(As posted at amazon.com)
I learnt (& reconfirmed) a lot about current theories of universe or multiverse from this book and hence, put 5 stars. There are two points I would like to mention after reading this book: (1) Is our existence on the Earth really meaningless, i.e., accidental? (2) Why do we perceive only three dimensions of space, not 4 or 9 or 10?
Point (1): It appears that advancements made by modern science in the 20th and 21st centuries have made our existence in this particular corner of the universe increasingly more enigmatic'as if our existence was preordained in a Grand Design; hence comes the first question. Professor Greene explains an answer to the question based on modern science. One idea to make the enigma mundane, statistically, is the idea of multiverse of several theoretical types (albeit existing proponents and detractors of the idea), which may consist of a huge number of universes, and our life-friendly universe is not anything special but merely one of them.
Point (2): As we listen to Prof. Greene in the amazon.com video, he explains the possible reasons based on the idea of curled-up dimensions or the extra-dimension connecting the 'braneworlds,' and to experimentally verify the idea, some particle physics experiments are now going on at CERN using the LHC. Physicists are carefully accounting input vs. output energies in the experiments. And if other extra-dimensional models proposed by physicists describe the universe, some small fraction of energy (in the form of gravitons of loop-shaped string) will disappear into the unobservable fifth-dimension (i.e., unobservable to people confined in the four-dimensional spacetime-brane) and we will ultimately conclude the existence of those extra-dimensions.
Now, because of my being a non-materialist, may I have an opportunity to refer to some other non-materialistic ideas explaining these two issues?
Regarding Point (1): i.e., meaningfulness of our existence on the Earth
Just as materialistic science assumes that in the beginning there exist elementary particles or strings materialized from some pure energy, the non-materialistic idea assumes that in the beginning there exists 'unit of consciousness (CU in short)' in some non-physical dimensions; and everything in the physical dimension is the results of the CUs combining each other to form meaningful physical objects, including life on Earth, based on some '(eleven) universal laws,' which transcend our physical laws. So in this idea, existence of life on the Earth is teleological from the start. According to this idea, there will be no meaningless universes; no need to explain 'how come the consciousness out of elementary particles or strings?' Of course need to explain 'how come the CUs?'
This non-materialistic idea, i.e., 'psychical knowledge,' so to speak, comes from the book by an American writer, poet, and trance channeler, Jane Roberts (1929-1984): The 'Unknown' Reality, Vols. 1 & 2 (originally published in 1977 & 1979 from Prentice-Hall, now from Amber-Allen). This book is counter to Prof. Greene's The Hidden Reality. Einstein says 'energy and mass are different manifestations of the same thing (i.e., E = Mc^2).' The psychical knowledge says 'consciousness and matter and energy are one, but consciousness initiates the transformation energy into matter.' This is one of the important points of the traditional psychical research, in which an apparently living human form is materialized by a legitimate physical medium.
Regarding Point (2): Why do we perceive only three dimensions of space, not 4 or 9 or 10? The psychical knowledge explains to the effect as follows: What we call dimensions represent states in which reality is perceived. We perceive reality in three dimensions, and we have a glimpse of reality in a fourth dimension [e.g., the fourth-dimensional cube known as tesseract]. There are many dimensions however in all directions. [These heavenly bodies represent moment points in other systems. As they are projected into our system however, they are only perceived in terms of matter with our physical senses. The psychical knowledge tells further.] These dimensions merely represent various capacities of consciousness. All these dimensions exist at once, and even within our system, but our consciousness cannot perceive them. (Based on Roberts, J. [1999]. The Early Sessions: Book 6 of the Seth Material: pp. 152−154, Session 258 on May 11, 1966, Manhasset, NY: New Awareness Network) Hence, the reason why we cannot perceive more than three dimensions is because of our consciousness being at such a lower developmental stage! Maybe Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was at a lot advanced stage of his consciousness, as expressed in his book 'The Earths in the Universe and their Inhabitants (1875).'
Because, very probably, there will be criticisms against my posting, saying my writing nonsense, waste of website space, I would like to mention one more point in advance to cope with such possible criticisms. I believe in the weight of soul: the 21 g of missing weight (i.e., unaccountable energy balance) detected by Dr. Duncan MacDougall for his first subject in his experiment published in 1907. Although physics Prof. Robert L. Park states in his book (Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science (2008)) to the effect that the missing weights are the result of MacDougall's wishful thinking and superstitious nonsense, no scientist has ever scientifically either refuted or confirmed the missing weights. Rather, recently a paper was published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2010 Spring Issue (Vol. 24, No.1, pp. 5-39: Rebuttal to Claimed Refutations of Duncan MacDougall's Experiment on Human Weight Change at the Moment of Death. [This Vol.24/No.1 is on sale at amazon.com.]), which supports MacDougall's experiment being scientifically sound on a basis of theoretical simulations of the weighing experiment. The missing weight, if confirmed authentic, is quite relevant to the two points discussed above, because (1) it suggests our life on the Earth being not meaningless, and (2) it suggests existence of non-physical extra-dimensions for afterlife.
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The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos ハードカバー – 2011/1/25
英語版
Brian Greene
(著)
From the best-selling 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. And, with his unrivaled ability to make the most challenging of material accessible and entertaining, Greene tackles the core question: How can fundamental science progress if great swaths of reality lie beyond our reach?
Sparked by Greene’s trademark wit and precision, The Hidden Reality is at once a far-reaching survey of cutting-edge physics and a remarkable journey to the very edge of reality—a journey grounded firmly in science and limited only by our imagination.
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. And, with his unrivaled ability to make the most challenging of material accessible and entertaining, Greene tackles the core question: How can fundamental science progress if great swaths of reality lie beyond our reach?
Sparked by Greene’s trademark wit and precision, The Hidden Reality is at once a far-reaching survey of cutting-edge physics and a remarkable journey to the very edge of reality—a journey grounded firmly in science and limited only by our imagination.
