Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation

by John D. Barrow

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198539282
• ISBN13: 9780198539285
• Release Date: April 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Now I've seen everything...

'Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary limit.'- Alan Turing My first academic love was theoretical physics. I was going to be a astrophysicist; when I arrived at university, however, the department told me that I knew too much for the introductory courses, and to come back in a few years to take the advanced courses. Alas, I studied on my own and never returned officially (still an honourable course in astronomy, which has a great love and need of the dedicated amateur), and went professionally in different directions.However, I should have known even back then what my ultimate directions would be (as John Barrow's book, 'Theories of Everything' has as a subtitle 'The Quest for Ultimate Explanation', I may slip into a lot of 'ultimates' here), for when I picked up the book in the shop and began reading the first page, I knew I had to read it (and read it right away) when I came across the following quotation:'Suddenly scientists are asking such questions in all seriousness and theologians find their thinking pre-empted and guided by the mathematical speculations of a new generation of scientists. Ironically, few theologians have an adequate training in physics to keep abreat of the details, and few physicists have a sufficient appreciation of the wider questions to make a fruitful dialogue easy.'The idea in physics of The Theory of Everything is the quest for that single, all-encompassing, simple set of principles by with all other laws, actions, and outcomes can be explained (and possibly predicted) with unerring logic. Some physicists of late have begun to have confidence that human progress is very close to this.Perhaps this is a misplaced confidence; one is reminded of the Director of the Prussian Patent Office a century ago who stated that the office might as well close soon, since everything that was going to be invented probably already had been. There was a confidence in Newtonian-based world views that was very strong indeed (a mighty fortress, one might say, to support the altar of physics) -- this was discovered to be a golden calf, which was in turn melted by Einstein et al. It the 'Theory of Everything' another idol?'Our monotheistic traditions reinforce the assumption that the Universe is at root a unity.'So much of mathematics, physics, philosophy, and other disciplines have, even if it is unspoken, a sense of unity at heart, in which this belief plays a part. 'Indeed, the concept of a Supreme Being is in all cultures a more primitive and natural notion than that of laws of Nature. It could well be argued that no culture arrived at a robust concept of the latter without a preliminary concept of the former.'The book quickly becomes more theoretical and scientific in nature; this is not a text for the faint hearted. This is what Barrow meant by theologians (and, by extension, the general public) not being aware or familiar with the details. In discussing symmetries in the universe and the idea of creation ex nihi

Now I've seen everything...

`Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary limit.'- Alan Turing My first academic love was theoretical physics (which some of you may have discerned from my reviews; although my life has gone in a different direction, occasionally a book with the title `Introduction to Cosmology' pops up). I was going to be a astrophysicist; when I arrived at university, however, the department told me that I knew too much for the introductory courses, and to come back in a few years to take the advanced courses. Alas, I studied on my own and never returned officially (still an honourable course in astronomy, which has a great love and need of the dedicated amateur), and went professionally in different directions.However, I should have known even back then what my ultimate directions would be (as John Barrow's book, `Theories of Everything' has as a subtitle The Quest for Ultimate Explanation, I may slip into a lot of 'ultimates' here), for when I picked up the book in the shop and began reading the first page, I knew I had to read it (and read it right away) when I came across the following quotation:`Suddenly scientists are asking such questions in all seriousness and theologians find their thinking pre-empted and guided by the mathematical speculations of a new generation of scientists. Ironically, few theologians have an adequate training in physics to keep abreat of the details, and few physicists have a sufficient appreciation of the wider questions to make a fruitful dialogue easy.'The idea in physics of The Theory of Everything is the quest for that single, all-encompassing, simple set of principles by with all other laws, actions, and outcomes can be explained (and possibly predicted) with unerring logic. Some physicists of late have begun to have confidence that human progress is very close to this.Perhaps this is a misplaced confidence; one is reminded of the Director of the Prussian Patent Office a century ago who stated that the office might as well close soon, since everything that was going to be invented probably already had been. There was a confidence in Newtonian-based world views that was very strong indeed (a mighty fortress, one might say, to support the altar of physics) -- this was discovered to be a golden calf, which was in turn melted by Einstein et al. It the 'Theory of Everything' another idol?`Our monotheistic traditions reinforce the assumption that the Universe is at root a unity.'So much of mathematics, physics, philosophy, and other disciplines have, even if it is unspoken, a sense of unity at heart, in which this belief plays a part. `Indeed, the concept of a Supreme Being is in all cultures a more primitive and natural notion than that of laws of Nature. It could well be argued that no culture arrived at a robust concept of the latter without a preliminary concept of the former.'The book quickly becomes more theoretical and scientific in nature; this is not a text for the faint hearted. This is what Barrow mea

Impossible search.

