'Parallel Worlds' by Michio Kaku

[Anthony G Williams]

Not fiction this time, but a book which seeks to explain to the non-scientist the development of current ideas in advanced physics. Tailor-made for me then, as although I subscribe to the 'New Scientist' magazine to try to keep up with developments, I have found current cosmological concepts to be more or less incomprehensible.

The author of 'Parallel Worlds' explains the revolution in thinking from Newton through Einstein to quantum physics, string theory and beyond. He explains that the existence of an infinite number of parallel, branching worlds is not a fanciful SF notion but may well be an inevitable consequence of the quantum universe. He concludes with speculation about the way in which our universe may develop in the far future, and what an advanced civilisation might be able to do to escape from its fate as the universe dies.

Michio Kaku has an accessible writing style, easy to follow, with no equations (except, of course, E=mc2) and with any necessary jargon clearly explained. There is a glossary at the end in case you forget the meaning of any of the terms he uses. Absorption is also helped by the way in which he divides each chapter into manageable chunks, each with its own sub-heading. This is not a kiddies' primer though, and concentration is required to understand the strange concepts which he describes.

What will be of particular interest to SF readers is that Kaku is clearly an SF fan himself. The book is littered with references to SF books, films and TV series, using them to illustrate the concepts he describes. The Matrix films, Star Trek and Sliders are all mentioned as are many novels; a couple of pages are devoted to an analysis of Greg Bear's 'Eon'. I was surprised by some of the early SF novels he discussed which I was unaware of, for example Edwin Abbot's 1884 novel 'Flatland', concerning a race of beings who inhabit a two-dimensional world and are completely unaware of the existence of the third dimension.

So did the author succeed in his aim in making modern physics understandable? Well, I won't pretend to have completely grasped all of the weird, counter-intuitive concepts he discusses (I suspect that a doctorate in physics would be needed for that) but I do feel much more comfortable about tackling those articles on cosmology in 'New Scientist'. It is also, of course, an excellent reference work for hard SF authors looking for a scientific basis for their plots. Highly recommended.

(Previously published on my Science Fiction & Fantasy blog)

[Ursa major]

Good to see there's another comprehensible guide to advanced physics out there; I seem to rely too much on Brian Greene, myself.

The only problem I have with an endlessly dividing set of universes (and that's a working lie, by the way ) is the energy invloved. Many of us (I do) have problems with one universe popping up out of next to nothing, and while Inflaton fields may explain a lot, they don't explain where all the energy came from in the beginning. The thought, though, of having endless duplication: now there's an energy bill to pay and no mistake.

I don't suppose Michio Kaku goes into this, does he?

[Anthony G Williams]

The most relevant section seems to be this:

"At first, one might object to the notion of a multiverse, because it seems to violate known laws such as the conservation of matter and energy. However, the total matter/energy content of a universe may actually be very small. The matter content of the universe, including all the stars, planets and galaxies, is huge and positive. However, the energy stored within gravity may be negative. If you add the positive energy due to matter to the negative energy due to gravity, the sum may be close to zero! In some sense, such universes are free. They can spring out of the vacuum almost effortlessly."

He does go on to say rather more about this...

[Sephiroth]

Well, yes.

Also, Ursa, you should check out the 'braneworld' theories (see Ed Witten, among others) for an explanation of where the energy might otherwise have come from.

I like Michio Kaku, I have a couple of his books, though not this one. The book Hyperspace is a nice, simple (?!) introduction to it all.

And Flatland is one of his favourite concepts, it would seem. It's a great way to help us visualise higher-dimensional space (I found it so).

I would second this recommendation.

[Ursa major]

Thanks; that must be it. ()

I'll reserve my judgement for the time when all the various factions work out how big the nothing all is (apart from nearly nothing, that is), what with proposed dark this and that.

Flatland gets quoted a lot, just before the reader is bewildered by trying to envisage 4+ dimensional worlds (now, according to an article in the New Scientist to include 2 time dimensions). For some reason that I can't fathom, I feel myself drawn to explanations like projection, even though a bear's brain can't quite grasp what it all means. (I was going to add "in reality" but that would be pushing it a bit, wouldn't it?)

[Sephiroth]

Sitting on the fence, eh?

[Marvolo]

Originally Posted by Anthony G Williams

The most relevant section seems to be this:

"At first, one might object to the notion of a multiverse, because it seems to violate known laws such as the conservation of matter and energy. However, the total matter/energy content of a universe may actually be very small. The matter content of the universe, including all the stars, planets and galaxies, is huge and positive. However, the energy stored within gravity may be negative. If you add the positive energy due to matter to the negative energy due to gravity, the sum may be close to zero! In some sense, such universes are free. They can spring out of the vacuum almost effortlessly."

He does go on to say rather more about this...

That answered my first question: Where does all the required energy for the multiple universes come from?

I've got to get that book.

I picked up The Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos. You might like those if these sort of things interest you. Greene has a very accessible style as well.

[Ursa major]

Those two books by Brian Greene are the ones I've relied on most in the past; with such complex competing scenarios, it's good to have a writer who's so lucid.

Time for an admission: I'm one of the people who didn't get far into A Brief History of Time; not because of the complexity of its subject, though; it was simply such a badly written book (and thus not brief enough). I'm of the opinion that the more complex a subject is, the better (read: simpler) the langauge used by the writer ought to be. To excuse myself further, I ought to add that I've forced myself to finish other books on the subject, ones stuffed with equations that I can't quite grasp, so it's not as if I don't give these sorts of books a fair crack of the whip.

[Commonmind]

I own most -- if not all -- of Kaku's publications. I've always enjoyed his work; he tends to write with a certain charisma that other theoretical physicists lack - including Hawking (as Ursa alluded to above).

[MJEggleton]

Good review, I thought, and I agree with your comments about it appealing to writers of harder SF - maybe Space Opera as well, on some levels.

I've just finished reading Parallel Worlds and another of his books, Hyperspace, and thought they were both incredibly fascinating and very readable. Read 'em if you can.

MJE