Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos |...

Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos | Michio Kaku | Curiosity Reawakens... How the Universe Began... Where it's Going

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Parallel Worlds: A...

	Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos Michio Kaku Anchor, 2006 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Current cosmology for a lay audience

I think it was Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, who told his fellow scientists many years ago that they had an obligation to try to enlighten laymen about the latest findings of science. This was not long after Einstein's theories of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics had demonstrated that the world in which we live and thrive was much stranger than previously thought. The comfortable and intuitive cosmos, as described by Newtonian mechanics, had been superceded by a world view that seemed not only bizarre, but even incomprehensible.

This new book by Michio Kaku is one of the latest efforts by leading-edge scientists to fulfill that felt need recognized by Bohr. Targeting the educated layman, Kaku addresses his audience in a manner that is both entertaining and non-intimidating. Instead of mathematical descriptions, he relies on everyday analogies to convey his meanings. He includes a good measure of the history behind the theories, spiced with anecdotes and humor. While tackling an inheritantly difficult subject matter, he has succeeded in making it about as accessible as it could possibly be for a lay audience.

I emphasize that this is an up-to-date account. Just a few years ago, some physicists were merely speculating about the possibilities of multiple universes, parallel worlds, time travel, worm holes...things that sounded then more like science fiction than fact. Data only recently acquired by the WMAP satellite and the rapid development of string theory (and its latest incarnation, M-theory) have caused many of the best minds to not only entertain the possibility of such phenomena but, in many cases, consider them necessary corollaries to any credible Grand Unified Theory ( i.e., a "theory of everything.") According to Kaku, we're getting very close to such a theory.

This is heady stuff, presented in a form that makes science fiction, the ramblings of mystics, and the wildest conjectures of amateur cosmologists seem dull by comparison. And it is offered to us by a man who is at the forefront of current physics, a leading theorist in string theory and, most notably, a man who is an expert in assuring that his speculations are not in conflict with known facts.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what science knows today about the past history and nature of our cosmos and what the future may hold. It's an absolutely fascinating read!

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Curiosity Reawakens... How the Universe Began... Where it's Going

This book reawakened my interest in current theories about how the universe began and where it (may be) going. Michio Kaku writes an EXCELLENT popular summary of cosmology and string theory but is also a fully-fledged physicist in his own right, with graduate texts in print as well as other popular accounts on science and war.

Two topics particularly interested me in this account. The first was a summary of latest evidence for what the universe is MADE of, and how it got that way. Turns out that the elements of the periodic table we all studied in school are a teensy weensy (4%) part of the universe. As human beings our bodies are also made (literally) of material from former stars!

Second was a new interest in the findings and implications of an unlikely-sounding space experiment called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe or WMAP for short. Singh piques your curiosity by calling this a "baby picture" of the universe.

Reading Parallel Worlds reawakened my interest in theories of the universe to the point that I've been reading new accounts and rereading old accounts madly. I also highly recommend, for example, Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos.

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Yo! Michio...

Yo! Michio... Whachu smokin' booooy? An'...where can we get some? Okay, seriously: this does remind me of those wild late night conversations we used to engage in at university back in the day... typically after too many bong hits. These are some mind-stretching ideas, and yes ancient Hindu (Dravidic?) mystics tried to record all this for us in an earlier iteration. But the language they used in their explanations was perhaps too poetic, too mystical and too symbolic to survive the centuries and translation (both language and cross-cultural translation). A good companion to this book would perhaps be Ervin Laszlo's "Science and the Akashic Field" or "The Whispering Pond" by the same author. Never-the-less we do owe Kaku (and Laszlo, and others: Fred Alan Wolf, Michael Talbot?) our gratitude for even attempting to make this bizarre subject accessible to those of us who have not the benefits of higher education or mystical experience! A fair amount of "suspension of disbelief" is required here. Kaku does this particularly well because he tries to employ "everyday language."

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Basic and Understanding

This book is easy to understand and you really see the basics of cosmology without having to understand equations and the whole physics works. Its easy to read and it totally boggles your mind. It gives you definitions where you need them and it explains to you everything you need to know in the most simplist way. I recommend this book to any beginner or even just the typical reader who finds space and comsology interesting. I, myself, never read about cosmology ever in my life before. When I read this book, it was simple, logical, and really made you think. The author doesn't tell you what to think or believe, he opens your mind to a bunch of different possibilities so you can see the whole picture. He names all the theories and ideas and let's you draw your own conclusions. This book is just a source of interesting facts and info about cosmology without any scientific gibberish that is unpronouncable. It's truly great.

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