The author believes that it is beyond the human reach to find a 'Theory of Everything', in other words an abbreviated representation - an algorithm or formula - of the logic behind the Universe's properties. A theory that unites the four fundamental forces.His reasoning is solid, but sometimes difficult to follow. Not an easy read.Here are a few of his arguments: (1) the world (e.g. chaotic processes) is not totally algorithmically compressible. (2) many constants of Nature got their values in the earliest stages of the universe. From the predictions emerging from the 'Theory of Everything, we should arrive at the current structure of the universe. This is nearly impossible. (3) If random elements of the Universe, inherited from its quantum origins, differ significantly from place to place, the knowledge of its global structure from our point of view will be incomplete. (4) Superstrings and its corollary 'many dimensions'. What happened with the vanished dimensions?To the bargain, the author believes that even if we should find this theory, the factual impact on our life would be very limited.Why then are all members of the physicists guild searching fot it? And why writes the author such a challenging book about it? It is like the quest of the Holy grail in the Middle Ages. The sheer beaty of Einstein's simple formula left everybody dumbfounded, but the person who will find a new equation 'for everything' would provoke a long lasting general silence followed by a burst of applause nearly as loud as the Big Bang.By the way, I am not so sure that the impact on our life of this theory would be limited. The theory of general relativity and his counterpart 'quantum mechanics' had an immense impact on our daily lives, for the good and the bad.A must read for everybody interested in the fate of the universe, or better multiverse.

Not so much about the ultimate theory but what it should be

This was not quite what I expected it to be, which was an overview of the latest ultimate theories of physics. The book does go into that topic to some extent, but it is as much about the philosophy of science as about science itself: not just the ultimate theories, but what constitutes a successful theory and what characteristics an ultimate theory should have. As such, it addresses such topics as symmetry (especially the broken symmetry believed to explain the four basic forces), compressibility (the capability of a simple theory to explain complex consequences), constants, laws, the anthropic principle, initial conditions, and much more. It's difficult going at times, and I can't pretend that I understood all of it. However, I think it's a book that will bear rereading, which I will plan on doing. Oh, and the quotes at the beginning of each section are great!

Entertaining, Educational and Not What I Expected

I expected a book that would focus on Theories of Everything that have been proposed to date-- a history of Grand Unified Theories, their proposers, to what extent they have been correct and have unified previously disparate theories, and to what extent they are not really Grand Unified Theories. That is not what I got. I got something not necessarily better than described above, but different; certainly not worse. To highlight the difference from what you might expect, during one early chapter, I thought I had started rereading Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind by mistake. And the Penrose is about consciousness and Artificial Intelligence. (Also a very good book, by the way.) Theories of Everything is more of a cookbook. Whether you will come out with a cake at the end is doubtful, but it gives you what the necessary ingredients are to bake a successful theory of everything. You need some universal principles or laws, some logic, some math, some chaos/complexity theory, the initial conditions of the universe (possibly quantum), some time theory, some elementary particles, a bit of gauge theory, possibly some wormholes and parallel universes, some questionable constants, some symmetries and symmetry breaking, an absence of theoretical bias (probably an impossible ingredient), and a philosophical mathematical basis. And that is exactly what you get. Barrow seems to love philosophy as much as he loves physics, math and logic. That makes me like this book even more, as those are the fields of my concern, as well. My one area of contention with Barrow is that he is ultimately a dualist, I am a physicalist. I disagree with him that a theory of everything could not contain music, poetry, consciousness, etc. An alternate reading from the cookbook reading is that this book _is_ theories of everything--not a unified singular one, but it contains theories on all of the topics mentioned above and then some. Barrow is an extremely intelligent man and a very entertaining writer. Don't pass this book up.