- 本の長さ384ページ
- 言語英語
- 出版社Knopf
- 発売日2011/1/25
- 寸法16.51 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
- ISBN-100307265633
- ISBN-13978-0307265630
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“If extraterrestrials landed tomorrow and demanded to know what the human mind is capable of accomplishing, we could do worse than to hand them a copy of this book.”
—Timothy Ferris, The New York Times Book Review“Few living writers write so lucidly about such complicated stuff. In
Greene’s prose, cutting-edge cosmology and particle physics become something a plucky and well-rested reader can apprehend. . . Greene might be the best intermediary I’ve found between the sparkling, absolute zero world of mathematics and the warm, clumsy world of human language.”
—Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe
“Mr. Greene has a gift for elucidating big ideas . . . Exciting and rewarding . . . [The Hidden Reality] captures and engages the imagination.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“It's impossible to summarize every step of Greene's balletic footwork, by which, like some multi-limbed Asian deity, he dances into being each different theoretical framework that could support multiple universes. . . His arguments are constructed like classical cathedrals, with intricate arches and buttresses that all uphold the central spire. Sometimes you think he's lost in the details of some sculpted gargoyle, only to realize how essential to the whole structure this particular feature is.”
—Paul di Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review
“[Greene] leads the general reader on an excursion to the farthest and most mind-bending reaches of speculative physics . . . An exhilarating—if sometimes vertigo-inducing—journey.”
—Alden Mudge, Bookpage
“An in-depth yet marvelously accessible look inside the perplexing world of modern theoretical physics and cosmology . . . Greene presents a lucid, intriguing, and triumphantly understandable state-of-the-art look at the universe.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
—Timothy Ferris, The New York Times Book Review“Few living writers write so lucidly about such complicated stuff. In
Greene’s prose, cutting-edge cosmology and particle physics become something a plucky and well-rested reader can apprehend. . . Greene might be the best intermediary I’ve found between the sparkling, absolute zero world of mathematics and the warm, clumsy world of human language.”
—Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe
“Mr. Greene has a gift for elucidating big ideas . . . Exciting and rewarding . . . [The Hidden Reality] captures and engages the imagination.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“It's impossible to summarize every step of Greene's balletic footwork, by which, like some multi-limbed Asian deity, he dances into being each different theoretical framework that could support multiple universes. . . His arguments are constructed like classical cathedrals, with intricate arches and buttresses that all uphold the central spire. Sometimes you think he's lost in the details of some sculpted gargoyle, only to realize how essential to the whole structure this particular feature is.”
—Paul di Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review
“[Greene] leads the general reader on an excursion to the farthest and most mind-bending reaches of speculative physics . . . An exhilarating—if sometimes vertigo-inducing—journey.”
—Alden Mudge, Bookpage
“An in-depth yet marvelously accessible look inside the perplexing world of modern theoretical physics and cosmology . . . Greene presents a lucid, intriguing, and triumphantly understandable state-of-the-art look at the universe.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
抜粋
Chapter 1
The Bounds of Reality
On Parallel Worlds
If, when I was growing up, my room had been adorned with only a single mirror, my childhood daydreams might have been very different. But it had two. And each morning when I opened the closet to get my clothes, the one built into its door aligned with the one on the wall, creating a seemingly endless series of reflections of anything situated between them. It was mesmerizing. I delighted in seeing image after image populating the parallel glass planes, extending back as far as the eye could discern. All the reflections seemed to move in unison—but that, I knew, was a mere limitation of human perception; at a young age I had learned of light’s finite speed. So in my mind’s eye, I would watch the light’s round-trip journeys. The bob of my head, the sweep of my arm silently echoed between the mirrors, each reflected image nudging the next. Sometimes I would imagine an irreverent me way down the line who refused to fall into place, disrupting the steady progression and creating a new reality that informed the ones that followed. During lulls at school, I would sometimes think about the light I had shed that morning, still endlessly bouncing between the mirrors, and I’d join one of my reflected selves, entering an imaginary parallel world constructed of light and driven by fantasy. It was a safe way to break the rules.
To be sure, reflected images don’t have minds of their own. But these youthful flights of fancy, with their imagined parallel realities, resonate with an increasingly prominent theme in modern science—the possibility of worlds lying beyond the one we know. This book is an exploration of such possibilities, a considered journey through the science of parallel universes.
Universe and Universes
There was a time when “universe” meant “all there is.” Everything. The whole shebang. The notion of more than one universe, more than one everything, would seemingly be a contradiction in terms. Yet a range of theoretical developments has gradually qualified the interpretation of “universe.” To a physicist, the word’s meaning now largely depends on context. Sometimes “universe” still connotes absolutely everything. Sometimes it refers only to those parts of everything that someone such as you or I could, in principle, have access to. Sometimes it’s applied to separate realms, ones that are partly or fully, temporarily or permanently, inaccessible to us; in this sense, the word relegates ours to membership in a large, perhaps infinitely large, collection.
With its hegemony diminished, “universe” has given way to other terms introduced to capture the wider canvas on which the totality of reality may be painted. Parallel worlds or parallel universes or multiple universes or alternate universes or the metaverse, megaverse, or multiverse—they’re all synonymous and they’re all among the words used to embrace not just our universe but a spectrum of others that may be out there.
You’ll notice that the terms are somewhat vague. What exactly constitutes a world or a universe? What criteria distinguish realms that are distinct parts of a single universe from those classified as universes of their own? Perhaps someday our understanding of multiple universes will mature sufficiently for us to have precise answers to these questions. For now, we’ll use the approach famously applied by Justice Potter Stewart in attempting to define pornography. While the U.S. Supreme Court wrestled mightily to delineate a standard, Stewart declared simply and forthrightly, “I know it when I see it.”
In the end, labeling one realm or another a parallel universe is merely a question of language. What matters, what’s at the heart of the subject, is whether there exist realms that challenge convention by suggesting that what we’ve long thought to be the universe is only one component of a far grander, perhaps far stranger, and mostly hidden reality.
