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| View Larger Image | Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond
by Lawrence M. Krauss
| | List Price: | $24.95 |  | | 30 New starting at: | $5.15 | | 41 Used starting at: | $2.48 | | | | | Sales Rank: | 522235 | | Studio: | Viking Adult | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 276 | | Publication Date: | October 20, 2005 | | Publisher: | Viking Adult |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Beginning well before Plato’s allegory of the cave and continuing to modern scientific breakthroughs from relativity to quantum mechanics, as well as to pop cultural icons like Twilight Zone and Star Trek, human beings have imagined, even longed for, alternate realities. Lawrence M. Krauss, one of the most gifted and engaging of writer-scientists today, examines why we have often believed that the answers to the great questions about existence lie in the possibility that we live in a universe more complex than we can see or otherwise sense. Drawing on work by scientists, mathematicians, artists, and writers—from Einstein to Picasso to C. S. Lewis—Hiding in the Mirror explores whether extra dimensions simply represent abstract speculation or hold the key to a deeper understanding of the universe. Krauss examines popular culture’s embrace— and misunderstanding—of topics such as black holes, life in another dimension, string theory, and some of the daring new theories that propose that large extra dimensions exist alongside our own. This is popular science writing at its best and most illuminating—witty, fascinating, and controversial. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 25 reviews)
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Let me be the first to give this book its first 1 star review. 
There was a person who gave this book three stars for issues such as poor editing and insufficient explanation of abstract scientific ideas. I fully agree with these complaints and would like to add one small thing to that list of complaints. This book just straight sucks its not hard to write a book that gives the reader a small bone every so often, for instance he covered complex machines and theories leaving the uninitiated (such as myself)hunting for tidbits of information on our own just to keep up. If you are a hardcore scientist do go ahead and pick this up, but if you are a non scientist buy with caution that is unless you are looking for extra kindling for your fireplace.
June 11, 2008 | |
The prehistory of and rise -- and perhaps fall -- of string theory 
According to Ed Witten of Princeton's Advanced Institute (former home to BOTH Albert Einstein AND Kurt Godel), modern string theory is a piece of 21st century science that fell early into the 20th century.
According to string apologist Brian Greene, sring theory succeeds where Einstein himself failed...in uniting nature's fundamental forces to form a complete explanation of reality itself...our "Elegant Universe."
According, however, to a growing cadre of notable physicists however string theory is not even wrong by virtue of its untestability but fails to explain some astrological phenomenon and in fact retards the actions of those who would.
Krauss has been rightly praised for this book which attempts to put the modern fascination with string theory into a proper historical context. The idea that explanation of scientific phenomenon can made by recourse to higher dimensions is not new. Perched at the beginning of western thought in the Greek philosophy of Socrates/Plato, Krauss recounts "Socrates" story of the cave.
In the story of the cave, "Socrates" as related by Plato wonders what would happen to prisoners in a cave, illuminated from behind, whose only contact with each other was through their shadows. The speculation was that they would come to regard their shadows as their essences. The further speculation was that maybe we -- in looking at our manifestations of each other -- perhaps do much the same thing.
More contemporarily, Krauss talks about the nineteenth century fascination with the 4th dimension. As explained in the H.G. Wells book "Time Machine" the fouth dimension would be a means by which individuals could enter and exit seemingly locked rooms.
As recounted by Krauss, the religous considered it the purview of God. And some scientists considered it the purview of a possible explanation of reality. As fads come and go in popular culture, however, Krauss tells how this science fad fell under the excitement of new discovery.
In discussing the spectre of contemporary string theory, Krauss suggests that we may see yet the same phenomenon occur yet again. In so doing, Krauss' point is well taken.
It is perhaps the most characterizing element of science that its theories rely upon testably provable phenomenon.
April 23, 2007 | |
Masterful Explanation of a Complex Subject to General Readers
Lawrence M. Krauss has steered a course perfectly between the Scylla of scaring the general reader off with massive amounts of math and the Charybdis of dumbing down his subject. It's not an easy book to read, but then it's not exactly an easy subject. He has a good time, but not to excess, with some of the sillier New Age and PoMo attempts at appropriating physics for one or another version of the newer superstition, but the main thrust of the book is his attempt to convey to us general readers what's going on in particle physics, insofar as this is accessible to those of us who stopped struggling somewhere in the neighborhood of differential equations.
This is, of course, a quixotic project, rather like trying to explain serious music to the profoundly deaf. It can be done, to some extent, but it's not easy to do. It's not even easy to try. I can't imagine that the tangible rewards are at all commensurate with the effort required, and Viking Press didn't really hold up their end, in my opinion. The book appears to have been neither copy edited nor proofread. VP, like not a few other publishers, has figured out that few readers demand their money back just because the book is riddled with errors. Apparently their professional ethic is simply "They can't kiss us on the mouth."
Krauss deserves better with this book, but then so do all the writers who publish books intended to inform and even, in the best sense, educate the public. Krauss knows he can't make me understand the math, but he's done the best job I can imagine of getting the ideas across without it. At every stage of the exposition, his honesty and integrity shine through; he gets it across without ever kidding (or flattering) the reader.
I intend to look up everything else of his that might be accessible. If you are interested in what's going on in modern physics but aren't an expert, check out this book. You'll be glad you did.
February 20, 2007 | |
a guide through the pitfalls of science careers...
If you pay close attention, then you can hear Lawrence Krauss cautioning you to beware of taking science as a religion. Krauss explains his own immunity to falling victim to this affliction by way of having been caught in the crossfire between the two insititutions of science and religion.
I applaud his insistence on taking the physical evidence as evidence of itself only while resisting the allure of the reported enthrallling beauty of the equations and precision in physical theory.
If the lesson comes across that it is possible to be a scientist without out being a secular religionist, then that can be realistic encouragement to future potential scientists.
Well done, sir!
December 29, 2006 | |
A superficial view of a multi-dimensional world 
After reading Brian Green's "The Elegant Universe", I wanted to learn more on the possibility of a world made of more than 4 dimensions, time included. L. Krauss seemed to offer the opportunity not only to learn more about these extra dimensions based on scientific knowledge but also to melt it with an insightful adventure into the history of human creativity which has already imagined such world. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. Both the scientific and artistic parts are poor and shallow, a shame when the explanation of a multidimension world is at stake. The rhetoric has nothing of the passion and the doors-opening of Brian Green's book. Too bad.
October 25, 2006 | |
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