 | |
 View Larger |
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe By Roger Penrose ( Vintage )
Release Date: 2007-01-09
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $26.00
Price: $17.16
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|  Add to Cart |
|
|
Product Description
Roger Penrose, one of the most accomplished scientists of our time, presents the only comprehensive and comprehensible account of the physics of the universe. From the very first attempts by the Greeks to grapple with the complexities of our known world to the latest application of infinity in physics, The Road to Reality carefully explores the movement of the smallest atomic particles and reaches into the vastness of intergalactic space. Here, Penrose examines the mathematical foundations of the physical universe, exposing the underlying beauty of physics and giving us one the most important works in modern science writing.
|
Amazon.com Review
If Albert Einstein were alive, he would have a copy of The Road to Reality on his bookshelf. So would Isaac Newton. This may be the most complete mathematical explanation of the universe yet published, and Roger Penrose richly deserves the accolades he will receive for it. That said, let us be perfectly clear: this is not an easy book to read. The number of people in the world who can understand everything in it could probably take a taxi together to Penrose's next lecture. Still, math-friendly readers looking for a substantial and possibly even thrillingly difficult intellectual experience should pick up a copy (carefully--it's over a thousand pages long and weighs nearly 4 pounds) and start at the beginning, where Penrose sets out his purpose: to describe "the search for the underlying principles that govern the behavior of our universe." Beginning with the deceptively simple geometry of Pythagoras and the Greeks, Penrose guides readers through the fundamentals--the incontrovertible bricks that hold up the fanciful mathematical structures of later chapters. From such theoretical delights as complex-number calculus, Riemann surfaces, and Clifford bundles, the tour takes us quickly on to the nature of spacetime. The bulk of the book is then devoted to quantum physics, cosmological theories (including Penrose's favored ideas about string theory and universal inflation), and what we know about how the universe is held together. For physicists, mathematicians, and advanced students, The Road to Reality is an essential field guide to the universe. For enthusiastic amateurs, the book is a project to tackle a bit at a time, one with unimaginable intellectual rewards. --Therese Littleton
|
|
 The universe in a hard-to-crack nutshell ( manwarin12 )
I love this book! After so many pop science tomes(Strings for Simpletons, etc), it was so fine to find a book that dumps it all on you and interconnects so many ideas and disciplines. I'll be reading parts of it for years, and reading physics texts to try to make out the more obscure sections and connections. And I think it's cool that he makes no bones about being a Platonist ("scratch a mathematician, find a mystic!"). I'm so glad he spent the time to put all these ideas together in one volume! WARNING, bachelor's degree in math or physics pretty much necessary.
|
 Review only ( kenbraithwaite )
Alas I must give thumbs down to this book. If you know the material then it can be a useful roadmap with some interesting highlights, but when he gets into an area you don't already know the book has little value. He doesn't explain the math, so it come across as a list of facts. Does a list of facts about tensors really sound useful? Compare this to the brilliant job Kolmogorov and others did in "Mathematics".
Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning Buy that instead.
|
a natural wonder ( ctzn )
Wow. For the layperson, this is like an extended hiking tour of an astonishing natural wonder like the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest. But in this case, we see the natural wonder that is the clarifying insight of a master physicist. Here's one example: For the physicist, numbers are the basis of powerful calculations. But Penrose, the master physicist, sees more than that. He sees "terminating" as well as "infinite" architectural processes from which they are constructed. And in this way he describes, as the basis of reality, the finite meeting the infinite. (Which seems to me like poetic truth.)
|
Not the usual watered down pop physics book. ( starkeffects )
This book took some time to read! In my opinion, if you want to understand current work in physics, you need to have the basics under your belt. Roger Penrose starts with the basics and works all the way through at a very challenging pace. He introduces the necessary math in a very straight forward, easy to understand way in the first few chapters and they were fascinating! After that, it gets even better building on the very basics where he began. This is not one of those books that you can read in a weekend or on a long plane trip, so plan to take some time and enjoy this one. It will be well worth the effort.
|
The Road To Reality
I highly recommend the reading of this impressive book. It is able to embrace almost all of the mathematical background a serious theoretical physicist should have...and it does so in a both deeply and understandable fashion. It is suitable for anyone interested in knowing why something arising from tbe human mind is capable to describe the Universe. This book may be suplemmented by Geometry, Topology and Physics, Second Edition (Graduate Student Series in Physics), by Mikio Nakahara, a reading recommended for those who may want to go even deeper into the mathematics-physics relationship.
|
|
|
