June 2007 Archives

This was a very interesting book. I have just a passing interest in the modern physics and its attempts to unify the forces and the particles. My last physics book was The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, so I assumed that the String Theory (or various String Theories as it turns out) was it and it had been "proven" to be the only (?) viable theory in the contemporary physics scene.

Well, this book by Lee Smolin definitely put a huge doubt in that assumption. Although I don't have the facility to independently verify all his claims, but he makes very convincing arguments against the String Theories as the unifying theory and its many unresolved issues (one of which is it has not been able to predict any new and unique experimental results). What came clear to me from Mr. Smolin (who was at one time a String Theory proponent) is that the String Theories have so many adjustable variables that they can be adjusted to fit any experimental results without uniquely predicting a new phenomenon (they haven't been able to for the past 25 years or so).

The book is not only about the science. It is also about the sociological issues in the physics community. Mr. Smolin describes it as a society who is very susceptible to fashion, exclusive, hierarchical, and authoritative (mostly due to how the funding works). My first thought after reading his description was it really sounds like a religious organization. Mr. Smolin argues that the sociological atmosphere in the physics community (for the past 25 years or so) has made most of the brightest minds in physics to follow fads in the String Theories and has made exploration of other options very slow.

Anyway, I recommend this book to anyone who has interests in modern physics.