Nevertheless, I think it is a worthwhile use of one’s time. This is not a book you want to be reading just before bed, maybe, or during a busy commute-it took me pretty much a week, albeit a busy week, to work my way through it. Tegmark’s style is really accessible-despite going heavy on scientific and mathematical terminology, he is careful to proceed in a systematic way. This is a really well-written and approachable popular science work. I’ll get to my thoughts about Tegmark’s specific claims later.įirstly, regardless of any reservations I might have, I still recommend this book.
So let me spend the first part here just discussing the book, its structure and writing, etc., in a more general way, to give you an idea of whether or not it is of interest to you before you read my whole review. Oh boy, I think I’ve already used too many strange terms! This review is probably going to get pretty heady and philosophical at some point, much like Our Mathematical Universe does. That being said, I’m also not saying I agree with Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH), because, despite probably being a mathematical realist, Platonism itself strangely makes me uncomfortable…. I don’t actually find it all that controversial, per se-though I should clarify that I’m a mathematician by training, and not a physicist, so maybe the way Tegmark presents these ideas is more insulting or seems more radical when one is a physicist. Since then he has popped up a few times here or there, and now I’ve finally made time to read this long and detailed treatise on the current state of physics and Tegmark’s personal conception of, well, reality. I received this as a Christmas gift a few years ago, and that was the first I’ve heard of Max Tegmark. That doesn’t sell! So it’s not really surprising that Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality is a controversial book by a somewhat controversial physicist. Who doesn’t like a good controversy in their popular science books? What’s a philosophical theory about the nature of the universe if it doesn’t ruffle some feathers? No one wants to write a book and then have everyone turn around and shrug at you.
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