During the last half century, science has provided ample ways in which this possibility might be realized.
Varieties of Parallel Universes
A striking fact (it’s in part what propelled me to write this book) is that many of the major developments in fundamental theoretical physics— relativistic physics, quantum physics, cosmological physics, unified physics, computational physics—have led us to consider one or another variety of parallel universe. Indeed, the chapters that follow trace a narrative arc through nine variations on the multiverse theme. Each envisions our universe as part of an unexpectedly larger whole, but the complexion of that whole and the nature of the member universes differ sharply among them. In some, the parallel universes are separated from us by enormous stretches of space or time; in others, they’re hovering millimeters away; in others still, the very notion of their location proves parochial, devoid of meaning. A similar range of possibility is manifest in the laws governing the parallel universes. In some, the laws are the same as in ours; in others, they appear different but have shared a heritage; in others still, the laws are of a form and structure unlike anything we’ve ever encountered. It’s at once humbling and stirring to imagine just how expansive reality may be.
Some of the earliest scientific forays into parallel worlds were initiated in the 1950s by researchers puzzling over aspects of quantum mechanics, a theory developed to explain phenomena taking place in the microscopic realm of atoms and subatomic particles. Quantum mechanics broke the mold of the previous framework, classical mechanics, by establishing that the predictions of science are necessarily probabilistic. We can predict the odds of attaining one outcome, we can predict the odds of another, but we generally can’t predict which will actually happen. This well-known departure from hundreds of years of scientific thought is surprising enough. But there’s a more confounding aspect of quantum theory that receives less attention. After decades of closely studying quantum mechanics, and after having accumulated a wealth of data confirming its probabilistic predictions, no one has been able to explain why only one of the many possible outcomes in any given situation actually happens. When we do experiments, when we examine the world, we all agree that we encounter a single definite reality. Yet, more than a century after the quantum revolution began, there is no consensus among the world’s physicists as to how this basic fact is compatible with the theory’s mathematical expression.
Over the years, this substantial gap in understanding has inspired many creative proposals, but the most startling was among the first. Maybe, that early suggestion went, the familiar notion that any given experiment has one and only one outcome is flawed. The mathematics underlying quantum mechanics—or at least, one perspective on the math— suggests that all possible outcomes happen, each inhabiting its own separate universe. If a quantum calculation predicts that a particle might be here, or it might be there, then in one universe it is here, and in another it is there. And in each such universe, there’s a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome, thinking—incorrectly—that your reality is the only reality. When you realize that quantum mechanics underlies all physical processes, from the fusing of atoms in the sun to the neural firing that constitutes the stuff of thought, the far-reaching implications of the proposal become apparent. It says that there’s no such thing as a road untraveled. Yet each such road— each reality—is hidden from all others.
This tantalizing Many Worlds approach to quantum mechanics has attracted much interest in recent decades. But investigations have shown that it’s a subtle and thorny framework (as we will discuss in Chapter 8); so, even today, after more than half a century of vetting, the proposal remains controversial. Some quantum practitioners argue that it has already been proven correct, while others claim just as assuredly that the mathematical underpinnings don’t hold together.
What is beyond doubt is that this early version of parallel universes resonated with themes of separate lands or alternative histories that were being explored in literature, television, and film, creative forays that continue today. (My favorites since childhood include The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” and, more recently, Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run). Collectively, these and many other works of popular culture have helped integrate the concept of parallel realities into the zeitgeist and are responsible for fueling much public fascination with the topic. But the mathematics of quantum mechanics is only one of numerous ways that a conception of parallel universes emerges from modern physics. In fact, it won’t be the first I’ll discuss.
Instead, in Chapter 2, I’ll begin with a different route to parallel universes, perhaps the simplest route of all. We’ll see that if space extends infinitely far—a proposition that is consistent with all observations and that is part of the cosmological model favored by many physicists and astronomers—then there must be realms out there (likely way out there) where copies of you and me and everything else are enjoying alternate versions of the reality we experience here. Chapter 3 will journey deeper into cosmology: the inflationary theory, an approach that posits an enormous burst of superfast spatial expansion during the universe’s earliest moments, generates its own version of parallel worlds. If inflation is correct, as the most refined astronomical observations suggest, the burst that created our region of space may not have been unique. Instead, right now, inflationary expansion in distant realms may be spawning universe upon universe and may continue to do so for all eternity. What’s more, each of these ballooning universes has its own infinite spatial expanse, and hence contains infinitely many of the parallel worlds explored in Chapter 2.
In Chapter 4, our trek turns to string theory. After a brief review of the basics, I’ll provide a status report on this approach to unifying all of nature’s laws. With that overview, in Chapters 5 and 6 we’ll explore recent developments in string theory that suggest three new kinds of parallel universes. One is string theory’s braneworld scenario, which posits that our universe is one of potentially numerous “slabs” floating in a higher-dimensional space, much like a slice of bread within a grander cosmic loaf. If we’re lucky, it’s an approach that may provide an observable signature at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, in the not too distant future. A second variety involves braneworlds that slam into one another, wiping away all they contain and initiating a new, fiery big-bang-like beginning in each. As if two giant hands were clapping, this could happen over and over—branes might collide, bounce apart, attract each other gravitationally, and then collide again, a cyclic process generating universes that are parallel not in space but in time. The third scenario is the string theory “landscape,” founded on the enormous number of possible shapes and sizes for the theory’s required extra spatial dimensions. We’ll see that, when joined with the Inflationary Multiverse, the string landscape suggests a vast collection of universes in which every possible form for the extra dimensions is realized.
