In this illuminating book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics -- the search for the laws of nature -- lo...
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Apr 05, 2011
notgettingenough
rated it: 
PS: The other day I'm talking to a scientist about an experience I had in a pub recently.
Me: A Frenchman talked to me in quite the grossest way, non-stop about sex.
Scientist: What did he say?
Me: You don't want to know.
Scientist: But I do, I DO want to know.
Me, disgusted: Things like: They have sex orgy parties in Geneva where pee pee* drips down from the ceiling on you -
(*utilising the full force of the Romance language)
Scie More...
Me: A Frenchman talked to me in quite the grossest way, non-stop about sex.
Scientist: What did he say?
Me: You don't want to know.
Scientist: But I do, I DO want to know.
Me, disgusted: Things like: They have sex orgy parties in Geneva where pee pee* drips down from the ceiling on you -
(*utilising the full force of the Romance language)
Scie More...
24 comments
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(20 people liked it)
Nov 21, 2010
Manny
rated it: 
An interesting and well-written book. Smolin started out wanting to write about the sociology of research funding in the US. He is extremely worried about the fact that it has become difficult for young researchers to get money to pursue novel ideas, with most funding concentrated on a small number of mainstream projects which are regarded as "safe". In many fields, this has already been taken to the logical extreme, with nearly everything focussed on one single direction. As a researc
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15 comments
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(27 people liked it)
Feb 10, 2012
Chris
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As to the content of this exceedingly excellent examination of the state of modern theoretical physics through the eyes of a deeply-learned and concerned practitioner, the reviews by Manny and Rob are both superb and cover all of the bases with flair.
If I could go back and do it all over again, I'd run with the math skills I had garnered back in the day together with a speculative bent honed whilst seated, chin-in-hand, upon the toilet, and try to go all the way to the end as a bona fi More...
If I could go back and do it all over again, I'd run with the math skills I had garnered back in the day together with a speculative bent honed whilst seated, chin-in-hand, upon the toilet, and try to go all the way to the end as a bona fi More...
26 comments
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(8 people liked it)
Jan 18, 2011
Marcus
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This is possibly the best physics book I've ever read. Most physics books acknowledge that there are certain unknowns such as dark matter or certain aspects of string theory, but they all cleverly hide the real, and somewhat desperate, situation with contemporary physics. It's rare to find someone in any field who is willing to say "despite appearances, we don't know really what's up." Smolin does exactly that. He argues that we are in the slowest period of innovation in physics of at
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Mar 20, 2011
Rob
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I first came across The Trouble with Physics when Richard mentioned Manny's excellent review in a comment on my review of The Elegant Universe. I left The Elegant Universe feeling invigorated about physics [1] but sour on string theory.
Simply put, for as elegant as string theorists claimed that string theory was, something (everything?) about it seemed... not quite right. There was a "too good to be true" element to it, but beyond that, it did not seem that there was a good More...
Simply put, for as elegant as string theorists claimed that string theory was, something (everything?) about it seemed... not quite right. There was a "too good to be true" element to it, but beyond that, it did not seem that there was a good More...
5 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jun 21, 2008
John
rated it:
I really liked this book. I've been curious for years about what all the fuss was about, regarding string theory. I've watched a few shows on TV that had string theorists that tried to explain it, like Brian Greene, but they always seemed to just talk around it with flowery language, never explaining the nuts and bolts of how exactly it was the "theory of everything". Lee Smolin does a good job of showing that the emperor has no clothes. If he is correct, and his writing has that "
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Feb 16, 2009
DJ
rated it:
It is obvious that Lee Smolin cares deeply and sincerely about the future of his field of physics. I read this with the intent to get a balanced view of string theory (having already read Brian Greene’s gushing pro-string theory book ‘The Elegant Universe’) but got so much more. Smolin’s book offers a deeper look at scientific history, culture, and philosophy as well.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who:
* wants an overview of the current state of physics (proble More...
I highly recommend this book to anyone who:
* wants an overview of the current state of physics (proble More...
0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Feb 14, 2008
Dr M
rated it:
Smolin's polemic is often misconstrued as a criticism of superstring theory as a physical theory. Indeed Smolin is harsh on string theory, but not because it is a bad theory per se, but because the string-theory community provides a prime example of the problem Smolin is really addressing, namely how we do theoretical physics in the first place. Smolin argues that theoretical physics (at least where foundational issues of quantum physics, gravity etc. are concerned) is at a crisis where nothing
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(1 person liked it)
Oct 19, 2010
Amar
rated it: 
If I had to summarize this book in one sentence, I would say: nothing, because I didn't understand hardly any of it. It's not the author's fault, as his pop-science explanations of recondite scientific theories and phenomena (supersymmetry, gauge theory, quantum electrodynamices, string theory obviously) seem about as clear as they could be. I just didn't have the energy to pore over the chapters trying to understand things. From what I gather, string theory is a fashionable & mathematically
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5 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 29, 2009
Kiri
rated it:
I did not read every word of this very fine book, since I had already gotten the gist of string theory from Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" (and had my brain exploded by "space-tearing phase transitions"), and had also gotten the essentials of the failures of string theory from other sources.
