The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a disappointment. I've heard Brian Greene talk about physics on podcasts and seen little clips of him in documentaries. I thought this book would reflect the unique way he explains physics to make it widely accessible. This was mostly true at the very beginning of the book, but as soon as he got into quantum physics things got very dull. And really, quantum physics isn't dull. It's the opposite of dull. It's the craziest, wildest, most full of possibility stuff of nonfiction you could possibly hope for-- crazier even then fiction -- there are multiple universes!  So it's disappointing that this book was dull.

That said, this clarified the rubber band (donut?) shape of strings to me as the smallest unit. And duality as applied to multiple string theories, to the extent that I understood it, was really interesting. We're on the precipice of of an incredible understanding of the universe.

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