In Chapter 6, we’ll focus on how these considerations illuminate one of the most surprising observational results of the last century: space appears to be filled with a uniform diffuse energy, which may well be a version of Einstein’s infamous cosmological constant. Indeed, this observation has inspired much of the recent research on parallel universes, and it’s responsible for one of the most heated debates in decades on the nature of acceptable scientific explanations. Chapter 7 extends this theme by asking, more generally, whether consideration of hidden universes beyond our own can be rightly understood as a branch of science. Can we test these ideas? If we invoke them to solve outstanding problems, have we made progress, or have we merely swept the problems under a conveniently inaccessible cosmic rug? I’ve sought to lay bare the essentials of the clashing perspectives, while ultimately emphasizing my own view that, under certain specific conditions, parallel universes fall unequivocally within the purview of science.
Quantum mechanics, with its Many Worlds version of parallel universes, is the subject of Chapter 8. I’ll briefly remind you of the essential features of quantum mechanics, then focus on the formidable problem just referred to: how to extract definite outcomes from a theory whose basic paradigm allows for mutually contradictory realities to coexist in an amorphous, but mathematically precise, probabilistic haze. I’ll carefully lead you through the reasoning that, in seeking an answer, proposes anchoring quantum reality in its own profusion of parallel worlds.
Chapter 9 takes us yet further into quantum reality, leading to what I consider the strangest version of all parallel universes proposals. It’s a proposal that emerged gradually over thirty years of theoretical studies spearheaded by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Jacob Bekenstein, Gerardt Hooft, and Leonard Susskind on the quantum properties of black holes. The work culminated in the last decade, with a stunning result from string theory, and it suggests, remarkably, that all we experience is nothing but a holographic projection of processes taking place on some distant surface that surrounds us. You can pinch yourself, and what you feel will be real, but it mirrors a parallel process taking place in a different, distant reality.
Finally, in Chapter 10 the yet more fanciful possibility of artificial
universes takes center stage. The question of whether the laws of physics give us the capacity to create new universes will be our first order of
business. We’ll then turn to universes created not with hardware but
with software—universes that might be simulated on a superadvanced computer—and investigate whether we can be confident that we’re not now living in someone or something else’s simulation. This will lead to the most unrestrained parallel universe proposal, originating in the philosophical community: that every possible reality is realized somewhere in what’s surely the grandest of all multiverses. The discussion naturally unfolds into an inquiry about the role mathematics has in unraveling the mysteries of science and, ultimately, our ability, or lack thereof, to gain an ever-deeper understanding of the expanse of reality.
The Cosmic Order
The subject of parallel universes is highly speculative. No experiment or observation has established that any version of the idea is realized in nature. So my point in writing this book is not to convince you that we’re part of a multiverse. I’m not convinced—and, speaking generally, no one should be convinced—of anything not supported by hard data. That said, I find it both curious and compelling that numerous developments in physics, if followed sufficiently far, bump into some variation on the parallel universe theme. Of particular note, it’s not that physicists are standing ready, multiverse nets in their hands, seeking to snare any passing theory that might be slotted, however awkwardly, into a parallel- universe paradigm. Rather, all of the parallel-universe proposals that we will take seriously emerge unbidden from the mathematics of theories developed to explain conventional data and observations.
My intention, then, is to lay out clearly and concisely the intellectual steps and the chain of theoretical insights that have led physicists, from a range of perspectives, to consider the possibility that ours is one of many universes. I want you to get a sense of how modern scientific investigations— not untethered fantasies like the catoptric musings of my boyhood— naturally suggest this astounding possibility. I want to show you how certain otherwise confounding observations can become eminently understandable within one or another parallel-universe framework; at the same time, I’ll describe the critical unresolved questions that have, as yet, kept this explanatory approach from being fully realized. My aim is that when you leave this book, your sense of what might be— your perspective on how the boundaries of reality may one day be redrawn by scientific developments now under way— will be far more rich and vivid.
Some people recoil at the notion of parallel worlds; as they see it, if we are part of a multiverse, our place and importance in the cosmos are marginalized. My take is different. I don’t find merit in measuring significance by our relative abundance. Rather, what’s gratifying about being human, what’s exciting about being part of the scientific enterprise, is our ability to use analytical thought to bridge vast distances, journeying to outer and inner space and, if some of the ideas we’ll encounter in this book prove correct, perhaps even beyond our universe. For me, it is the depth of our understanding, acquired from our lonely vantage point in the inky black stillness of a cold and forbidding cosmos, that reverberates across the expanse of reality and marks our arrival.
The Bounds of Reality
On Parallel Worlds
If, when I was growing up, my room had been adorned with only a single mirror, my childhood daydreams might have been very different. But it had two. And each morning when I opened the closet to get my clothes, the one built into its door aligned with the one on the wall, creating a seemingly endless series of reflections of anything situated between them. It was mesmerizing. I delighted in seeing image after image populating the parallel glass planes, extending back as far as the eye could discern. All the reflections seemed to move in unison—but that, I knew, was a mere limitation of human perception; at a young age I had learned of light’s finite speed. So in my mind’s eye, I would watch the light’s round-trip journeys. The bob of my head, the sweep of my arm silently echoed between the mirrors, each reflected image nudging the next. Sometimes I would imagine an irreverent me way down the line who refused to fall into place, disrupting the steady progression and creating a new reality that informed the ones that followed. During lulls at school, I would sometimes think about the light I had shed that morning, still endlessly bouncing between the mirrors, and I’d join one of my reflected selves, entering an imaginary parallel world constructed of light and driven by fantasy. It was a safe way to break the rules.
To be sure, reflected images don’t have minds of their own. But these youthful flights of fancy, with their imagined parallel realities, resonate with an increasingly prominent theme in modern science—the possibility of worlds lying beyond the one we know. This book is an exploration of such possibilities, a considered journey through the science of parallel universes.
Universe and Universes
There was a time when “universe” meant “all there is.” Everything. The whole shebang. The notion of more than one universe, more than one everything, would seemingly be a contradiction in terms. Yet a range of theoretical developments has gradually qualified the interpretation of “universe.” To a physicist, the word’s meaning now largely depends on context. Sometimes “universe” still connotes absolutely everything. Sometimes it refers only to those parts of everything that someone such as you or I could, in principle, have access to. Sometimes it’s applied to separate realms, ones that are partly or fully, temporarily or permanently, inaccessible to us; in this sense, the word relegates ours to membership in a large, perhaps infinitely large, collection.
