Name: The Hidden Reality
ISBN: 9780307278128

The Hidden Reality

author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos comes his most expansive and accessible book to date—a book that takes on the grandest question: Is ours the only universe? There was a time when “universe” meant all there is. Everything. Yet, in recent years discoveries in physics and cosmology have led a number of scientists to conclude that our universe may be one among many. With crystal-clear prose and inspired use of analogy, Brian Greene shows how a range of different “multiverse” proposals emerges from theories developed to explain the most refined observations of both subatomic particles and the dark depths of space: a multiverse in which you have an infinite number of doppelgängers, each reading this sentence in a distant universe; a multiverse comprising a vast ocean of bubble universes, of which ours is but one; a multiverse that endlessly cycles through time, or one that might be hovering millimeters away yet remains invisible; another in which every possibility allowed by quantum physics is brought to life. Or, perhaps strangest of all, a multiverse made purely of math. Greene, one of our foremost physicists and science writers, takes us on a captivating exploration of these parallel worlds and reveals how much of reality’s true nature may be deeply hidden within them.

What Hacker News says

tmshJun 2024

For a fun intro to modern math I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Math-Heart-Hidden-Reality/dp/046....

This paper touches on a lot of the aspects in that book. With it and some undergrad math one can appreciate the brilliance of the paper.

Also a good reading from earlier from the same author: https://archive.is/qk5GC

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mindcrimeSep 2022

That would be a long list, given that I read a lot of books and would generally say that most of the books I've read were worth investing time in to some extent. But for what it's worth, here's a subset, cribbed from my previous HN comments:

Something Deeply Hidden - Sean Carroll

The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth - Paul Hoffman

The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - Robert Kanigel

Lost in Math - Sabine Hossenfelder

The First Three Minutes - Steven Weinberg

Hyperspace - Michio Kaku

Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit

The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin

About Time - Paul Davies

Time Reborn - Lee Smolin

The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

The Hidden Reality - Brian Greene

The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene

Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe - Jim Baggott

The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo

Three Roads To Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos - Seth Lloyd

Higgs - The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle' - Jim Baggott

Analogy Making As Perception - Melanie Mitchell

Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky

Engineering General Intelligence, Part 1 - Ben Goertzel

Engineering General Intelligence, Part 2 - Ben Goertzel

The AGI Revolution - Ben Goertzel

Hackers & Painters by our very own Paul "pg" Graham

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy

The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder

Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff

Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology - Steven Levy

Ghost In The Wires - Kevin Mitnick

The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick

The Art of Intrusion - Kevin Mitnick

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstrong

Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes

Charles Proteus Steinmetz: The Electrical Wizard of Schenectady - Robert Bly

Report From Engine Co 82 - Dennis Smith

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! - Al Ries and Jack Trout

Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries

Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition - Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Marketing High Technology - William H. Davidow

Marketing Warfare - Al Ries

The Discipline of Market Leaders - Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema

Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore

How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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mindcrimeMay 2022

Something Deeply Hidden - Sean Carroll[1]

Lost in Math - Sabine Hossenfelder[2]

The First Three Minutes - Steven Weinberg[3]

Hyperspace - Michio Kaku[4]

Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit[5]

The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin[6]

About Time - Paul Davies[7]

Time Reborn - Lee Smolin[8]

The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene[9]

The Hidden Reality - Brian Greene[10]

The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene[11]

Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe - Jim Baggott[12]

The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo[13]

Three Roads To Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin[14]

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos - Seth Lloyd[15]

Higgs - The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle' - Jim Baggott[16]

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Something-Deeply-Hidden-Emergence-Spa...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/15...

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/First-Three-Minutes-Modern-Universe/d...

[4]: https://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Parallel-Univer...

[5]: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/04...

[6]: https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Physics-String-Theory-Science...

[7]: https://www.amazon.com/About-Time-Einsteins-Unfinished-Revol...

[8]: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Lee-Smolin/dp/0544245598/

[9]: https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Universe-Superstrings-Dimensi...

[10]: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Cos...

[11]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375412883/ref=dbs_a_def_r...

[12]: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Space-Gravity-Structure-Unive...

[13]: https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Speaks-Numbers-Reveals-Natur...

[14]: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Roads-Quantum-Gravity-Smolin/dp...

[15]: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer...

[16]: https://www.amazon.com/Higgs-invention-discovery-God-Particl...

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heroHACK17Oct 2019

String theory is probably the one scientific topic I spend the most of my free time learning about. It is fascinating. I have read Brian Greene's 'The Hidden Reality' over five times, I think.

I recently watched his conversation with Sam Harris and was intrigued by a point Brian made, albeit about quantum mechanics and the 'many worlds' theory.

Brian claims that he doesn't think the many worlds theory holds water because it makes an assumption about what happens before some object is measured (A) and after that same object is measured (A'): while many worlds claims that all possibilities are indeed realized, Brian claims that we just don't know for sure what happens between events (A) and (A'); he claims that a unified theory would explain what happens between those events.

In any case, that's just me rambling about it. Thanks for the post :)

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MrBingleyMar 2018

Sure. For example, string theory posits the existence of an extra 6 dimensions of space, which need to be wrapped up in something called a Calabi-Yau manifold. The exact properties of this manifold determine some of the basic properties of the universe, such as the values of the fundamental constants and the number of elementary particles. The only problem: there are about 10^500 possible Calabi-Yau manifolds, each of which looks just as valid as another. Early string theorists had hoped all the extra manifolds would somehow be ruled out, leaving only one that would uniquely determine the properties of our universe. However, this avenue is now looking pretty hopeless; it seems we're stuck with all 10^500 possibilities. So, what does one do with all these manifolds?

Well, it turns out that the early universe went through a phase of incredible, extraordinary expansion called inflation. The inflation was boosted by something called an inflaton field, and due to quantum properties the inflaton field could spontaneously destabilize and spawn a bubble universe, each of which with a different Calabi-Yau manifold. It's possible that we are inside such a bubble universe, and outside of us the inflaton field is continuing to expand and producing more bubble universes. If this is the case, then it's not much of a surprise why our universe has the properties it does. Out of the 10^500 possibilities, a bubble universe spawned with the right Calabi-Yau manifold for life, and (unsurprisingly) we find ourselves living in that universe. This is the landscape multiverse theory. (I originally read about this theory in Brian Greene's excellent book The Hidden Reality, which describes many other multiverse theories too.)

Now, something important to note is that all this is still highly conjectural. String theory has many pleasing theoretical properties, but about zero physical evidence to support it. What then is the difference between string theory and deism? The difference is that for string theory (and more generally other multiverse theories) we actually have physical and mathematical theories that describe them. Deism doesn't. For string theory, we have papers, conferences, books, equations, and physicists and mathematicians who study this problem. We have something to work with. What do we have for deism? Well, pretty much nothing. No data, no theories, no anything. Deism is a fall-back theory when nothing else works out, and it has no theoretical roots and makes no predictions. This may change in the future, but as of now, deism is a scientific dead end. Of course, I don't know if string theory or another multiverse theory will pan out (indeed, the failure of the LHC to detect supersymmetry is raising some eyebrows), or even if deism actually turns out to be correct. However, on a scientific basis, string theory has more going for it now.

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argklmAug 2015

  Feynman QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter; 
  Penrose The road to reality; 
  Greene The elegant universe; 
  Greene The fabric of cosmos; 
  Greene The hidden reality; 
  Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach; 
  Asimov Understanding Physics; 
  Ivanov Easy as pi; 
  Boyer a history of Mathematics; 
  Robbins What is Mathematics?; 
  Russel principia mathematica;

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