Hiding In The Mirror: The Mysterious Allure Of Extra Dimensions, From Plato To String Theory And Beyond (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Sometimes I feel that some -- repeat, some -- popular physics writers forget that they write for people without physics background. Well, that applies to this book.Don't get me wrong, I like Lawrence Krauss; his "Physics of Star Trek" was good. Unfortunately in this one he seemed to miss what made that book enjoyable: more diagrams, more analogy, and less name-checking obscure scientific figures.I mean, readers familiar with physics know about Kaluza, Yang-Mills, and the likes. They also, at least supposedly, have idea about supergravity, supersymmetry, spin, meson, etc. The problem with this book is not that the terms were not explained -- they WERE -- but slogging through the pages, less-accustomed readers will start to wonder: "Uh, what does meson mean again...?"You have the idea.It gets slightly worse with how many physicists' and mathematicians' name dropped like confetti. Here's an example I take randomly (from page 169):"But even before all of this—indeed, within a few years of the first GUT proposal and of Wess and Zumino’s elucidation of the possibility of supersymmetry in our four-dimensional universe—there was another reason proposed for considering a supersymmetric universe, but this time not in four dimensions, but rather in eleven dimensions. As I keep stressing, the development of GUTs set the stage for far more ambitious theoretical speculations about nature. Once scientists were seriously willing to consider scales a million billion times smaller than current experiments could directly measure, why not consider scales a billion-billion times smaller? This scale is the Planck scale, where as I have mentioned one must come face to face with the problems of trying to unite gravity and quantum mechanics. Thus it was that from 1974 onward, a growing legion of physicists began to turn their attentions to this otherwise esoteric legacy of Einstein."So, yeah...I would give 3 stars because of neat chronological exposition, also, for explaining context behind the scene of discoveries. Seriously though: it could have been better.
This is a very problematic book. At best it's a call for science to remain true to its experimental roots and not slip into a faith based religion of mathematics. At worst it's a bitter (name dropping) rant at the current crop of young (post 1984) physicists who have eclipsed the careers of the good old boys who work with particles and heavy lifting machinery.No-one - let alone me, can say who is correct yet, but I can certainly comment on how successful the writing in this book is. It suffers from not really knowing who it's audience is for. Sometimes he's writing for String theorists, trying to convince his (mostly younger) colleagues they are too enthusiastic. Other sections seem to be aimed at a more popular audience, but lack the clear exposition other books in this field have. He is certainly not an educator - often leaving out important steps in his examples because he makes huge assumptions about his readers' knowledge. Diagrams are often unclear, and many analogies are murky.The best of this book is the roughly chronological history of the theories that bit the dust, and how many of these were subsequently dusted off in new contexts several decades later. However his skepticism about String theory paints most of the current possibilities in the same colour as the red herrings of the past, so it can be confusing to follow which of the competing models was/is accepted and/or promising Science.His mantra that Science should not be emotional or enthusiastic about things might make a good researcher, but it makes for a very dry book. That said - I'm still looking forward to his new Post Cern/Higgs book - where he presumably puts the boot into those sloppy stringers once again. :-)
What do You think about Hiding In The Mirror: The Mysterious Allure Of Extra Dimensions, From Plato To String Theory And Beyond (2005)?
I actually didn't finished it, I've just given up, something I rarely do. The problem with this book is that it pretends to be something it's not. I picked it up based on a summary that led me to believe this was a discussion of how the theme of parallel dimensions have been used in science fiction and fantasy literature for many years, with a bit of explanation of the physics behind the concept and why the authors of said literature have misunderstood the underlying physics. I expected it to be written in terms a layperson could understand.Instead, it's an in-depth discussion of the history of the physics behind alternate dimensions, with very, very little discussion of literature at all. The non-science discussion is basically limited to an introduction in which the author explains how The Twilight Zone inspired him to become a physicists, and a few chapter-opening quotes (though most chapter-opening quotes are from physicists). Much of the discussion involves mathematical concepts that are indecipherable to someone like me, who considers math to be a particularly incomprehensible foreign language. When the author describes these concepts as metaphors, I understand the concepts better. However, Krauss does this far less than I expected. Someone with a better background in math and/or physics and an interest in dimensions in space time would probably enjoy it better than I did.
—Celestine
The spine of this bookhas been staring at me from my shelf for a while. I started it once, but found it all too easy to set aside. I think the problem is less with Krauss than with the subject matter: extra hidden dimensions in string theory and elsewhere. This area of study is still awaiting its Lincoln Barnett .I took up the cudgels again owing to an inquiry from Scott Sigler. This time I finished it, though by end the game hardly seemed worth the candle. If you're looking for an incisive critique of string theory, you're better off with Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics"; if you're trying to get the scoop on large extra dimensions (as I was for Scott), then Lisa Randall's "Warped Passages" would be the way to go.Here one gets the sense that Krauss, who did such a masterful job of science popularization in "The Physics of Star Trek," has simply gotten tired of (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde's description of a fox hunt) explaining the inscrutable to the unedifiable.He's also gotten tired of writing -- or at least of reading over what he's written, or he wouldn't leave in place such boners as (p. 53) "In physics, as in horeshoes, being merely close is not good enough." What makes this gaffe particularly egregious is that he subsequently gets it right ("close is *only* useful in horseshoes and hand grenades," p. 160), and then back-references the place where he got it wrong.
—Bill
This book first published in 2005 is a balanced, clearly written history of the allure of extra spatial dimensions in both science and literature. The main goal of this book is to show how these extra spatial dimensions are ultimately used in string theory which is claimed by its promoters to be the ultimate theory of physics able to unify all the forces of nature. This author is justifiably more skeptical of string theory than other book authors on the subject because the theory has yet to produce any testable predictions. I did especially enjoy chapter 7 entitled "From Flatland to Picasso" which described the history of multiple dimensions outside of science starting in the late 1800's.
—David Olmsted
