A Different Universe: Quantum Sound, Space-Time as Matter, and the Dark Laws of the New Physics: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

The author presents several aspects of the so-called "emergence" - the self-organized occurence of "new" laws if as system exceeds a certain degree of complexity. Though the idea is not new, the approach is quite radical - the Newtonian physics is described as "emerging" from the quantum vacuum.
Unfortunately, I have to substract nevertheless three points.
First of all, the book contains too many platitudes and empty talk. Some chapters have absolutely no relevant substance and the stories presented are quite dull.
Secondly, the spelling style is incomprehensible. This has nothing to do with the ideas presented. Instead of that, the book seems to consist of a conglomerate of run-on sentences written in a swollen-headed style.
At last, the book is not very structured. It is not clear why there are chapters at all.

This is a wonderful written book which I have read through in two days, because I couldn't stop reading. To give a complete account of this reading experience is impossible. Here some simple notices which can not substitute for reading the book by yourself.

CROSS DISCIPLINARY

Nowadays where science inherently is driven by the need of more and more specialization it is increasingly difficult to understand what other disciplines are doing. Reading a technical paper from a foreign discipline without a lengthy and intensive preparation of months or even years you have no real chance to understand it. In such a situation it is a great service if a member of some discipline --here physics-- is writing a book which tries to talk about the important ideas of this discipline in a way, which uses a 'common language'. The book "A Different Universe" from Robert B.Laughlin is for me such a book. Sometimes very personal, it gives you a view into the inner structures of physics which is breathtaking and provoking.

LIMITS OF COMMUNICATION

Clearly, reading such a book as a non-physics is dangerous, but it is a probe of interdisciplinary communication. If it wouldn't be any more possible to talk across disciplines, we would have reached the end of any science, the end of modern societies. Nevertheless reading such a book from another discipline one has to be aware of moving on a slippery ground.

REDUCTIONISM and EMERGENCE

The main theme running through nearly all chapters is the estimate of Laughlin, that the idea of reductionism is a misleading concept for physics, and in fact for all sciences. If one takes the view that we encounter in nature different levels of organization it was --and is-- tempting, to 'reduce' a so called 'higher level' of organization to 'elements' and 'laws' of the lower level. Laughlin explains with many examples and nicely arguments that such a view is too simple for nature, that it is misleading, that it is leading astray into false concepts making research blind for the real dynamics --and 'mystics'-- of nature. There are so many phenomena in science, surrounding everybody in his daily life, which are 'strange' and not yet 'explainable' by scientific theories, that the metaphor of the 'frontier' of the early pioneers can be applied to this situation: the frontier of 'wilderness' has not vanished, it is still there, everywhere, we are part of it.

EXPERIMENT versus THEORY

The other recurring topic is Laughlins criticism against 'antitheories', bodies of thought that stop inquiry and thus impede discovery. Because mathematical structures as such have no 'empirical meaning', it is a luckily case if those structures can successfully be related to empirical measurements (like e.g. in the restricted case of Newtons Laws). But because even 'simple' mathematical structures have by logical reasons always and inevitably more 'meaning' than every measurement can support, it is a challenge to device advanced mathematical structures for ever increasing complex structures which keep a minimum of 'falsifiability'. Laughlin argues that in physics --and even more in other disciplines-- we are faced with more and more cases of mathematical structures which have no clear relationship to interesting experiments, thus he feels compelled to underline strongly the importance of good designed experiments as the cornerstones of real science.

TRUE SCIENCE and SOCIETY

Besides false conceptual strategies which can impede science Laughlin points out psychological, sociological as well as political phenomena which work against an open, problem driven experimental science. The struggle of economical and political power is inducing lots of pressures on the scientific institutions and individuals. This leads to nasty phenomena like fraud, hidden information, hindering laws etc.
As impressive his examples are, I am not sure whether he underestimates the fact that these phenomena are not new in history. But because the level of professionalism and the flow of information is constantly evolving globally the consciousness of these things has been raised too. The human mind potential is globally much, much greater than the official resources of education and research are actually willingly to support. Therefore the struggle for resources is there, it is hard, and --naturally-- for all those, who are excluded, this is dissatisfying and annoying.

NEGATIVE COMPLEXITY

I am wondering why Laughlin does not notice the structural fact that the exponential growth of publicly available knowledge and the individually biological limits of information processing give raise to a kind of 'negative complexity' which destroys inevitably any kind of rationality if human culture does not find a new strategy to cope with this. Even noble laureates will inevitably be lost in such a negative complexity because nobody will be there which can understand there wonderful ideas. Compared with such a negative complexity are the social and political barriers for real science toy problems, because these social and political barriers can in principle be repaired, negative complexity can not be repaired, it will turn every knowledge stepwise in pure noise.

READ IT

Finally I can only recommend again to read the book of Laughlin by yourself. My short remarks here are very poor compared to his exciting text.

Laughlin has managed to present his vision on a soon-to-be fundamental change of subject and method in physics in a thoughtful, down-to-earth, and entertaining way. His main claim is that real interesting physics occurs as a result of organizational laws which act rather independently of the underlying, microscopic laws discovered as a result of reductionism and mathematical unification initiated by Galilei and pursued up to this day. Although I do not share all of his ideas I am left with a feeling that Laughlin is
strongly committed to his field and that he cares about its evolution. Probably a good part of his prophecies will turn into reality.
I also like how he points out dangers of Big Science and the essential role of undisturbed creativity and wiggled mental trajectories in fundamental discovery, and I am still enchanted by the meditative scene playing in the back of an airplane: A man satisfied with a workful, productive, and good day is happy to trust a machine that he fully comprehends ...