The Fabric of the Cosmos

Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

By: Brian Greene

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 22 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way.

Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene uses these questions to guide us toward modern science’s new and deeper understanding of the universe.

From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can bridge their spatial separation to instantaneously coordinate their behavior or even undergo teleportation, Greene reveals our world to be very different from what common experience leads us to believe.

Focusing on the enigma of time, Greene establishes that nothing in the laws of physics insists that it run in any particular direction and that “time’s arrow” is a relic of the universe’s condition at the moment of the big bang. And in explaining the big bang itself, Greene shows how recent cutting-edge developments in superstring and M-theory may reconcile the behavior of everything from the smallest particle to the largest black hole. This startling vision culminates in a vibrant eleven-dimensional “multiverse,” pulsating with ever-changing textures, where space and time themselves may dissolve into subtler, more fundamental entities.

Sparked by the trademark wit, humor, and brilliant use of analogy that have made The Elegant Universe a modern classic, Brian Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

©2004 Brian Greene (P)2004 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Nobody ever said that cosmology was simple, not even Stephen Hawking, in whose tradition Dr. Greene impressively follows....He is both a skilled and kindly explicator....The Fabric of the Cosmos is as dazzling as it is tough." (The New York Times)

"It will be enjoyable and stimulating for the lay reader, who will even learn about time travel and teleportation. This is one popular-science book that won't be left on the coffee table half read." (The New York Times Book Review)

“Forbidding formulas no longer stand between general readers and the latest breakthroughs in astrophysics: the imaginative gifts of one of the pioneers making these breakthroughs has now translated mathematical science into accessible analogies drawn from everyday life and popular culture....Nonspecialists will relish this exhilarating foray into the alien terrain that is our own universe.” (Booklist, starred review)

“This is popular science writing of the highest order...Greene [has an] unparalleled ability to translate higher mathematics into everyday language and images, through the adept use of metaphor and analogy, and crisp, witty prose....He not only makes concepts clear, but explains why they matter.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Amazing learning experience, but that narrator...

Chances are, if you're even looking into this book, then you have the proper strength of interest in cosmology to sustain you through this very complex topic. Greene, as he revealed in his PBS series "The Elegant Universe," is part Carl Sagan and part P.T. Barnum, but he's all brilliant. He would have been a wonderful choice to narrate this production, someone to keep it intersting. Instead, we get Michael Pritchard, who seems to have honed his voice-over talent at the Snidely Whiplash School of Acting. Trust me, he will get on your nerves in a hurry, especially when he mispronounces common words, like "Cos-muss" for "Cosmos." To support what the reviewer says below, listen to a sample of the book before committing to it. If you can stand Pritchard, you'll learn a lot of stuff you didn't know about space, time, string theory and alternate dimensions, just to name a few. But if you can't stand him, nobody will blame you. Twenty-two hours is a long time to spend with Snidely Whiplash.

A very solid and interesting science book

I do not generally post reviews on books that I have head on Audible.com. I am posting my thoughts on this one mainly because of the negative comments about the book, and its narrator, that I read before purchasing it. First and foremost, this is a well written and most interesting exploration of quantum physics (something that I knew less then nothing about 2 weeks ago), space and the properties of our universe. I found it very interesting, even if some was a bit over my head. The discussion of time travel and Einstein?s theories were particularly interesting, and the authors? analogies generally were clear and helped me understand more then I would have.

As for the narrator, I am at a loss as to why several people disliked him so much. I found him easy to listen to and his pronunciations sounded much better then I would have done. Ok, I might not pick him to read Shakespeare, but I thought he did a great job on this particular book.

Anyway, if you like science and want to be able to actually hold a conversion with someone and use the word ?quantum? (Something I can?t wait to do!) then this is a good book for you.

Hard to listen to the narrator

Any additional comments?

Great book, though the Simpson's references are seeming pretty dated. Horrible narrator, that is unless you liked Paul Harvey's voice.

wonderful book, dreadful narrator

Because of the inappropriate choice of narrator ( a stilted Ted Baxter type), Brian Greene's excellent, entertaining book is made almost unlistenable.

Great repeated listening

Incredible and often unbelievable and paradoxical "big picture" of the land of physics. Well written with lots of analogies using The Simpsons characters. Sense of humor helps the sometimes hard to understand narrative. Brian spends too much of the book on the "arrow of time" (why time seems to move forward only). A couple of paragraphs saying the equations work backwards in theory would have been fine! For excellent reading in the form of an excellent novel where the characters of the last 100+ years of physics come alive (Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, John Bell, Oppenheimer, everyone), I highly recommend THE AGE OF ENTANGLEMENT. All of these guys knew each other with a tremendous amount of correspondence and friendship (in most cases), and THE AGE tells the story in a way you won't read elsewhere - and quantum mechanics becomes more understandable as the reader gets to know the characters in a very personal way. Brian's COSMOS is great but falls slightly short on my end with 4 stars.

Loved it, especially the last few chapters.

He saved the best for last in regards to time travel, the holographic universe and the possibility of teleportation, but I found it overall a fun and easy read.

I run a podcast called the dark oracles guide to the multiverse using quantum physics to explain the nature of our reality and I’m going to mention this book as a reference to listeners. Loved the Simpsons references. Made the subject matter a bit more fun and lighthearted. I wasn’t thoroughly pleased with the narration as he sounded like someone from a 1950s radio show but other than that one of my favourite books on the matter so far.

He ought to put out a new book soon to reflect modern findings. Or perhaps an updated edition.

Overall, great read!

Textbook'ish but thorough

Very informative well researched. The introduction could have been better at aligning the reader with the authors intention, this is rather than a basket of concepts that don't explore a central theme just an intelligently written brain dump that runs long-toothed on detail and short on connection.

Great but 5 chapters too long

What did you love best about The Fabric of the Cosmos?

The book presented high science in an understandable form

Any additional comments?

Brian Greene claims to be a nonbeliever in God type spirituality. But throughout the book he uses "NY Jewish slang" which to a non New York reader is harder to understand than Quantum Mechanics. This lead to a feeling of arrogance about his beliefs.

Best science book I've ever heard.

The author has an exceptional ability to explain the concepts of physics without sinking into endless buzzwords and mathematical detail.

Entertaining and extremely educational.

I'm so glad that I didn't listen to the other reviewers who didn't like Michael Prichard's narration. In this book, I enjoyed it a lot. His infections are great and he understands when Brian Greene is telling a "joke" and tells it a such. I thought the narration was very well done and I didn't find it boring in the least.

The book itself is a wonderful, whirlwind tour though the depths of what we know about the universe we live in. Very well told with detailed, mind bending, and yet easy(ish) to absorb descriptions of very abstract subjects such as extra dimensions, string theory, and branes. One of the things I like most about Greene's writing is that he makes a point of clearly stating what theories are supported by experimental data, which are supported by mathematical manipulations, and which are speculative.

Entertaining and extremely educational. I highly recommend this book.