Customer Reviews
A ripping yarn! - By: A. N. Mackay-james, 12 Sep 2008 
This book makes me wish I'd carried on studying. Greene has a gift for putting accross a very exoteric subjectin accessible language. He avoids hand-waving & bogging you downin technical terms. I couldn't put this book down... which is saying something for a popular science book.
Great Explanation of Superstrings and More! - By: C. Clayton, 23 Aug 2008 I am an engineer by education & experience. Like many engineers I am fascinated with the subject of quantum mechanics, superstrings, hidden dimensions, the quest for the theory of everything, parallel universes & more. Much of it isn't easy to understand, but it sure is fun!
For years I had been hearing about superstrings. I have read In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, books on Einstein's theories, & more. I have also read articles on these subjects, watched several amazing TV shows & movies. Some teased the idea of superstrings, but I never came away with a feeling that the concept had been explained properly.
Brian Green's book the Elegant Universe, & the subsequent PBS show does just that! It gives the best explanation of superstrings I have read (and seen) to date. Green also does a great job explaining parallel universes, hidden dimensions, quest for the ultimate theory & more.
The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
Not a "light" read - By: King Tut, 18 Jun 2008 
Brian Greene has a talent for conveying complex ideasin a way that is easy to understand. He is constantly using word pictures (and sometimes actual pictures) to explain relativity, quantum theory, & other topics that are utterly fascinating but are sometimes difficult to get your brain around. Elegant Universe is not a light read, but for those looking to get a moderate understanding of the subject matter I highly recommend it.
Too much personal history. Disappointed promise. - By: Thanadaraya, 18 Apr 2008 
I took this book with me on holiday with great hopes. It started well with the tables of complete & regular features of fondamental particles exercising my imagination & being very satisfying to show how a few particles could engender all the complexity of the elementary particles, then the atoms, etc.... Many of the other reviews here show the other good & strong points, as well as some of the weaknesses of this book. I will not go through them again.
I did find the " internal personal history " of the author & his colleagues over long & of some, but not much relevance to the subject. At the end of the book, I was left unsatisfied by the promise of the beginning with the neat tables of fundamental particles, I felt we knew nothing of how each, & which, different frequency of the vibrating strings engendered a specific fondamental particle.
An Introduction to SuperstringTheory/M Theory - By: Rama Rao, 15 Nov 2007 This book offers an enjoyable ride through a lovely landscape of Superstring theory/M theory. The author is an active researcher & a popular writerin this field who is also known for his presentation on PBS's NOVA about quantum cosmology. Since the postulation of special theory of relativity, Einstein & subsequent physicists have struggled to explain the four natural forces of the most basic components of matter; the electromagnetic force; the strong & weak nuclear forces; & the gravitational force by one unified field theory (a.k.a., theory of everything: Superstring/M Theory). This theory must unify the forces of the cosmos, & forces of microcosm thereby explaining the creation of heaven & earth. The author covers significant amount of materialin simple clearly written non-technical & non-mathematical form. The book is describedin four parts; first two parts introduces theory of relativity & quantum mechanics & the unholy marriage of the two that resultsin the complexity of understanding the forces of the cosmos & subatomic forces. The latter two parts describes Superstring theory that evolves into more focused M theory to explain all physical forces of nature. This theory suffers from lack of experimental evidence, but rests solely on mathematical calculations. Hence it was subjected to heavy criticism during early years of the theory by leading physicists. However it has emerged as a winner as the theory grew out of academic obscurity to leading contenderin quantum cosmology. The book has interesting tales about the leaders of the field such as Ed Witten who is strongly favored as the true successor of Albert Einstein. The author's enthusiasm & excitement about his involvementin this field is evident abundantly, when he discovers that fabric of space tears & repairs itself. This book is lot more informative & enjoyable than Michio Kaku's Hyperspace (see my review of this book). At the end of the book, notes to each chapter, Glossary of scientific terms, & suggested books for further reading offers stepping stones to more enthusiastic readers for furthering their knowledge. The author has done an excellent job of writing this book, & I encourage you to buy it: But he could have considered writing a chapter on mathematical methodology & some basic approaches to calculations that probably would have made this book one of the top fewin this field.
