¡°Send[s] the reader¡¯s imagination hurtling through space on an astonishing ride. . . . He is both a skilled and kindly explicator. His excitement for science on the threshold of vital breakthroughs is extremely contagious.¡± -The New York Times
¡°The best exposition and explanation of early 21st-century research into the fundamental nature of the universe as you are likely to find anywhere.¡± -Science
¡°Perhaps the single best explainer of abstruse science in the world today. . . . Greene has a gift for finding the right metaphor.¡± -The Washington Post
¡°I recommend Greene¡¯s book to any nonexpert reader who wants an up-to-date account of theoretical physics, written in colloquial language that anyone can understand.¡± -Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books
¡°As pure intellectual adventure, this is about as good as it gets. . . . Even compared with A Brief History of Time, Greene¡¯s book stands out for its sweeping ambition . . . stripping down the mystery from difficult concepts without watering down the science.¡± -Newsday
"Greene is as elegant as ever, cutting through the fog of complexity with insight and clarity. Space and time, you might even say, become putty in his hands." -Los Angeles Times
Preface
Part I Reality's Arena
1. Roads to Reality ¡¦ 3
2. The Universe and the Bucket ¡¦ 23
3. Relativity and the Absolute ¡¦ 39
4. Entangling Space ¡¦ 77
Part II Time and Experience
5. The Frozen River ¡¦ 127
6. Chance and the Arrow ¡¦ 143
7. Time and the Quantum ¡¦ 177
Part III Spacetime and Cosmology
8. Of Snowflakes and Spacetime ¡¦ 219
9. Vaporizing the Vacuum ¡¦ 251
10. Deconstructing the Bang ¡¦ 272
11. Quanta in the Sky with Diamonds ¡¦ 304
Part IV Origins and Unification
12. The World on a String ¡¦ 327
13. The Universe on a Brane ¡¦ 376
Part V Reality and Imagination
14. Up in the Heavens and Down in the Earth ¡¦ 415
15. Teleporters and Time Machines ¡¦ 437
16. The Future of an Allusion ¡¦ 470
Notes ¡¦ 495
Glossary ¡¦ 537
Suggestions for Further Reading ¡¦ 543
Index ¡¦ 545
Brian Greene [Àú]
Brian Greene received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the physics faculty at Cornell University in 1990, was appointed to a full professorship in 1995, and in 1996 joined Columbia University where he is professor of physics and mathematics. He has lectured at both a general and a technical level in more than twenty-five countries and is widely regarded for a number of ground breaking discoveries in superstring theory. He lives in Andes, New York, and New York City.