A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down

by Robert B. Laughlin

Book Overview

A Nobel-winning physicist argues that fundamental physical laws are found not in the world of atoms, but in the macroscopic world around us In this age of superstring theories and Big Bang cosmology,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 046503828X
• ISBN13: 9780465038282
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Why do they love it and hate it?

As with Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science", this is a book with valuable philosophical insights, which many reviewers dismiss because those are not physical insights. Hence the mix of 5 and 1 star reviews. In other words, don't come here to learn physics, but if you like "why" questions, then read this book. A book that makes people angry is not necessarily revolutionary, but revolutionary books do make people angry.

Self-indulgent and offensive but absolutely wonderful

This book will probably offend you because of its *seemingly* flippant dismissal of various current popular theories such as string theory. The author comes across as arrogant, and the book is quite self-indulgently edited. The good news is that it made clear to me, in a way that had never happened before, the depth of the problems facing naive reductionism. He shows how in many cases reductionist results have a high degree of bogosity. None of the solid states of water were predicted in advance, but after they were discovered "explanations" were readily found. He convinced me that current "fundamental" physics is almost certainly no such thing and is almost certainly a set of emergent phenomena based on at least one more layer of physics. The author's arrogance is tempered by the fact that he is quite happy to make fun of himself when this helps to make his point. Which is, in part, that the world is full of things we really don't understand and we need to be a bit more humble about it and accept the need to understand things on their own terms. I would suggest that if you have read this book and did not have your understanding of physics and science generally radically changed, it might be worth reading it again and more carefully. This is one of the best popular books on physics I have ever read and I highly recommend it.

Accessible revelations

This book is quite a sport in the "popular" science arena. It opens with the premise that you may be of sound mind (as opposed to those authors who can barely contain their plodding indulgence of the great unwashed) and perhaps more than a little unfamiliar with physics (as opposed to writers who suppose you've got at least some basics in quantum theories or you wouldn't've bought it). Although Laughlin certainly doesn't shy away from a quantity of daunting scientific theories, discoveries, and inventions that are conundrums even for scientists, he manages to make them comprehensible with anecdotal illustrations and/or similes. Most importantly, however, the joie de vivre that propelled the author into his current career is the heart of this piece. The vibrant cosmos is lovingly examined here. Denial and complacency are vigorously challenged. The profound wonder of the real world is refreshed and fortified by "A Different Universe," reminding us that truth (though it may be on the move and relative...which Einstein DEFINITELY never said and neither does Laughlin), is always superior to fiction. This won't be the last time I'll read it.

ether is real but its just a phase

This book is not a page turner, its better than that. You may find yourself putting the book down just to prolong the pleasure of reading it. The author's thesis is that fundamental laws are based on generally complex collective phenonomena. Maybe, I find it gratifying because I have long suspected that this is the case. The book may off-putting for a couple superficial reasons. One is that readers who've studied elementary physics or learned from books like those of Brian Greene and Roger Penrose that accept the primacy of fundamental univeral laws of nature may not be so familiar with the kind of fields like low-temperature physics, solid state physics, and phase transitions, from which Laughlin draws his examples. Such fields as these are traditionally regarded as applications of supposedly deeper ideas and so do not get that much attention from educators and populizers. The other reason is that Mr. Laughlin does not conform to the serene wiseman stereotype of a theoretical physicist. He's more like a crotchety but idealistic engineer who is forever tilting against the received wisdom. (At his most annoying, he harps on supposed gender differences and differences between people from different parts of the US. He seems to think that New Yorkers can't appreciate the photography of Ansel Adams!)It would be a pity if these things deter readers because the author has a lot to teach. I only wish that he had elaborated further on some of his fascinating ideas such as the emergence of things like fundamental constants and empty space out of collective phenomena.

What we do know, do not know, and perhaps cannot know in physics.

'All science is essentially inferential' sums up Prof. Laughlin's exposition of the frontier of knowledge in physics, which is precise, comprehensible, humorous and rare. Our senses, and their extensions, measuring instruments, can reveal only collective phenomena. That is, they only help us determine the collective properties of microscopic entities through cause-effect relationships between collective phenomena. Thus all our perceptions are necessarily collective phenomena, and perhaps our inferences therefrom may never yield a comprehensive theory of everything (a single equation) that would explain all of our observations. Furthermore, many situations can prevent our inferring the rules underlying a phenomenon: when a phenomenon is extremely robust to microscopic property changes (as the propagation of phonons is unaffected by crystalline defects), microscopic properties cannot be deduced from it, and when it is unstable (with respect to either parameters or initial conditions) and therefore cannot produce repeatable measurements (such as an explosion). Numerical approximations and computation are also rendered impossible for unstable or marginally stable phenomena. Hence, there are several questions we cannot answer by computation from first principles, even if we happen to know them. Thus, notions of the end of science are in error--unless they mean the end of the domination of reductionism. This is because of the great variety of collective phenomena possible even if there be no fundamental microscopic rules beyond what we posit in Quantum mechanics. As we explore the universe with the tools of consistency and correctness, it appears that we will never run out of new science--new rules of organization of microscopic entities that determine their collective behavior.