Lee Smolin is a fine writer and a fascinating thinker, and I found the later chapters of the book to be the most interesting, wherein he speculates about new ideas in More...
Lee Smolin is a fine writer and a fascinating thinker, and I found the later chapters of the book to be the most interesting, wherein he speculates about new ideas in More...
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(1 person liked it)
Dec 03, 2007
Wes
rated it:
Luke Janes got me this book for my birthday. He knew I'd like it because I'm a science nerd, and I'm especially interested in theoretical physics. This book, however, is about a lot more than that. Lee Smolin (one of my new heroes) not only challenges the state and direction of the modern study of physics, he does in the context of our (humanity's) responsibility to seek out truth and make sense of the universe around us. It's a sober analysis of modern physics, but a very hopeful one. A good co
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Sep 21, 2011
Herve
rated it:
I just finished reading The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin. It is a GREAT book. Now what has this to do with innovation and start-ups? Well I see a link: In my book I refer to Thomas Kuhn, the author of the “structure of scientific revolutions”. Indeed Innovation and Research have similarities in the way they progress. The specific topic he focuses on is the lack of progress in physics. Don’t we have a similar issue with innovation? I also quoted Pitch Johnson, one of the grandfathers of ve
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Aug 12, 2011
Terry
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Lee Smolin presents a compelling case for the institutional, sociological, and historical factors that have caused physics to fail to answer the basic questions left open by the Standard Model over the past 30 years.
The book opens with an outline of the open problems left in the wake of the Standard Model and is notable for demanding that a theory be both accurate in the sense that it makes testable predictions that hold under scrutiny AND that the theory make sense in providing a fram More...
The book opens with an outline of the open problems left in the wake of the Standard Model and is notable for demanding that a theory be both accurate in the sense that it makes testable predictions that hold under scrutiny AND that the theory make sense in providing a fram More...
Apr 06, 2011
Bojan
rated it:
I have been acquainted with Lee Smolin's work primarily through his contribution to the research in loop quantum gravity. This is a less well known approach to quantum gravity, and the most serious rival to string theory, the primary subject matter of "The Trouble with Physics". Even though I am not a big fan of String Theory, to say the least, I am also rather sceptical about all the other current approaches to the problem of quantum gravity, so I was a bit reluctant to read this book
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Aug 29, 2010
Bob
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Smolin's book starts out strong. He provides a good review of post-Einstein physics, which is generally clear and informative. Smolin then moves to his concerns about string theory and goes into great detail discussing all of its nooks and crannies. With nearly every page, Smolin introduces another string theorist, with new labels and terminology. It is too much for the non-specialist. The last third of the book takes on the tribal academic world that, through the tenure and peer review sys
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Feb 13, 2010
Thurston
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A challenging selection for our book club, suggested by T. and then selected over two others by myself. So I may have shot my impartiality with my own uncertainty of principles.
To be honest, a lot of this was in one black hole and out the other. I did read the entire thing, and tried to put effort into the branes and strings. I was a bit disappointed in myself to find my favorite duality is the one between the art dealer and the popular female writer. Any one want to drop the name on More...
To be honest, a lot of this was in one black hole and out the other. I did read the entire thing, and tried to put effort into the branes and strings. I was a bit disappointed in myself to find my favorite duality is the one between the art dealer and the popular female writer. Any one want to drop the name on More...
Jun 17, 2009
Kathleen
rated it:
The trouble with physics is apparently the decline of everything one loves--or ought to love--about science. The idea that theories should be falsifiable and supported by experimental evidence has, according to Smolin, fallen by the wayside when it comes to theoretical physics as it is practiced today. I have heard it before, from sources within the string theory community--okay, it was probably Michio Kaku or Brian Greene--that string theorists do consider M-Theory "the only game in town
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Apr 10, 2009
Adrian
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This book is really special to me at a pure ego level. When I got out of college in 1987 with my BS in biomedical engineering, I was determined to keep up with science. I wasn't going to be one of those scientists whose state of knowledge froze at his date of graduation. So I got a subscription to Scientific American. I'm not a big magazine fan because I have a thing about reading them like a book, which is not the way you're supposed to read magazines. (The only one I really read is The Wilson
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Jan 27, 2009
Michael
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I read this book as a counterpoint to the string theory craze. I had read a few string theory books, but I wanted to see what the other side had to say about the subject.
Smolin makes many good points, but in the end I think he comes off as a rather fustrated naysayer. While he does discuss a lot of theories that are alternatives to string theory, and he does point out a lot of string theories (very publizied) holes, he spends a lot of time laymenting about the state of the physics c More...
