About book Vårt Matematiska Universum: Mitt Sökande Efter Den Yttersta Verkligheten (2014)
A bit much for my taste on the mathematics-underlies-reality theme as well as a slight overemphasis on how special we are as observers of the Universe ( I am beginning to see these two themes as fashionably intertwined these days - how can they not if we invented math as language of science and then we turn around and say "wow - this stuff is pretty darn good at describing stuff!" then we must be special, right?)However, I love the chapter summaries and the key in the preface telling the reader exactly how to skip around depending on his/her background. Made this the perfect book to dive into and enjoy without having to read it cover to cover. I learned a lot from his deconstruction of the Copenhagen Interpretation and his explanation of Cosmological Inflation! The author really explains science very well. In the first half of the book when he's providing background and context he excels. He steps the listener through how we progressed through history from a village perspective to a multiverse. The author states elegantly, the reality of the multiverse is not a theory in of itself since it comes out of the best theory we have to describe our universe, Inflation Theory. If you accept that inflation describes the universe at a fundamental level, but don't like multiverses you need to first come up with a theory that can explain everything inflation does but take out the part where inflation creates other universes not an easy thing to do. Also, the book works well when he's explaining everything you every wanted to know about the Cosmic Microwave Background but were afraid to ask. It really does give good answers about flat space and dark energy and why it's so important to understand the CMB.But, the author really didn't write the book to tell us those things. He wrote it for two main reasons. He wants to tell you why the Many World Hypothesis (Hugh Everett III) is the best explanation for the mysterious of physics and then goes on to tell you how our universe is mathematics.I love math at least as much as the next geek and wish the universe was math, but I gave up those kind of thoughts a long time ago. As Confucius said (no, really he did!), he looked for truth in mathematics and studied it for five years before he realized truth laid elsewhere.I'm not against using the Many World Hypothesis to explain the measurement problem but the approach the author used just was not convincing. I would strongly recommend the David Deutsch book, "The Beginning of Infinity" it covers the same kind of science but is much more coherent. I'll give a shout out to Tegmark, he quotes people like Deutsch and many others I have read and gives them kudos even though he doesn't agree with him throughout the book.Another book, I would recommend instead is a science fiction book called "Thrice Upon a Time", by James P Hogan, he covers the Many World Hypothesis in a more consistent way than this book does. (Yes, it's fiction but uses science and speculation to explain).Overall, the reason the author really wrote the book is the reasons I can't fully recommend this book.
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First half of the book was pretty good. The second half got weird!
—b1ucus99
