Not that easy but worth the effort. His other books are also good. Don't worry if you don't understand it all, no one else does either! Not that this is anything bad about him, there are two kinds of Gravity, General Relativity and Quantum Gravity. When we understand how they fit together we will know a lot more about the nature of the universe!
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Smolin's presentation of the three theories was so thought provoking for me that I realized that I wanted to learn more. I had majored in Physics 35 years ago so I had QM and SR under my belt but nothing more modern. One thing that I particualry liked about Smolin's presentation of the three theories currently being worked on - superstring theory, quantum loop theory and blackhole thermodynamics - was the balanced way he...
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Reviewers more familiar with Quantum Gravity may find the book 'idiosyncratic' or 'subjective'. But I'm thankful for its articulation of concepts so profound as to elude conventional language. And this is Smolin's intent: not to be thorough (the book is 1 inch thick) but to give the layperson with little or no vocabulary, a chance to resonate with ideas whose very contemplation--let alone solution--has challenged thinkers...
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Three Roads To Quantum Gravity by Lee Smolin isn't the easiest highway to travel in the universe, but will be rewarding to anyone taking the journey. Smolin, currently a professor at Penn State [my alma mater :)], writes simply, but smartly about the biggest piece of unfinished physics business leftover from the 20th Century, the resolution of the conflicts between our theory of the large, general relativity, and our theory...
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I am very impressed with this book. This is going to be one of the seminal science book for lay persons, right up there with Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time".Lee Smolin is an active researcher in Loop Quantum Gravity. He laid out in a clear manner the research progress of Quantum Gravity. Quantum Gravity, once completed, should able to reveal the basic fabric of our universe, and say a lot about what is the stuff...
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