About book Many Worlds In One: The Search For Other Universes (2007)
I enjoyed this book, as challenging as it certainly was. I read it upon the recommendation of my science-loving husband, and one of the joys of the book was actually impressing him with my ability to read it start to finish. (He called me Physics Girl while I was reading it--NOT an insult, coming from him--or anyone?? But definitely NOT his usual nickname for me!)I will quote the author from the fly leaf of the book: "The intended reader of this book is someone who, looking upward at the starry sky, occasionally wonders where it all came from, and how our little Earth and our civilization fit into the grand scheme of things. My goal is to tell this reader about a new picture of the universe--initially resisted by the vast majority of physicists--that has gradually emerged over the past two decades and is now becoming the accepted cosmological paradigm. I will try to make the book easy to read and maximally entertaining, using the story of my personal quest as a backdrop for discussion of the scientific ideas." I could not understand EVERY concept in this book (and didn't let it worry me), but compliments to Alex Vilenkin that I understood ANY of it--and actually enjoyed the reading.Also on the fly-leaf, the publisher writes, "With this book--his first for the general reader--Vilenkin joins another select group: the handful of first-rank scientists who are adept at explaining their work to non-specialists. With engaging, well-paced story-telling, a droll sense of humor, and a generous sprinkling of helpful cartoons, he conjures up a bizarre and fascinating new worldview that--to paraphrase Niels Bohr--might just be crazy enough to be true."I don't recommend this book casually to everyone. After all, not everyone will have the powerful drive to achieve the nickname "Physics Girl" or "Physics Boy." But...it's readable, and my view of the universe is absolutely enriched by having taken a guest seat at this fascinating lecture on "the search for other universes."
An interesting book, but not at all what I was expecting. Based on the title and reviews, I thought it would delve deeply into the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. But no mention of multiverses comes up until the last teensy sliver of the book and then only in conjunction with the author’s discussion of his most recent paper that describes a theory of a universe which arises out of nothingness. Here, the discussion is juxtaposed against the backdrop of ancient creation myths. Is the universe really more like the cosmic egg, arising out of nothing, or more like the dance of Shiva, in a constant state of creation and destruction? Is there a universe that maps to every possible mathematical structure and if so, does God love math so much that he’s willing to waste it on universes that can never sustain themselves long enough to create intelligent life that will be able to appreciate it? Further, if math is a product of the mind, does the mind somehow predate the creation of the universe? All interesting questions, but since the bulk of the book features a more formal discussion of the Standard Model of particle physics, the last fleeting thoughts come out of nowhere, unsubstantiated and left hanging in the air unanswered.
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Interesting Book, I am firm believe in the Inflation theory. Mr. Vilenkin did a wonderful job at describing who his comrades where Andre Linde and Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking and also showed some noticeable rivalry for Paul Steinhardt & Princeton Boys. It does appear Steinahardt likes to get under some peoples skin. In the book, Vilenkin does an outstanding job at describing what a true vacuum is, a false vacuum, Negative vacuum, The Scalar Field, density perturbations, Inflationary Process and etc. I enjoy his his talks with Stephan Hawkings and in the early 1980's, when Hawking invited the top physicists at his retreat to discuss AstroPhysics. He made a point to read Russian Physics Journals, since many of great ideas go UN-noticed. Talks about Island Universes, Kickbacks, Our Universe, Parallel Universes and many other topics. Very good book.
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My problem with this kind of book is that you can't really learn much from it. Either, you work in the field, know all the math and physics behind it, then it's useless to read this book. Or you don't work in the field, and you try to understand the over-simplified version he tries to explain, but it still doesn't make sense. e.g: If you compress an object, its gravity is enhanced, and if you stretch it, gravity is reduced. if you could keep stretching the object without breaking it, you could in principle reduce gravity to the point of completely neutralizing it, or even making it repulsive. The repulsive gravity of vacuum tension is more than sufficient to overcome the attractive pull of its mass. or: if false vacuum is surrounded by true vacuum, the tension inside is not balanced by any force outside and causes the false vacuum chunk to shrink because gravitational repulsion is purely internal. I thought I was reading ancient Greek. But no, this book is full of "explanations" of this kind. I could pretend that I understand what the words are saying, but no, frankly I totally don't understand his theory. Give me some time to learn general relativity, and possibly many more years to learn inflation theory from its math, and it might make sense. And I also disagree with his logic that "if the theory of inflation is supported by the data in the observable part of the universe, shouldn't we also believe its conclusions about the parts we cannot observe?". I mean isn't that ludicrous? Inflation theory is not set in stone yet, there are still many problems with explaining large scale structure and dark matter. This is guesswork, extending it to the unobservable is merely too far-fetched, too speculative, and pointless. If it is unobservable, that means it's not going to have any causal link to us, so why even bother?
—Huyen
