The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos
by Brian R. Greene
2004

Space, Time, Reality
(Italicized portions are taken from the book)
Is space empty?
Is it “unavoidably suffused with…a diffuse uniform energy called a cosmological constant – modern echoes of the old and discredited notion of a space-filling ether?” And what about SpaceTime?
Here’s what the author has to say about this: “ As we will see, special physical conditions at the universe’s inception (a highly ordered environment at or just after the Big Bang) may have imprinted a direction on time, rather as winding up a clock, twisting its spring into a highly ordered initial state, allows it to tick forward.”

Meet the Author
Author Brian R. Greene is certainly not just another techie (no offense to techies…they are my role models in many ways). His fascination with science and space travel was greatly nourished by his childhood discovery of something utterly unscientific and un-technological. It was, in fact, a work of philosophy – Albert Camus’  The Myth of Sisyphus – that planted the seed that grew into a lifelong hunger for scientific knowledge.

It is Mr. Greene’s philosophical largesse as much as his polymathic outlook which makes this book special.

About The Fabric of the Cosmos
“Although space travel has been a topic of great interest to many, few have an understanding of the ultimate limits that will determine its possibilities. One thing is certain. No matter the advancement in technology, whether earthling or extraterrestrial, energy requirements will determine ultimate success in space travel. True, technology will play a part. Among other things, it will determine the kinds of fuels that will be usable in deep space travel and that will, in the end, determine its successes.

Are we ultimately going to be able to travel outside our own solar system to reach other worlds? Have extraterrestrials really visited us in the past? These are the questions addressed in this book. It is written for the layman, and does not require a technical background.”
– description of The Fabric of the Cosmos at Amazon.com

Perhaps the best pitch for this rare book is to be found in the section headings.
Part I is Reality’s Arena, Part II Time and Experience, Part III SpaceTime and Cosmology, Part IV Origins and Unification and Part V Reality and Imagination.

• The marriage of poetry and science embodied in these section-headings promise much indeed. This doesn’t seem to be a book aimed at incorrigibly (I tease here) left-brained techies but at those who are utterly enamored by the possibility of space travel –  and all that is related to it – to tickle our imagination as well as our scientific side.

 …and this from the author’s website, briangreene.org:

“Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.”