Amanda Gefter, CultureLab editor
(Image: Sipa Press / Rex Features)
Arcane yet exciting physics, wrapped up in effortless prose. Yes, Brian Greene has done it again. His new book, The Hidden Reality, does for multiverses what his bestseller The Elegant Universe did for string theory: it provides the general reader with a thorough, engaging survey of the subject that manages to make highly abstract ideas sound implausibly comprehensible.
The notion that our universe may be one of perhaps infinitely many universes that compose an unimaginably vast multiverse has become fashionable in physics these days - and for good reason. As Greene explains, no matter where physicists turn, they seem to run into some kind of parallel world. From basic quantum physics to cosmology to string theory, the equations are oozing universes.
At the same time, the subject has tensions flaring between physicists who view the multiverse as a panacea for all of physics's ills and those who deride it as untestable metaphysics. As Greene puts it, the multiverse has become the "battleground for the very soul of science" (see Interview, New Scientist, 5 February, p 30).
So there couldn't be a better time for a book to sort out the many strange passages of the multiverse. To start, there is more than one notion of a multiverse; Greene tackles nine. They range from the bubble universes spawned by a continuous chain of big bangs to the possibility that we may one day create simulated universes on our desktops. You may be reading this in a simulated world right now. Or perhaps infinite versions of you are reading this over and over, scattered throughout relentlessly expansive space. One thing, though, is common to all views: reality is not what it seems.
I found the most intriguing multiverse to be the holographic variety. The idea is that our world, with its three spatial dimensions, is actually a holographic projection of a parallel world residing on its two-dimensional boundary. It is an idea that Greene explores in fascinating depth, and no wonder: it literally had him dancing with joy. "I faced the audience, threw my right hand to my left shoulder and my left hand to my right shoulder, and then with both hands in succession grabbed the seat of my pants, bunny-hopped and made a quarter turn." You may recognise these moves as the Macarena - Greene was dancing it at a 1998 physics conference in excitement over the theoretical holographic universe discovered by physicist Juan Maldacena. Heyyyy, Maldacena!
Most importantly, even while making the subject accessible, Greene doesn't shy away from important nuances or profound philosophical questions. I suspect that this will be a hugely popular book - in this universe and many, many others.
Book Information
The Hidden Reality: Parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos
by Brian Greene
Alfred A. Knopf / Allen Lane
$29.95 / �25
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