With its hegemony diminished, “universe” has given way to other terms introduced to capture the wider canvas on which the totality of reality may be painted. Parallel worlds or parallel universes or multiple universes or alternate universes or the metaverse, megaverse, or multiverse—they’re all synonymous and they’re all among the words used to embrace not just our universe but a spectrum of others that may be out there.
You’ll notice that the terms are somewhat vague. What exactly constitutes a world or a universe? What criteria distinguish realms that are distinct parts of a single universe from those classified as universes of their own? Perhaps someday our understanding of multiple universes will mature sufficiently for us to have precise answers to these questions. For now, we’ll use the approach famously applied by Justice Potter Stewart in attempting to define pornography. While the U.S. Supreme Court wrestled mightily to delineate a standard, Stewart declared simply and forthrightly, “I know it when I see it.”
In the end, labeling one realm or another a parallel universe is merely a question of language. What matters, what’s at the heart of the subject, is whether there exist realms that challenge convention by suggesting that what we’ve long thought to be the universe is only one component of a far grander, perhaps far stranger, and mostly hidden reality.
During the last half century, science has provided ample ways in which this possibility might be realized.
Varieties of Parallel Universes
A striking fact (it’s in part what propelled me to write this book) is that many of the major developments in fundamental theoretical physics— relativistic physics, quantum physics, cosmological physics, unified physics, computational physics—have led us to consider one or another variety of parallel universe. Indeed, the chapters that follow trace a narrative arc through nine variations on the multiverse theme. Each envisions our universe as part of an unexpectedly larger whole, but the complexion of that whole and the nature of the member universes differ sharply among them. In some, the parallel universes are separated from us by enormous stretches of space or time; in others, they’re hovering millimeters away; in others still, the very notion of their location proves parochial, devoid of meaning. A similar range of possibility is manifest in the laws governing the parallel universes. In some, the laws are the same as in ours; in others, they appear different but have shared a heritage; in others still, the laws are of a form and structure unlike anything we’ve ever encountered. It’s at once humbling and stirring to imagine just how expansive reality may be.
Some of the earliest scientific forays into parallel worlds were initiated in the 1950s by researchers puzzling over aspects of quantum mechanics, a theory developed to explain phenomena taking place in the microscopic realm of atoms and subatomic particles. Quantum mechanics broke the mold of the previous framework, classical mechanics, by establishing that the predictions of science are necessarily probabilistic. We can predict the odds of attaining one outcome, we can predict the odds of another, but we generally can’t predict which will actually happen. This well-known departure from hundreds of years of scientific thought is surprising enough. But there’s a more confounding aspect of quantum theory that receives less attention. After decades of closely studying quantum mechanics, and after having accumulated a wealth of data confirming its probabilistic predictions, no one has been able to explain why only one of the many possible outcomes in any given situation actually happens. When we do experiments, when we examine the world, we all agree that we encounter a single definite reality. Yet, more than a century after the quantum revolution began, there is no consensus among the world’s physicists as to how this basic fact is compatible with the theory’s mathematical expression.
Over the years, this substantial gap in understanding has inspired many creative proposals, but the most startling was among the first. Maybe, that early suggestion went, the familiar notion that any given experiment has one and only one outcome is flawed. The mathematics underlying quantum mechanics—or at least, one perspective on the math— suggests that all possible outcomes happen, each inhabiting its own separate universe. If a quantum calculation predicts that a particle might be here, or it might be there, then in one universe it is here, and in another it is there. And in each such universe, there’s a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome, thinking—incorrectly—that your reality is the only reality. When you realize that quantum mechanics underlies all physical processes, from the fusing of atoms in the sun to the neural firing that constitutes the stuff of thought, the far-reaching implications of the proposal become apparent. It says that there’s no such thing as a road untraveled. Yet each such road— each reality—is hidden from all others.
This tantalizing Many Worlds approach to quantum mechanics has attracted much interest in recent decades. But investigations have shown that it’s a subtle and thorny framework (as we will discuss in Chapter 8); so, even today, after more than half a century of vetting, the proposal remains controversial. Some quantum practitioners argue that it has already been proven correct, while others claim just as assuredly that the mathematical underpinnings don’t hold together.
What is beyond doubt is that this early version of parallel universes resonated with themes of separate lands or alternative histories that were being explored in literature, television, and film, creative forays that continue today. (My favorites since childhood include The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” and, more recently, Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run). Collectively, these and many other works of popular culture have helped integrate the concept of parallel realities into the zeitgeist and are responsible for fueling much public fascination with the topic. But the mathematics of quantum mechanics is only one of numerous ways that a conception of parallel universes emerges from modern physics. In fact, it won’t be the first I’ll discuss.
Instead, in Chapter 2, I’ll begin with a different route to parallel universes, perhaps the simplest route of all. We’ll see that if space extends infinitely far—a proposition that is consistent with all observations and that is part of the cosmological model favored by many physicists and astronomers—then there must be realms out there (likely way out there) where copies of you and me and everything else are enjoying alternate versions of the reality we experience here. Chapter 3 will journey deeper into cosmology: the inflationary theory, an approach that posits an enormous burst of superfast spatial expansion during the universe’s earliest moments, generates its own version of parallel worlds. If inflation is correct, as the most refined astronomical observations suggest, the burst that created our region of space may not have been unique. Instead, right now, inflationary expansion in distant realms may be spawning universe upon universe and may continue to do so for all eternity. What’s more, each of these ballooning universes has its own infinite spatial expanse, and hence contains infinitely many of the parallel worlds explored in Chapter 2.
