by Brian Greene
There are many different perspectives on the possibility of “digital physics.” See, for example, Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science (Champaign, Ill.: Wolfram Media, 2002) and Seth Lloyd’s Programming the Universe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). The mathematician Roger Penrose believes that the human mind is based on noncomputable processes and hence the universe we inhabit must involve noncomputable mathematical functions. From this perspective, our universe does not fall into the digital paradigm. See, for instance, The Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) and Shadows of the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Chapter 11: The Limits of Inquiry
1. Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 131.
Suggestions for Further Reading
The subject of parallel universes draws on a broad range of scientific material. There is a growing literature that focuses on various aspects of such material, mostly intended for the nonexpert, but often well-suited for those with more background. In addition to the references called out in the notes, here is a collection of books, from the many wonderful ones that have been written, through which the reader can continue exploring topics discussed in The Hidden Reality.
Albert, David. Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Alexander, H. G. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956.
Barrow, John. Pi in the Sky. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.
_____. The World Within the World. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Barrow, John, and Frank Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Bartusiak, Marcia. The Day We Found the Universe. New York: Vintage, 2010.
Bell, John. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Bronowski, Jacob. The Ascent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Byrne, Peter. The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Callender, Craig, and Nick Huggett. Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Carroll, Sean. From Eternity to Here. New York: Dutton, 2010.
Clark, Ronald. Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: Avon, 1984.
Cole, K. C. The Hole in the Universe. New York: Harcourt, 2001.
Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996.
Davies, Paul. Cosmic Jackpot. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
Deutsch, David. The Fabric of Reality. New York: Allen Lane, 1997.
DeWitt, Bryce, and Neill Graham, eds. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
Einstein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
_____. Relativity. New York: Crown, 1961.
Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way. New York: Anchor, 1989.
_____. The Whole Shebang. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Feynman, Richard. The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.
_____. QED. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Gamow, George. Mr. Tompkins in Paperback. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Gribbin, John. In Search of the Multiverse. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2010.
_____. Schrödinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
Guth, Alan H. The Inflationary Universe. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
_____. The Universe in a Nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001.
Isaacson, Walter. Einstein. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Kaku, Michio. Parallel Worlds. New York: Anchor, 2006.
Kirschner, Robert. The Extravagant Universe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Krauss, Lawrence. Quintessence. New York: Perseus, 2000.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines. New York: Viking, 1999.
_____. The Singularity Is Near. New York: Viking, 2005.
Lederman, Leon, and Christopher Hill. Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004.
Livio, Mario. The Accelerating Universe. New York: Wiley, 2000.
Lloyd, Seth. Programming the Universe. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Moravec, Hans. Robot. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Penrose, Roger. The Emperor’s New Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
_____. Shadows of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Randall, Lisa. Warped Passages. New York: Ecco, 2005.
Rees, Martin. Before the Beginning. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
_____. Just Six Numbers. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Schrödinger, Erwin. What Is Life? Cambridge, Eng.: Canto, 2000.
Siegfried, Tom. The Bit and the Pendulum. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
Singh, Simon. Big Bang. New York: Fourth Estate, 2004.
Susskind, Leonard. The Black Hole War. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.
_____. The Cosmic Landscape. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.
Thorne, Kip. Black Holes and Time Warps. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.
Tyson, Neil deGrasse. Death by Black Hole. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.
Vilenkin, Alexander. Many Worlds in One. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
von Weizsäcker, Carl Friedrich. The Unity of Nature. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.
Weinberg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Pantheon, 1992.
_____. The First Three Minutes. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
Wheeler, John. A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime. New York: Scientific American Library, 1990.
Wilzcek, Frank. The Lightness of Being. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
Wilzczek, Frank, and Betsy Devine. Longing for the Harmonies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988.
Yau, Shing-Tung, and Steve Nadis. The Shape of Inner Space. New York: Basic Books, 2010.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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 at 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 twenty-five countries and is widely regarded for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory. His first book, The Elegant Universe, has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, spent twenty-five weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. He lives in Andes, New York, and New York City.