From the moment I first saw this book I was intrigued. I have followed developments in high energy physics only occasionally since I graduated 10 years ago. After picking up Dr. Randall's book I started feeling that excitement for science that led me to physics in the first place.

Warped Passages is written in a very accessible style, with many analogies attempting to clarify complex and non-intuitive concepts. My favorite was an explanation of the strong nuclear force using events from the Trojan War. While a reader with no background in physics or mathematics will be able to follow the topics presented, exposure to these sciences exponentially increases the amount of information conveyed.

The chronological presentation of particle physics history provides a background that is difficult to get otherwise. The inclusion of anecdotes and quotes from the scientists involved with the history is one of the things that makes Warped Passages so readable. This book stands out in that it not only conveys an intuitive understanding of the material, but actually delves into detail about the science. The book is clearly timed well to help build awareness and excitement as the Large Hadron Collider approaches full operation. Readers will likely be much more interested in the events unfolding at the LHC after gaining a deeper understanding of what is being sought.

Professor Randall of Harvard has written a truly monumental book for physics and for those interested in science. She has brilliantly bridged the knowledge gap between the scientist and the layperson. With this book, she dispels forever the ridiculous notion that women are somehow less equipped to do science at the highest level. As a theoretical physicist, her work is perhaps the most quoted in recent history - proof that her discoveries, which opens up fresh new thinking, are among the most significant in the history of science.

Warped Passages is a book that showcases Professor Randall's skills as a "model builder" in theoretical physics. Using the logic of model building, she deftly wove a tale of how past discoveries finally led to her out-of-the-box insight to use the fifth dimension to explain some of the more vexing modern day problems in physics. She demonstrated for us that with warped space, we may not even see a fifth dimension of infinite size.

The book is full of creative analogies to help us understand what the human mind is not equipped to grasp - extra dimensions. It is written simply, elegantly and clearly. Even if you find the more esoteric concepts difficult to understand at a deeper level as I do, she has included at the end of each chapter bullets of key concepts that anyone can understand. After reading the book, you will find yourself able to discuss at dinner parties the more important discoveries in physics such as general relativity, quantum mechanics and extra dimensions with the confidence of a trained physicist. You will also want to learn more about the latest advances in physics. Whether you have a Ph.D. in physics or are someone with a passing interest in science, you will find this book useful, interesting, informative and exhilarating. You will be infected by her obvious enthusiasm in physics and mathematics. Professor Randall has done a great service for the advancement of science and the recruit of students into physics. As a bonus, you will see glimpses of her humanity, humor and wit.

This is an exciting time in the history of physics. With this book, you will see why Professor Randall is the chief architect of what makes it exciting.

This book intents to cover lots of topics, and fails miserably. In the first part, the author poorly reviews the development of relativity and quantum mechanics. She fails to convey the rich and puzzling nature of these theories and, in addition, writes in such an appalling style that one is left wondering whether the text had the benefits of an editor at all. The narrative line is repetitive and convoluted. There are some stylistic pearls as "the German-born Max Born". Words are repeated once and again -- has anyone counted how many time the string "later on" occurs in the text? -- and the tone is patronizing of the reader. In the second part,the author describes her own research and related topics. Here the quality of the text improves. Advice: buy only the second part of the book!

PROS: Deep analysis of high energy physics. Good job at explaining bizzare ideas/theories.

CONS: Although Randall makes many analogies to try to grasp tough concepts, I wish she would have made even more. Also, the book could use more and better illustrations to help the reader understand these extremely complicated ideas. The book loses one star for each of those shortcomings.

CONCLUSION: If you've read Stephen Hawking and found yourself wanting to know more, read this book. It's extremely difficult to subject to write about, especially for the layperson. She does a pretty good job.

Why couldn't she be an instructor of mine?????? I'm very interested in physics and whatnot and this book is awesome. I don't know what else to say. you'll like it!

The contents of the physics which progressed after the 20th century came are explained plainly.
It is the book of the interesting contents which can imagine the strange universe.
The experimental device which will work in 2008, and this result are pleasure.