In Chapter 4, our trek turns to string theory. After a brief review of the basics, I’ll provide a status report on this approach to unifying all of nature’s laws. With that overview, in Chapters 5 and 6 we’ll explore recent developments in string theory that suggest three new kinds of parallel universes. One is string theory’s braneworld scenario, which posits that our universe is one of potentially numerous “slabs” floating in a higher-dimensional space, much like a slice of bread within a grander cosmic loaf. If we’re lucky, it’s an approach that may provide an observable signature at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, in the not too distant future. A second variety involves braneworlds that slam into one another, wiping away all they contain and initiating a new, fiery big-bang-like beginning in each. As if two giant hands were clapping, this could happen over and over—branes might collide, bounce apart, attract each other gravitationally, and then collide again, a cyclic process generating universes that are parallel not in space but in time. The third scenario is the string theory “landscape,” founded on the enormous number of possible shapes and sizes for the theory’s required extra spatial dimensions. We’ll see that, when joined with the Inflationary Multiverse, the string landscape suggests a vast collection of universes in which every possible form for the extra dimensions is realized.
In Chapter 6, we’ll focus on how these considerations illuminate one of the most surprising observational results of the last century: space appears to be filled with a uniform diffuse energy, which may well be a version of Einstein’s infamous cosmological constant. Indeed, this observation has inspired much of the recent research on parallel universes, and it’s responsible for one of the most heated debates in decades on the nature of acceptable scientific explanations. Chapter 7 extends this theme by asking, more generally, whether consideration of hidden universes beyond our own can be rightly understood as a branch of science. Can we test these ideas? If we invoke them to solve outstanding problems, have we made progress, or have we merely swept the problems under a conveniently inaccessible cosmic rug? I’ve sought to lay bare the essentials of the clashing perspectives, while ultimately emphasizing my own view that, under certain specific conditions, parallel universes fall unequivocally within the purview of science.
Quantum mechanics, with its Many Worlds version of parallel universes, is the subject of Chapter 8. I’ll briefly remind you of the essential features of quantum mechanics, then focus on the formidable problem just referred to: how to extract definite outcomes from a theory whose basic paradigm allows for mutually contradictory realities to coexist in an amorphous, but mathematically precise, probabilistic haze. I’ll carefully lead you through the reasoning that, in seeking an answer, proposes anchoring quantum reality in its own profusion of parallel worlds.
Chapter 9 takes us yet further into quantum reality, leading to what I consider the strangest version of all parallel universes proposals. It’s a proposal that emerged gradually over thirty years of theoretical studies spearheaded by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Jacob Bekenstein, Gerardt Hooft, and Leonard Susskind on the quantum properties of black holes. The work culminated in the last decade, with a stunning result from string theory, and it suggests, remarkably, that all we experience is nothing but a holographic projection of processes taking place on some distant surface that surrounds us. You can pinch yourself, and what you feel will be real, but it mirrors a parallel process taking place in a different, distant reality.
Finally, in Chapter 10 the yet more fanciful possibility of artificial
universes takes center stage. The question of whether the laws of physics give us the capacity to create new universes will be our first order of
business. We’ll then turn to universes created not with hardware but
with software—universes that might be simulated on a superadvanced computer—and investigate whether we can be confident that we’re not now living in someone or something else’s simulation. This will lead to the most unrestrained parallel universe proposal, originating in the philosophical community: that every possible reality is realized somewhere in what’s surely the grandest of all multiverses. The discussion naturally unfolds into an inquiry about the role mathematics has in unraveling the mysteries of science and, ultimately, our ability, or lack thereof, to gain an ever-deeper understanding of the expanse of reality.
The Cosmic Order
The subject of parallel universes is highly speculative. No experiment or observation has established that any version of the idea is realized in nature. So my point in writing this book is not to convince you that we’re part of a multiverse. I’m not convinced—and, speaking generally, no one should be convinced—of anything not supported by hard data. That said, I find it both curious and compelling that numerous developments in physics, if followed sufficiently far, bump into some variation on the parallel universe theme. Of particular note, it’s not that physicists are standing ready, multiverse nets in their hands, seeking to snare any passing theory that might be slotted, however awkwardly, into a parallel- universe paradigm. Rather, all of the parallel-universe proposals that we will take seriously emerge unbidden from the mathematics of theories developed to explain conventional data and observations.
My intention, then, is to lay out clearly and concisely the intellectual steps and the chain of theoretical insights that have led physicists, from a range of perspectives, to consider the possibility that ours is one of many universes. I want you to get a sense of how modern scientific investigations— not untethered fantasies like the catoptric musings of my boyhood— naturally suggest this astounding possibility. I want to show you how certain otherwise confounding observations can become eminently understandable within one or another parallel-universe framework; at the same time, I’ll describe the critical unresolved questions that have, as yet, kept this explanatory approach from being fully realized. My aim is that when you leave this book, your sense of what might be— your perspective on how the boundaries of reality may one day be redrawn by scientific developments now under way— will be far more rich and vivid.
Some people recoil at the notion of parallel worlds; as they see it, if we are part of a multiverse, our place and importance in the cosmos are marginalized. My take is different. I don’t find merit in measuring significance by our relative abundance. Rather, what’s gratifying about being human, what’s exciting about being part of the scientific enterprise, is our ability to use analytical thought to bridge vast distances, journeying to outer and inner space and, if some of the ideas we’ll encounter in this book prove correct, perhaps even beyond our universe. For me, it is the depth of our understanding, acquired from our lonely vantage point in the inky black stillness of a cold and forbidding cosmos, that reverberates across the expanse of reality and marks our arrival.
著者について
Brian Greene received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the physics faculty of Cornell University in 1990, was appointed to a full professorship in 1995, and in 1996 joined Columbia University, where he is professor of physics and mathematics. He has lectured at both a general and a technical level in more than thirty countries, and on all seven continents, and is widely regarded for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory. His first book, The Elegant Universe, was a national best seller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, was also a best seller. He lives in Andes, New York, and New York City.
