|
In books such as The World Within the
World and The Anthropic Cosmological Principle,
astronomer John Barrow has emerged as a leading writer on
our efforts to understand the universe. Timothy Ferris,
writing in The Times Literary Supplement of London,
described him as "a temperate and accomplished humanist,
scientist, and philosopher of science -- a man out to make
a contribution, not a show." Now Barrow offers the
general reader another fascinating look at modern physics,
as he explores the quest for a single, unifying theory that
will unlock nature's secrets.
Theories of Everything is more than
a history of science, more than a popular report on recent
research and discoveries. Barrow provides a reflective,
intelligent commentary on what a true Theory of Everything
would be -- its ingredients, its limitations, and what it
could tell us about the universe. Never before, he writes,
have physicists been so confident and so eager in the hunt
for this "cosmic Rosetta Stone," as he calls it:
"a single all-embracing picture of all the laws of
nature from which the inevitability of all things seen must
follow with unimpeachable logic." He lays out eight
essential ingredients for a Theory of Everything and then
explores each in turn, tracing how our knowledge has developed
and how scientific discovery relates to our changing philosophy
and religious thought in each area. Some of these ingredients
are obvious -- the laws of nature must be explained, for
example, as well as its organizing principles -- but others
may be surprising, such as broken symmetries and selection
biases. A Theory of Everything must account for the fact
that the universe is "messy and complicated,"
he tells us, and for the limitations imposed by the questions
we ask and the information we can obtain. The key lies in
the remarkable capacity of mathematics to express the fundamental
workings of the physical world -- a language that the human
mind is uniquely equipped to understand and manipulate.
Barrow examines what mathematics actually is and describes
how it makes the universe intelligible and provides a path
to the underlying coherence in nature -- which has led,
in fact, to arguments that the universe itself is a vast
computer. Yet even the most complete theory, even the most
comprehensive mathematical explanation, cannot account for
the uncomputable varieties of human experience and thought.
"No non-poetic account of reality," he writes,
"can be complete."
In a field where the authorities converse
in equations and mathematical notations, John Barrow speaks
with the voice of a thoughtful and knowledgeable humanist.
Written with eloquence and expertise, Theories of Everything
establishes a new perspective on humanity's efforts to explain
the universe.
John D. Barrow is Professor of Astronomy
at the University of Sussex, England, and is the author
of The World Within the World, and, with Frank Tipler,
of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
|
