another question. That did not factor into my rating. To me, the author is not self-critical enough.

• Brian Greene
• The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
• Vintage Books
• 2005

See also the review on Amazon.