The Elegant Universe: A Review

By Tom Armstrong
FOR HUNDRED MOUNTAIN

FALL 2000 | FRITJOF CAPRA WROTE in his best-selling 1976 book "The Tao of Physics:"

"The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. .... As we study the various models of subatomic physics we shall see that they express again and again, in different ways, the same insight--that the constituents of matter and the basic phenomena involving them are all interconnected, interrelated and interdependent; that they cannot be understood as isolated entities, but only as integrated parts of the whole."

In his 1967 book "The Three Pillars of Zen," Philip Kapleau Roshi wrote these words before presenting a short section from Zen Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo on “Being-Time”:

"Dogen’s Insights as to time and being, realized by him introspectively in the 13th century through zazen, and the views of certain contemporary micro- and macro-physicists on time and space, arrived at by them through the principles and methods of science, parallel each other to a remarkable degree. The difference, however, and a deeply significant one, is in the effect these insights had upon these men. Dogen’s realization, being a Self-discovery, liberated him from the basic anxieties of human existence, bringing him inner freedom and peace and deep moral certainty. But, as far as can be seen at this time, no such inner evolution has followed in the wake of these scientific discoveries."

In the quarter century since the two quotes above were written, the foundations of physics have been rocked by a chain of storms, giving us insights into the blueprint of the universe that prove it to be supremely marvelous and beautiful. What we know now is far, far beyond what anyone could ever have conceived as possible to know.

Brian Greene’s new book, "The Elegant Universe," takes us on a journey from the startling insights of Einstein [in 1905 and 1915] to events that have cracked the cosmic egg, allowing us to hear a symphony in strings.

UNTIL THE MID-1980s, physics was plagued by “the central conflict” between Einstein’s general relativity and the world of the microscopic, quantum mechanics. Indeed, Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life trying to find the key to explain in one single theory the behavior of the very large and the very small -- a so-called Grand Unification Theory. Einstein never found his key, but the most brilliant physicists of the current day believe that the framework of a Theory of Everything has now been found, using cutting-edge mathematics and the capacity of the world’s best supercomputers.

String Theory entered the scene in 1968 when several physicists noticed that if the smallest units of matter were thought of as vibrating one-dimensional strings rather than as minute pointlike particles, it might better explain their interactions. For a while in the early '70s, this theory seemed to be disproved, but as one researcher stated at the time “the mathematical structure of string theory was so beautiful and had so many miraculous properties that it had to be pointing toward something deep.”

In 1974, this researcher co-wrote a paper showing that string theory seemed to have failed only because it hadn’t been realized that the theory encompassed gravity in addition to standard quantum mechanics, which itself combined electromagnetism and the so-called strong and weak forces. The paper was for years ignored, its implications being so startling. But slowly the physics community began to study and embrace the new ideas.

Writes Brian Greene: “The period from 1984 to 1986 has come to be known as the ‘first superstring revolution.’ During those three years more than a thousand research papers on string theory were written by physicists from around the world."

Science writer Keay Davidson notes: “When a revolution sweeps the house of science, scientists don’t just rebuild the roof and attic; they also figuratively rip out the floorboards by reinterpreting old ‘facts’ in radically new ways.”

Greene’s book is wonderful in taking us into the heart of this revolution, uncovering for us the structure of the universe and giving us a sense of the drama as revelations are brought to the fore. A Cornell researcher himself, Greene made an important contribution, and in a thrilling stream of scenes we readers tag along in 1992 when he and colleagues Plesser and Aspinwall engage in some geeky daring-do as they prove a critical feature of a Calabi-Yau space.

And what might that be?

A Calabi-Yau space is an important part of the story -- defined as a structure/thing that exists in dimensions that exceed the four we are commonly familiar with. Indeed, string theory predicted a total of nine dimensions with those exceeding the four of space and time existing as “curled up.”

But that was before (as Greene writes) “a breathtaking lecture at the Strings 1995 conference held at the University of Southern California--a lecture that stunned a packed audience of the world’s top physicists--[where] Edward Witten announced a plan for taking the next step, thereby igniting the ‘second superstring revolution."

This second revolution uncorked M-theory--which has eleven dimensions!--and gives us in sharp relief an outline of the final Theory of Everything. Whew.

Could it be that Ch’an Master Yakusan Igen anticipated it all when he said in the 10th Century: