The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe

Product Information

More than that, he rejects a governing assumption of almost all post–standard model theorizing, which is that such foundational challenges as the measurement problem and quantum gravity can be ignored while physicists work on the problem of unification.

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of (PDF) The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of

Here we deliberately position most mathematicians with the philosophers as their work also rarely involves direct experience with reality.

Questions of morality are of less relevance in this context but are critical with respect to the mental world.

The Road to Reality | Not Even Wrong - Columbia University The Road to Reality | Not Even Wrong - Columbia University

It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, so that, for example, the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background to the physical theories explored later in the book. Unfortunately, he then deliberately throws in references to material objects too small for us to see directly, like electrons and abstractions, like numbers.A discussion of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics is given a full chapter; superstrings are given a chapter near the end of the book, as are loop gravity and twistor theory. It is also important to agree that no particular scale is privileged: we are as real as galaxies or electrons if we are all made of the same basic stuff – known by the common name: matter. The problem seems to be related to the specialization of western intellectuals: few philosophers have been real, practicing scientists (doing it, not just reading about it), while most scientists have little knowledge of philosophy; so a dangerous chasm has developed in these two aspects of our mental world. Roger Penrose's purpose is to describe as clearly as possible our present understanding of the universe and to convey a feeling for its deep beauty and philosophical implications, as well as its intricate logical interconnections. Motto: "The difference between a good experiment and a good theory is in the fact that the theory gets old quickly and it is replaced by another one, based on more perfect ideas.