» Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens ion

Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens ion Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Terrific popular science
Comment: Hyperspace is a lively, fascinating, and highly readable account of state-of-the-art theoretical physics as of 1995. Arguably, the theories under discussion in this volume are outside the realm of science since they are at present, as they are likely to be into the far distant future, empirically unverifiable. Even so, as Kaku argues, science may yet uncover indirect evidence of wormholes, dimensions 5-10, and strings. Whether or not this proves true, one cannot help but be awed and delighted by the mere possibility that the universe -- fascinating already in its meager 4 dimensions -- is structured and functions in the ways MK describes. To see the mathematics of higher dimensions so neatly subsuming the laws of physics as we know them (electromagnetism, relativity, etc.), one cannot help but imagine that a beautiful and simple unified theory might indeed lie just round the bend. Hyperspace thrills with the excitement of that possibility. It is a terrific read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good for lay people
Comment: The book is a good introduction to hypersapce,parallel universes, supergravity, string theory and every other physics theory difficult to understand for the lay person. Dr. Kaku interests the reader to a new world of possibilities.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A good read, albeit a bit dated and rambling....
Comment: Now almost 15 years old, this book is still an interesting read. An entertaining and well written introductory tour of superstrings and the quest for unification, with a little essential history of the evolution of physics and mathematics thrown in. (Mathematics is, after all, the language of physics, of which every modern student of physics is well aware.) It will take about the first 100 pages to get the experienced physics reader interested, and then it's a quick dash to the finish. Much of the text is on the speculative level, and there is a fair amount of redundancy. (Kaku repeats himself a lot, to the point of being periodically annoying.) One thing I found glaringly missing from the religious "logic" discussion was mention of either Rene Descartes or Blaise Pascal.

One amusing consequence of the "beauty" and "no empirical evidence" discussion concerning higher dimensional superstring theory is that these are precisely the arguments used by many theologists and lay religious adherents alike to justify the existence of God, as well as their faith. This suggests that modern (quantum) physics is in danger of becoming more religion then science, and its practitioners of becoming more a priesthood than a scientific community. But then this has happened before in physics - at least until the "test of time" transfigures faith into fact.

I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 because of the redundancies, typos or misspellings that seem to occur every 20 pages or so.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: good read-non-genius friendly.
Comment: good book. explains details in a way that laymen can comprehend. i never took any physics- but i was capable of understaning dr. kakus book. he is well spoken and well versed in the modern beliefs of theoretical science.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Postmodernism in physics
Comment: I really enjoyed this book when I was fresh out of high school. However, reflecting back on this work, it really is nothing more than a delightfully written book on a large collection of theories that have not been and probably cannot be verified through empirical observation. Sure, it might be amusing to hypothesize about parallel universes, superstrings, time machines and the like. Nevertheless, I do not see the utility in doing so until we have a compelling reason to believe that these things might exist.

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