From Publishers Weekly
String theory—the hot topic in physics for the past 20 years—is a dead-end, says Smolin, one of the founders of Canada's Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics and himself a lapsed string theorist. In fact, he (and others) argue convincingly, string theory isn't even a fully formed theory—it's just a "conjecture." As Smolin reminds his readers, string theorists haven't been able to prove any of their exotic ideas, and he says there isn't much chance that they will in the foreseeable future. The discovery of "dark energy," which seems to be pushing the universe apart faster and faster, isn't explained by string theory and is proving troublesome for that theory's advocates. Smolin (The Life of the Cosmos) believes that physicists are making the mistake of searching for a theory that is "beautiful" and "elegant" instead of one that's actually backed up by experiments. He encourages physicists to investigate new alternatives and highlights several young physicists whose work he finds promising. This isn't easy reading, but it will appeal to dedicated science buffs interested in where physics may be headed in the next decade. 30 b&w illus. (Sept. 19)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
A well-known name in theoretical physics, Smolin dissents from its dominant contemporary avenue of research: string theory, or, more accurately, theories, since there are calculably more string theories than there are subatomic particles in the universe. To Smolin, that is among many causes for suspecting that string theorists are on the wrong track for solving five fundamental problems in theoretical physics, which is his opening salvo in this critique of his profession. An early adherent of string theory in the early 1980s, Smolin illustrates its allure for seemingly crossing some items off the physics to-do list. But the divorce of string theory from any practical experimental test bothers him, Smolin writes, as has its failure, thus far, to incorporate the recent cosmological discoveries of dark matter and dark energy. Smolin also believes scientific advance has been stifled by the control that string theorists exercise over the employment and research agendas of young physicists. Courting controversy, Smolin is a reflective, self-confident challenger to pro-string physicist-authors Brian Greene, Leonard Susskind, and Michio Kaku. Gilbert Taylor
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Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
