In Decoding the Universe, Charles Seife manages to dumb down some extremely complex science to a level accessible to non-scientists.
Seife is kind of like the Holiday Inn Express of science authors - I didn't just learn a lot by reading the book, I actually feel like I am a quantum physicist now, sans the long hours and negligible social skill set, of course. In his quest to unify all of existence through Information Theory, Seife winds his way through some of the most popular and controversial areas of modern science.
He begins by exploring code-breaking to demonstrate fundamental properties of information which, like energy, must be conserved. By the end of Decoding the Universe, you will be surprised that having read a little less than three hundred pages you've learned volumes about thermodynamics, relativity, quantum physics, black holes, and the ever confusing Many Worlds Theory.
Seife is kind of like the Holiday Inn Express of science authors - I didn't just learn a lot by reading the book, I actually feel like I am a quantum physicist now, sans the long hours and negligible social skill set, of course. In his quest to unify all of existence through Information Theory, Seife winds his way through some of the most popular and controversial areas of modern science.
He begins by exploring code-breaking to demonstrate fundamental properties of information which, like energy, must be conserved. By the end of Decoding the Universe, you will be surprised that having read a little less than three hundred pages you've learned volumes about thermodynamics, relativity, quantum physics, black holes, and the ever confusing Many Worlds Theory.
Brevity aside, considering the science texts foisted on me throughout my youth, Seife's first major accomplishment was keeping me not only awake, but interested. I always want to be totally engrossed by the latest science non-fiction, but despite my best efforts I am usually asleep with the book on my face by the first graph, and by page one hundred it is not unusual for me to be completely demoralized, asking myself why I thought I would be able to understand this stuff in the first place. Was it my high school physics teacher or Star Wars that gave me these delusions of grandeur?
Seife's down-to-Earth writing reads quickly and easily, with minimal trips to the dictionary. Most terms are defined with real-world examples and an eye for the casual reader. His ability to make the inaccessible comprehensible is astounding. Had I been handed this book by a science teacher in high school, I might very well be a scientist today. I am so grateful for the examples about relativity and the Many Worlds Theory; just writing this review has reminded me of several "A-HA!" moments I had while wading through this book. The concepts herein are truly mind-boggling, and for me they sparked a significant amount of truly satisfying abstract thought.
Seife's down-to-Earth writing reads quickly and easily, with minimal trips to the dictionary. Most terms are defined with real-world examples and an eye for the casual reader. His ability to make the inaccessible comprehensible is astounding. Had I been handed this book by a science teacher in high school, I might very well be a scientist today. I am so grateful for the examples about relativity and the Many Worlds Theory; just writing this review has reminded me of several "A-HA!" moments I had while wading through this book. The concepts herein are truly mind-boggling, and for me they sparked a significant amount of truly satisfying abstract thought.
At the heart of it all Seife sees information, zeros and ones, ons and offs. The idea that information itself is not only fundamental to the unification of all of science, but might actually be pulling the strings of all of existence is quite extraordinary, somehow comforting and disturbing at the same time.
