Anyone read Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" ?

[JamesF]

Someone was talking to me about this book at the weekend, though he'd not started it yet.  The reviews on Amazon seem rather polarised.  Anyone read it (or attempted to read it) and care to offer an opinion?

James

[ncjunk]

I am continually attempting to read it but lack knowledge of the mathematical notation used in the book.

I need to sit down and first learn a couple of the chapters where he goes through that stuff, it's very heavy going.

There are sections in the book that are easier to read so I find myself flicking through it and getting what I can out of it.

It's very much a long term project for me.

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[ncjunk]

I enjoyed the first couple of chapters and have since looked at relativity and a bit on euclidean geometry.

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[r3i]

Started reading it a couple of years ago and got bogged down.  It's been a long long time since I've done any maths of that nature.  

Will have to dig it out and give it another go sometime, though I agree with Neil that it's probably best viewed as some kind of long term project.  It would be hard to describe it as a 'page turner' .

[Macavity]

Agree with above. Albeit (once?) familiar with the symbols, I didn't get too far either.

A bold attempt to teach theoretical physics from a position of (little? no?) knowledge? 

The style reminiscent of books written by geniuses who never knew mere mortality?

How much of it is relevant to current thinking in the field might be questioned as well?

If it's still only £15 (more even): Get it as a fascinating curiousity? Whether it will turn one

into a theoretical physicist is rather less certain? These are born, not taught? (much) lol

If someone wanted to learn the requisite maths of "standard" Ph.D level, books by e.g. 

David Griffiths work much better? I can only wish the following had existed in my day! 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/   (Thanks for the heads up here on SGL)

Aside: Something struck me as very true in a Youtube Feynman Lecture the other day:

The popular notion: "Only half a dozen people in the world can understand the works of

Einstein, Hawking, Penrose, etc. etc." is NOT true. The number who can "follow" papers

(the maths even) is significantly more. The ability to originally formulate such stuff, quite

another story though! Such is a significant *quantum leap* above standard Ph.D level?

As to whether these individuals can impart such knowledge to others yet another question.

As to whether someone can program a computer to "get the numbers right", another still!

Add the need for experiment builders, I.T. managers... Physics needs HUGE collaborations. 

[DaveS]

I've found it a bit hard going, but then my maths was never brilliant. As has been said, I think it's more of a long-term project than holiday reading!

By way of "limbering up" my maths I've also been reading Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw "The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen", it's a much gentler introduction. Sort of a mild stretching exercise.

[Laurie61]

A friend left me this book to look at about three years ago and this thread has just reminded me  At 1049  pages it is a comprehensive tome although if it contains the secrets of life the universe and everything maybe It's quite concise   

[JamesF]

Once upon a time I was a moderately competent mathematician.  At the moment however I am struggling to get my head around Fourier transforms.  I have just forgotten so much (I never covered Fourier series at school, but did do an awful lot of calculus, not much of which has lasted the intervening thirty years).  If the maths is that heavy going then discretion being the better part of valour, perhaps I should pass on this one.

James

[ncjunk]

I did fourier transforms at uni and had no problems with the theory, I quite liked it.

The problem is that this is a VERY comprehensive book that is worth it as a reference book but in general isn't a book most people are going to be able to read cover to cover.

MIT have lots of course materials free online so I'm going to go through a few of those and then cover the relevant section in road map.

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[Ptarmigan]

Thanks for the headsup, I have not seen this book, must hunt it down and see if I can understand a bit of it !

But that might have to wait a wee while as I am currently digging thro' Dawkins' "something something Delusion", my goodness he is a bit verbose !

I did like Penrose - "Emperor's New Mind" a long time ago, I still have it somewhere must go back and see if I can still understand any of it !!

As for Fourier, a long time ago the best my computing department could offer me for my simulations was a 256point Fast Fourier Transform on a PDP 11/45 +11/10.

I amused myself at home by writing, in 6502 assembler, a 4096point FFT on a BeebB, that is how fast microprocessors were moving at the time !!

Edit:

PS quote "understand the works of Einstein, Hawking, Penrose"

I think the only people in the world that can _fully_ understand Einstein, Hawking, Penrose

are Einstein, Hawking, Penrose

[Paul M]

Considering that doing multiplication tables at school used to give me anxiety attacks I'll give this one a miss!

Having said that, I had a period of reading lots of the popular Feynman biographical stuff. One in particular had chapter after chapter of seemingly jumbled mathematical symbols and notation. I just thumbed through that stuff and enjoyed the rest.

I'm sure I've had The Emperors New Mind on my bookshelf at some time. I had a clear out 12 years ago and gave the lot to the local library 

[DaveS]

Ptarmigan, if you managed to write a 4096 point FFT in 6502 assembler on a BBC B then you did better than me. The best I could do was an optimised one in integer BASIC with a LUT for the sine / cosine values. I could go and brew a pot of tea and drink it while it chugged through the math. I did try an assembler one but couldn't get anywhere.

[Ptarmigan]

LUT for the sine / cosine values.

We trod a similar path ! Yes no way of doing it (fast) without.

Actually some of my stuff was optimised into MC/hex, even though the Beeb assembler was quite good, but I didnt want to sound too geekish !

But yes, BASIC was very good for cups of beverage. Beeb BASIC was excellent despite all the knocks it got, and I used it it sort out the fundamentals what I was doing with an FFT [cos I was not a mathematician, long since branched off into electronics and telecomms, which is why I had a computing department at the coal face   ]  before going into the assembler.

[BinocularSky]

Started it; still mean to finish it, but it may need to wait until I retire.

[MattJenko]

The best I managed on the BBC was to create a game where an escaped gorilla needed to be captured by you with a portable cage

[MattJenko]

I had to stop buying Roger Penrose books after I tackled The Emperor's New Mind, which I dutifully struggled through.