登録情報
- 出版社 : Knopf (2011/1/25)
- 発売日 : 2011/1/25
- 言語 : 英語
- ハードカバー : 384ページ
- ISBN-10 : 0307265633
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307265630
- 寸法 : 16.51 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
- Amazon 売れ筋ランキング: - 98,882位洋書 (洋書の売れ筋ランキングを見る)
- - 117位Astrophysics (洋書)
- - 117位Astrophysics & Space Science
- - 131位Cosmology (洋書)
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トップレビュー
上位レビュー、対象国: 日本
レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。
2011年6月8日に日本でレビュー済み
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『ホーキング、宇宙を語る』を読んだときには宇宙創生以前が論じられていて目から鱗がとれたものだ。ゲーデルの不完全性定理やクーンのパラダイム論では数学や物理学に対する深刻な限界について心底悩まされた。『グライナー量子力学』のような(当時は新しい)教科書でもEverettのマルチバースやコンピュータシュミレーションについて実在の問題に触れられていた。String theoryの専門家であるBrian Greeneは"The Hiddn Reality"で実はこのような問題に真剣に取り組んでいるように思う。9つのマルチバースを取り上げながら、数学とは何か、物理学とは何か、宇宙とは何か、についてマルチバースの立場から思惟を重ねている。Everettの量子力学の解釈、インフレーション宇宙論、String theory、余剰次元、D-ブレーンから7つのマルチバースの考えを解説している。ホログラフィックマルチバースでは重力場と3つの量子場とがデュアルな関係にあるということを説明していて、ブラックホール付近とその辺縁もそうなっていること、クオークグルーオンプラズマの実験ではホログラフィー原理からString theoryが量子場の説明に使われていることを知った。これはすでに統一理論なのではないか?コンピュータシュミレーションによるシュミレーションマルチバースでは、時空の最小単位を考えることで計算可能な宇宙となりゲーデルの不完全性定理を避けることができるということが述べられている。これは本当に画期的なことだと思う。更に哲学的考察からUltimate Multiverseという何の副産物でもない究極の宇宙を考えている。英語版で読んだ。格調高い英語だがわかりやすかった。
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PembrokeSorbonne
5つ星のうち5.0
Lucid and impressive survey of multiverse models
2023年1月21日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
This is an impressive survey of 9 multiverse models by Greene featured in lucid, engaging and effortless prose. This should be a go to book for the public as well as physics students for a conceptual understanding of the multiverse models available.
He began with the "Quilted multiverse" model. This model sets up the most basic bare bone structure of the rationale of multiverse theory. Consider our own visible universe's cosmic horizon of a 14 billion year old universe. The cosmic horizon visible to us is only 41 billion light years (distance based on the light coming from objects receding from us). Our cosmic horizon or patch is all there is ever visible to us. The entire universe in the infinite space can contains infinite number of patches each with it's own cosmic horizon, constituting a quilted universe. Each patch is out of reach of the other patches. This is a basic multiverse model showing each multiverse in its own cosmic horizon patch.
The "inflationary model" from Alan Guth and Andrei Linde offers further mechanism to account for how the vast expanse of the multiverse can be built out. The idea is an inflation that is triggered by quantum jitter in high energy inflation field level causing it to expand and bubble out into different multiverses. This inflationary mechanism is also commonly used in other multiverse models.
Greene, as a String theorist, offers the String Theory model of multiverse by considering our 3 dimensional expanse universe on a 3-brane sheet. Another multiverse would be on another 3-brane sheet, and there can be as many 3-brane sheets on which each multiverse exists. This multiverse model is the "Brane Multiverse" model.
Another String Theory model is the "Landscape" model offered by Suskind. In this model, an inflationary mechanism for bubbling into multiverse is augmented with a further feature of quantum tunneling. A multiverse suffused with higher energy level or cosmological constant can expand via repulsion and inflate, but tunnels or drops down to a lower energy level for bubbling into another multiverse. The multitude of landscape with different cosmological constants represented by unique Calabi Yau manifolds can continue and repeat this tunneling process for proliferating further multiverses.
Greene also offers a thorough discussion of the Everttian "multiple-world quantum" model. In this model, the Everttian interpretation of quantum mechanics by branching the possible outcomes of quantum state into different worlds is treated as another multiverse model. Instead of collapsing probability amplitudes as in Copenhagen interpretation, Evertt suggested to let probability outcomes to branch out into different worlds such that each outcome constitute its own world. Greene highlighted that Everttian rationale is that multi-world interpretation actually stays faithful to Schrodinger equation and let the equation results speak for itself instead of ad hoc adding probability amplitudes together which are not reflected in the equation. Greene also discussed if such a multi-world interpretation takes quantum probability seriously, which he thinks each multi-world is still a probabilistic outcome.
Another model Greene discussed in this work is the conceptually challenging "Holographic multiverse" model. In this model, our universe is a mere holographic phenomena taking place on a distant bounding surface, a physically equivalent parallel universe. In the holographic principle, open strings movement on 3-branes is described by quantum field particle theory in four dimensional space-time. The physics described is the same as the closed loop strings on 10 dimensional black branes as long as the strings at low energy are closed to the event horizon surface. Hence the holographic model reveals universes as holograms of equivalent parallel universes.
Three other models discussed are the Cyclic multiverse model and the mathematical models of "Simulated Multiverse" and "Ultimate Multiverse" models which consider mathematical multiverses to be as real as physical multiverses. There is also a chapter devoted to methodological issues such as experimental accessibility, predictions, and the limits of mathematical applicability to physics.
He began with the "Quilted multiverse" model. This model sets up the most basic bare bone structure of the rationale of multiverse theory. Consider our own visible universe's cosmic horizon of a 14 billion year old universe. The cosmic horizon visible to us is only 41 billion light years (distance based on the light coming from objects receding from us). Our cosmic horizon or patch is all there is ever visible to us. The entire universe in the infinite space can contains infinite number of patches each with it's own cosmic horizon, constituting a quilted universe. Each patch is out of reach of the other patches. This is a basic multiverse model showing each multiverse in its own cosmic horizon patch.
