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Books : The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum MechanicsIn association with Amazon.comby: Leonard Susskind  List Price: $27.99 Amazon.com's Price: $18.47 You Save: $9.52 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 530.12 EAN: 9780316016407 ISBN: 0316016403 Label: Little, Brown and Company Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 480 Publication Date: July 07, 2008 Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Studio: Little, Brown and Company Sales Rank: 220 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it did-and in doing so put at risk everything we know about physics and the fundamental laws of the universe. Most scientists didn't recognize the import of Hawking's claims, but Leonard Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft realized the threat, and responded with a counterattack that changed the course of physics. THE BLACK HOLE WAR is the thrilling story of their united effort to reconcile Hawking's revolutionary theories of black holes with their own sense of reality-effort that would eventually result in Hawking admitting he was wrong, paying up, and Susskind and t'Hooft realizing that our world is a hologram projected from the outer boundaries of space. A brilliant book about modern physics, quantum mechanics, the fate of stars and the deep mysteries of black holes, Leonard Susskind's account of the Black Hole War is mind-bending and exhilarating reading. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - A fascinating tale signifying ... ?The most important paragraph in this book is on page 422: "Sceptics will point out that everything I have told you about the quantum properties of black holes -- from entropy, temperature, and Hawking radiation to Black Hole Complementarity and the Holographic Principle -- is pure theory, with not an ounces of experimental data to confirm it. Unfortunately they may be right for a very long time." Susskind obviously believes that he, with help from others, has discovered ... Read More Rating: - Feynman he is not, even if he plays the bongoSome arguments can be presented to the general public and some only to the specialist. In this books, in my opinion, there is confusion about the two issues. Hawking was capable of breaking down complex arguments and present them even to children, but Susskind, a great scientist, do not possess such gift. He talks about very trivial matters for a few pages and then he plunges into complex particle physic. The war about which he speaks in the title, apparently was just a diffent view on a single ... Read More Rating: - Excellent review of complex theoriesQuantum theory seems to work mathematically, but verbal descriptions have left most of us scratching our heads at the paradoxes. Suskind has excellent analogies and descriptions that minimize (though can't elemeninate) some of these problems. His knack for using one- and two-dimensional worlds to describe the "real" world are especially enlightening and understandable. Rating: - A Book About the PersonalitiesSusskind's book is a lot of fun. It's short on physics (which is a good thing for the layman) but long on personalities. It does include a lot of name dropping and some ingratiating attempts to include Susskind with the recent big boys of physics -- Feynmann, 't Hooft and Hawking -- but he does belong there as an original maverick (who was generally right). His amusing, laconic style, with irreverent detours, is engaging and pretty good for a physicist. But the best part of the book is ... Read More Rating: - flawed but a must readThis is a good book and the author does a great job of explaining the black hole information paradox. He also does a v.g. job of describing the personalities of those involved. The discussion of thought experiments in theoretical physics is also outstanding. What mars the book is the fact that the author is guilty of so many of the quirks that he often points out in his adversaries. It is amusing to see a lesser light take digs at such brilliant men as Hawking, Dyson and Penrose - clearly the author has ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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