Synopsis
It is among the most elegant, radical, and tantalizing theories ever to be fashioned by the keen lathe of mathematical insight. For the better part of two centuries, the notion of higher dimensions beyond space and time has fueled the imaginations of scientists, writers, occultists, and more than a few con artists.
By turns triumphed, mocked, and misinterpreted, the concept of unseen directions outside the range of our senses may now present the only path toward unifying all of the forces of nature into a single cohesive expression: a theory of everything. The best way to understand the substance and impact of this mind-bending idea is to start from the beginning.
In The Great Beyond, the award-winning physicist, mathematician, and author Paul Halpern presents a comprehensive history of the foundations and development of this unfathomable yet irresistible construct. He traces the influence of multidimensional theory on science and society, profiling dozens of brilliant, idiosyncratic thinkers whose labors and insights have advanced, expanded, and popularized the theory. Readers will meet the mathematician who believed that geometry could explain the entire universe, the headmaster who imagined life in two dimensions, and the two theorists who independently discovered the "miracle" that forms the foundation of all modern multidimensional concepts.
At the core of this fascinating tale is Einstein’s famous quarrel with Heisenberg and Bohr, whose theories of uncertainty threatened the order that Einstein believed was essential to the universe. Halpern explains how this discrepancy between these two well-established theories drove Einstein to ponderthe existence of a fifth dimension, and how his attempts to devise a unified field theory have influenced modern efforts, including M theory and the brane approach.
The Great Beyond will delight and astonish readers seeking a deeper appreciation of the most profound and controversial questions that confront modern science.
Publishers Weekly
Ever since Plato first told his students the allegory of the cave, people have wondered whether dimensions exist beyond the three we immediately perceive. An extra dimension-time-played a role in Einstein's work, although he saw it only as a necessary evil to get his equations to work. Other scientists were more receptive: mathematical physicists Oskar Klein and Theodor Kaluza made higher dimensions an integral part of their attempts to discover a "theory of everything" that would tie together strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity. Halpern explains that over the past century gravity has been the shadow flickering on the walls of the cave hinting at other realms. Why is it so weak compared with electromagnetism? With string theory, and its successor, M-theory, physicists speculate that gravity "leaks" back and forth between our reality, an 11-dimensional "brane" (or membrane) and other branes, perhaps as close as a millimeter away. Halpern masterfully creates word pictures to illustrate mind-bending scientific theories, and he paints highly detailed sketches of the scientists involved-sometimes too detailed, leading readers to lose the thread of the narrative. Science buffs won't find much new here, but for average readers, this is an accessible account of the search for what lies behind our dim perception of reality. B&w photos. Agent, Giles Anderson. (July 16) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.