Smolin makes many good points, but in the end I think he comes off as a rather fustrated naysayer. While he does discuss a lot of theories that are alternatives to string theory, and he does point out a lot of string theories (very publizied) holes, he spends a lot of time laymenting about the state of the physics c More...
Apr 25, 2011
Natalie
rated it:
I first heard about string theory when I watched The Elegant Universe on television, coincidentally at the same time as I was reading the book of the same name. This really kick-started my amateur interest in physics and cosmology. I understood abstractly the problems with string theory and just assumed that eventually we would develop better instruments and experiments, and then test the theory's predictions. The Trouble with Physics critically evaluates the string theory research program, clar
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Feb 05, 2009
In The Trouble with Physics, Lee Smolin, founder of the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada, and the author of several popular science books, including The Life of the Cosmos and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, takes a complex debate on a highly theoretical topic and makes it accessible and interesting to the general public. With gusto, the author describes the infighting and politics that hinder progress in physics. Opinions vary on the success of Smolin's call to acti
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Jul 31, 2010
James
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Lee Smolin is highly regarded in the scientific community. He doesn't treat his audience as a professional scientist a lot of the time but he doesn't treat them all as idiots either. In fact, this book provides an insight for people that range from "smart, intuitive" to "professional, enthusiast".
I really do think that more books like this should exist, if only to provide people with intense summaries of "what is going on" in whatever field it might be. More...
I really do think that more books like this should exist, if only to provide people with intense summaries of "what is going on" in whatever field it might be. More...
Jan 23, 2008
Eric
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I grew up reading about physics, its triumphs, and heroes, so it's very interesting to read about the state it's in now. It also made me step back and think about the state of science in my own research area, which I very much appreciate. Clear, well-written, intriguing, and thought-provoking.
Jan 02, 2009
Doug
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Smolin's thesis is that there have been no big breakthroughs in theoretical physics in 30 years, and that the culture of academia is to blame. String theory has been in fashion for the last few decades, but while its promise seems to have run out, it still dominates almost all research programs. Smolin makes his case against academia pretty well, if a bit redundantly, but I was more interested in reading about the details of string theory and why it hasn't delivered on its promise. Unfortunat
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Oct 01, 2010
Liviu
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Great book that demystifies the grandiose claims of the string theorist who still have nothing to show after 20+ years of dominating the cutting edge of physics, unless they retreat in theology with the Multiverse taking place of God - so many are succumbing to the attitude do not ask too many questions since the Multiverse ordained it, we just have to describe it the best v(ie the way math tells us, reality notwithstanding).
Basically the attitude of the Church theologians of the middle ag More...
Basically the attitude of the Church theologians of the middle ag More...
Sep 25, 2007
Bleak
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The author puts it far more politely than this, but string theory has been on the pot for a very long time with nothing to show for it. I was wondering why the physics books I read in college 30 years ago all seemed perfectly contemporary.
Aug 03, 2011
Dan
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Interesting book that raises questions not only about the correctness of string theory but also about what it is to be a scientific theory at all and about social aspects of the enterprise of science. There are times when Smolin comes across as someone with a grudge, but he asks some important questions and I've not yet seen a decent rebuttal. The physics was too much for me (will someone please find a way to explain gauge invariance to non-physicists, for example?) I also found it interestin
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May 24, 2010
Raghu
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Dr.Smolin's book makes the primary argument that theoretical physics has lost its way in the past 30 years by not contributing to our further understanding of the laws of Physics. Thirty years is a long time in modern science and so he believes that Physics is in trouble. The main reason for this state of affairs, he contends, is the enormous focus on String theory to the exclusion of every other approach. String theorists attempt to formulate a 'theory of everything' that integrates all the par
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Aug 19, 2009
Tom
rated it:
are you a closet science/physics nerd? wonder what the real deal is with these things called String Theory and Quantum Mechanics? well, it might just be that they don't actually have any true scientific grounding.
Lee Smolin suggests that physics has lost its way since the early 20th century. His case is convincing. If you are a mathematician, this book will probably piss you off.
And don't fret when you reach the dense chapters describing modern string theory. it's con More...
Lee Smolin suggests that physics has lost its way since the early 20th century. His case is convincing. If you are a mathematician, this book will probably piss you off.
And don't fret when you reach the dense chapters describing modern string theory. it's con More...
Jun 23, 2011
Matt
rated it:
This book had a great overview of physics ("post-modern") from around the 1970s. It was a good (but sometimes repetitive) look at what it takes to make a revolutionary change in science, and how string theory has failed to do that. One chapter looked at the problems with academic/grant/tenure system which had some interesting points. I like Tim Ferris' Science of Liberty a bit better, but there are some parallels in this book -- an interesting divergence was Smolin's embrace of Feye
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