Brian Greene's "Elegant Universe" (1 Viewer)

[M-turkey]

I have finally found a store that had a copy of this book!

Has anyone else read it? Or seen the SBS specials?

 

[KFunk]

I read it some time last year. I discovered the documentry [here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/] after having read the book and I found they didn't have as much depth as the book but they did have some nice visualisations of what was being talked about. Greene is very good at expressing such complex concepts and has created a text that provides a good layman's understanding of these theories.

You should probably move this to the main part of the physics forum since the book also goes over the basics of relativity and this is just a generally good book for any physics student to read since it's fascinating and written in an entertaining way.

 

[Will Hunting]

Caught the SBS series and loved it. Another great read is 'Quantum', by Jim Al-Khalili. It's outside the scope of the HSC course but is still definitely worth a peek.

 

[m111]

A top series! Brilliant information... but spoilt, I thought, by the Americanisms and love of over simplified analogies... sometimes it kinda lost its way a little!

 

[zahid]

it was bloody tops...i luved all that string theory...so i ended up downloading the whole 2gig dvd from a torrent.

 

[m111]

it was bloody tops...i luved all that string theory...so i ended up downloading the whole 2gig dvd from a torrent.

yeah! shame we dont get to do string theory...

 

[CJBrownie]

I saw the documentary on SBS........... I'd looked into string theory before that though. I thought it was pretty good.

I went to the bookshop to purchase Stephen Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell", and saw the "Elegant Universe" book, which I didn't realise they had and I might buy it later.

 

[Xayma]

yeah! shame we dont get to do string theory...

Too heavy on the mathematics and concepts to teach in High School Physics.

 

[KFunk]

A person can dream .

 

[m111]

A person can dream .

Indeed... *SIGH* (and on another level...)

HA! Dreams? Of string theory?
Nice pun, KFunk...

 

[KFunk]

. I felt I should draw attention to the google advertising on this page. I just found it slightly amusing:


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[Newbie]

haha i downloaded it too
and fuck i dont even do physics
and fuck im in uni

 

[HQ_BUDDY]

whats was the name of the shop that u got the elegant universe form i loved the documentary, actually i only seen half of the first part dam i forgot about the rest of it . oh well im really interested in the book of it, itll be in mored depth and ill like that.

 

[Xayma]

You can get it from the PBS site.

Otherwise large online DVD shops should have it. You wouldnt be able to find it in shops.

 

[KFunk]

You're going to want to have a good connection.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

 

[M-turkey]

You can most probably order is through Dymocks. ( A good idea if you have a modem because you'll probably get it by mail faster)

I am surprised by how many people saw the show, even on the Limewire network there are around 75 hosts with each episode.

 

[KFunk]

If you were going to order somethign you'd be better off getting the book. It's much better than the series IMO and the series serves better as something for afterwards to help you visualize the concepts.

 

[CJBrownie]

Just picked up the book today... Can't wait to get into it..

 

[Antwan23q]

I just downloaded the show and bought the book, its awesome as.

 

[kurt.physics]

I loved the TV series, I have watched it litrally 21 times. Havn't read the book, to busy reading 'first three minutes' (which i must also say is an interesting book on the origin and 'evolution' of our universe). But i did see in the Doccumentaries (Elegant Universe) that it was a bit dodgy (but most of it was alright). For example, in the second episode, strings the thing, it mentioned that the other 6 dimensions were wraped up and were really small (Calibu-Yau). But in the next episode it was implyed that these dimension were now massive (by saying that the membranes were floating in higher-dimensional space). This was most mis leading. It also mensioned that gravity was leaking out of our membrane, which is alright, but, theories proposed by Lisa Randall (Harvard professor) say that gravity is leaking off of a nother brane. This theory (Lisa Randalls) is believed to be more 'persuasive' so to speak as it explains more things (not to go into detail).

Also I found it interesting that it had not mensioned that we cant see these huge dimensions (in reference to the membranes and large dimensions) because the photon is chained to the membrane but instead said that we cant because we are linked to the brane.

Any way, does any one actually think that string theory is right (or on the right track). And who believes that the dimensions are on the Calibu-Yau or are super large?