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Recommend me a book--on string theory/modern physics/cosmology in general

B

blamb425

Senior member
Recently, I've been watching a lot of snippets and video clips featuring the likes of Dr. Michio Kaku, Lawrence Krauss, etc. Incredibly fascinating stuff--I'm looking for a book (or many) related to the topics (string theory, modern quantum physics, and so on), but I'm not sure where to start, so I figured I'd look for some suggestions here first.
 
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My suggestion is to get a really good layman's grounding in classical physics and quantum mechanics first. There are a LOT of good popsci books out there on general relativity and quantum mechanics. I would read at least 3 or 4 of these first till you have a good understanding of what came before. And what's still used 99.99% of the time. String theory and its alternatives are exciting and ARE grounded in solid math but they are not grounded by evidence or the scientific method, and are for the moment largely immune to proof or disproof. This puts these theories in a dangerous gray limbo area where they start to take on aspects of philosophy (not that there is anything wrong with that 😉 ) Again I'm not saying they are psudo science they are absolutely NOT but without any viable way to subject them to testing at this point they aren't well enough grounded as they should be. Anyway caveat aside once you have read those or if you already have a good popsci understanding of the fundamentals then I'd recommend Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elegant_Universe
 
Locut0s said:
My suggestion is to get a really good layman's grounding in classical physics and quantum mechanics first. There are a LOT of good popsci books out there on general relativity and quantum mechanics. I would read at least 3 or 4 of these first till you have a good understanding of what came before. And what's still used 99.99% of the time. String theory and its alternatives are exciting and ARE grounded in solid math but they are not grounded by evidence or the scientific method, and are for the moment largely immune to proof or disproof. This puts these theories in a dangerous gray limbo area where they start to take on aspects of philosophy (not that there is anything wrong with that 😉 ) Again I'm not saying they are psudo science they are absolutely NOT but without any viable way to subject them to testing at this point they aren't well enough grounded as they should be. Anyway caveat aside once you have read those or if you already have a good popsci understanding of the fundamentals then I'd recommend Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elegant_Universe
Click to expand...

Actually, they have been proven in parallel universe 4 and 8. Sadly, in 11, they have erroneously disproven them.
 
An easy to understand book I'd recommend is Death by black hole:
and other cosmic quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Lots of info about the universe and black holes.

It's a good book for starters interested in that kind of stuff
 
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+1 for the Elegant Universe.

I haven't read any of his non-biographical stuff, but Richard Feynman's books are supposed to be great for learning the basics of physics.
 
I just finished up Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It's fiction, but it's a great read and it incorporates a lot of math... and it integrates multiple-cosmos theories of quantum physics into the story in such a way that it kind of helps you get a bit more of a grip on it.
 
Atom: A Single Oxygen Atom's Journey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth...and Beyond

 Lawrence M. Krauss
(C) 2001 by author
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN 978-0316183093
 
Craig234 said:
Really? Theoretical physics think there might be parallel universes. That was a joke.
Click to expand...

Ok I was wondering if you were being serious or if it was a joke 😛

And technically speaking they mostly hypothesis the existence of extra spacial dimensions.
 
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