The "inflationary model" from Alan Guth and Andrei Linde offers further mechanism to account for how the vast expanse of the multiverse can be built out. The idea is an inflation that is triggered by quantum jitter in high energy inflation field level causing it to expand and bubble out into different multiverses. This inflationary mechanism is also commonly used in other multiverse models.
Greene, as a String theorist, offers the String Theory model of multiverse by considering our 3 dimensional expanse universe on a 3-brane sheet. Another multiverse would be on another 3-brane sheet, and there can be as many 3-brane sheets on which each multiverse exists. This multiverse model is the "Brane Multiverse" model.
Another String Theory model is the "Landscape" model offered by Suskind. In this model, an inflationary mechanism for bubbling into multiverse is augmented with a further feature of quantum tunneling. A multiverse suffused with higher energy level or cosmological constant can expand via repulsion and inflate, but tunnels or drops down to a lower energy level for bubbling into another multiverse. The multitude of landscape with different cosmological constants represented by unique Calabi Yau manifolds can continue and repeat this tunneling process for proliferating further multiverses.
Greene also offers a thorough discussion of the Everttian "multiple-world quantum" model. In this model, the Everttian interpretation of quantum mechanics by branching the possible outcomes of quantum state into different worlds is treated as another multiverse model. Instead of collapsing probability amplitudes as in Copenhagen interpretation, Evertt suggested to let probability outcomes to branch out into different worlds such that each outcome constitute its own world. Greene highlighted that Everttian rationale is that multi-world interpretation actually stays faithful to Schrodinger equation and let the equation results speak for itself instead of ad hoc adding probability amplitudes together which are not reflected in the equation. Greene also discussed if such a multi-world interpretation takes quantum probability seriously, which he thinks each multi-world is still a probabilistic outcome.
Another model Greene discussed in this work is the conceptually challenging "Holographic multiverse" model. In this model, our universe is a mere holographic phenomena taking place on a distant bounding surface, a physically equivalent parallel universe. In the holographic principle, open strings movement on 3-branes is described by quantum field particle theory in four dimensional space-time. The physics described is the same as the closed loop strings on 10 dimensional black branes as long as the strings at low energy are closed to the event horizon surface. Hence the holographic model reveals universes as holograms of equivalent parallel universes.
Three other models discussed are the Cyclic multiverse model and the mathematical models of "Simulated Multiverse" and "Ultimate Multiverse" models which consider mathematical multiverses to be as real as physical multiverses. There is also a chapter devoted to methodological issues such as experimental accessibility, predictions, and the limits of mathematical applicability to physics.
Chuyd
5つ星のうち5.0
Excellent and clear
2020年8月20日にメキシコでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Very well explained and clear to people without a solid background in quantum mechanics
Philip M
5つ星のうち5.0
Greene is gifted at describing complex mathematics and physics in human language.
2021年2月22日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
This subject can never be easy read, but Brian Greene is immensely gifted at offering understandable analogues for the arcane intricacies of theoretical physics. This book is no exception; it is entertaining, exciting and well written in a rewarding way that coaxes your brain into strange and unfamiliar territories.
In Greene’s own words, “There was a time when universe meant all there is, but soon we may have to redefine that word, along with our own meager understanding of the cosmos.” And Greene’s expert guidance uses masterly metaphor and analogy to create a lucid and accessible account of some of the strangest and most revealing insights of modern physics.
He encourages the reader to abandon comfortable ways of thinking and to embrace unexpected realms of reality. From string theory to quantum mechanics, Greene describes the mathematical rigors and intuitive insight into the big bang and parallel worlds and universes, guided and confirmed by experimentation and observation to establish that space, time, matter and energy behave in ways any of us have ever witnessed. And as a result, physicists are facing the next upheaval in understanding the possibility that our universe is not unique.
I found The Hidden Reality much easier to comprehend after reading Greene’s previous books, The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos. But nonetheless, The Hidden Reality is an accessible and surprisingly witty guide to parallel universes, a rare accomplishment in science writing for a popular audience.
Whilst Greene has the ability to translate the absolute zero of mathematics to intelligible human language, he also provides excellent footnotes and appendices for those with a mathematical inclination. This book is a perfect read for the casual but interested layman, and both scientists and mathematicians.
In Greene’s own words, “There was a time when universe meant all there is, but soon we may have to redefine that word, along with our own meager understanding of the cosmos.” And Greene’s expert guidance uses masterly metaphor and analogy to create a lucid and accessible account of some of the strangest and most revealing insights of modern physics.
He encourages the reader to abandon comfortable ways of thinking and to embrace unexpected realms of reality. From string theory to quantum mechanics, Greene describes the mathematical rigors and intuitive insight into the big bang and parallel worlds and universes, guided and confirmed by experimentation and observation to establish that space, time, matter and energy behave in ways any of us have ever witnessed. And as a result, physicists are facing the next upheaval in understanding the possibility that our universe is not unique.
I found The Hidden Reality much easier to comprehend after reading Greene’s previous books, The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos. But nonetheless, The Hidden Reality is an accessible and surprisingly witty guide to parallel universes, a rare accomplishment in science writing for a popular audience.
Whilst Greene has the ability to translate the absolute zero of mathematics to intelligible human language, he also provides excellent footnotes and appendices for those with a mathematical inclination. This book is a perfect read for the casual but interested layman, and both scientists and mathematicians.
ya
5つ星のうち5.0
Fantastico
2019年9月7日にスペインでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Fantastico como Greene consigue hacernos entender a todos los conceptos más complejos
Amazon Customer
5つ星のうち5.0
Relativement bon. Haha.
2018年5月26日にフランスでレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Très agréable à lire, très bonne vulgarisation pour le néophyte que je suis, l'auteur sait se mettre à la portée du lecteur