Lisa Randall has done an amazing job of relating some fairly tricky-to-comprehend subject matter. Her perspective falls heavily into the experimental scientist camp, firmly rooted in the standard model, versus many of her colleagues in the string theory camp who are certain that they have the answer, even if they can never prove it. You will still find plenty of mind, space and dimension-bending theory in this text, but Dr. Randall is meticulous about defining the line between what we know, what we can know, and what we cannot know. As attractive as string theory is, Dr. Randall keeps her audiences' feet firmly stuck to the ground of currently accepted information on the behavior of fundamental particles and interactions. She places string theory in a realistic perspective not often elucidated by its proponents.

Rather than spoil the journey through all of the incredible possibilities that surround the dimensional nature of the universe, Lisa Randall reminds us that the world is an even more awesome and bizarre place when we are not seduced by shortcuts. When we don't skip to the end, we are still able to enjoy every step on our path to discovery. Lisa Randall also enables readers with varying degrees of knowledge to read the book at several levels by warning the novice when it would be a good time to skip to another section, and when more seasoned learners may want to stick around for more background and detail.

For a really good time, I recommend reading Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds either just before or just after Warped Passages. Both of these amazing minds do a great job of illustrating their thinking on the dimensional possibilities in the universe, or rather, "multiverse". Both physicists are great story-tellers and do a wonderful job of laying the historical foundation for our current state of understanding and theory. Both authors make compelling arguments for their perspective.

"The postulated braneworlds are a theoretical leap of faith, and the ideas they contain are speculative. However, as with the stock market, riskier ventures might fail but they could also reward you with greater returns." Sound familiar science fans? This popular apologetic pitch for strings/branes has been written quite a few times over the past two and a half decades. Lisa Randall's Warped Passages stands with the best of the several I've read, but the risky market of her analogy is more connectable to the physical world than are `braneworlds', whose "greater returns" continue to have no physical home beyond such happy sounding analogies and the professional commitments of Ed Witten's disciples.

The story of string/branes cannot be well told without expositing the history of theoretical physics. Newton's brilliant and far reaching understanding of gravitation and his promising but limited grasp of particles and of relativity, eventually had to give way to the deeper understandings introduced by Planck and Einstein, and advanced by Bohr and Heisenberg. But even with its tremendous and ongoing successes, quantum theory has always suggested that it is not a complete picture of nature. George Gamow, one of the principle `completers' of quantum physics had expected a deeper view of nature to begin to appear forty years ago. But nature's deepest secrets have remained beyond our grasp. String theory promised access to `the mind of God' -- borrowing Hawking's famous hyperbole of nearly 25 years ago (which he had borrowed from Einstein) -- reducible to elegant mathematics. But string theory became many string theories, which became M theory, which became braneworlds theory, the mathematics became less elegant and the theory abjured from what most would be willing to call the scientific method and from the logical principle of economy commonly referred to as Okham's Razor. There could be no conceivable greater violation of Okham's principle than braneworlds theory, which demands 10 to the 500th power, or more, possible ensembles of non-examinable and unknowable `worlds'. This is a very far cry from "elegant".

Randall offers that there *might* be *possible* future experimental results that *could* be more consistent with braneworlds theory than other possible results, this is as much of an olive branch as the strings/branes speculation can hold out to the real world of scientific falsifiability. It's okay to be unimpressed. At this point, I think it should be mandatory.

Randall's book is well organized and well presented, and if you're looking for an exposition on braneworlds that is thorough at an accessible `entry level', this book will be better than most. On the one hand, I'd like to rate her book at 4 or 5 stars, based on style and presentation. But the intractable problems remain with the open-ended, extra-scientific speculations that she is pitching. Like Leonard Susskind, another ardent apologist for strings/branes, Randall cannot avoid constant admissions that the entire field of study is as speculative as ever, and may prove to be a wasted effort. In the end, this is as much as can be honestly said of strings/branes. We may call strings/branes a conjecture, but it fails to amount to a theory unless that word is dispossessed of its normal meaning.

With 25 years of strings/branes to scrutinize, it is apparent that it is a topic better fitted to mathematical and theological studies than to theoretical physics. It is not fitted to experimental physics at all.

The impetus, i.e., the pressure, to pursue strings/branes, is understandable on several levels. But Randall's early chapter references to Edwin Abbott's 19th century classic `Flatland', a little book treating dimensions, is as powerful as the strings/branes conjecture gets (Flatland is clearly more modest and more persuasive). I give Lisa Randall credit for her attempted honesty and nearly ubiquitous caveats: "Today, we can't say whether or not the obstacles facing the theory are `insuperable' or not . . ." (pg 297), and, "no one has yet found a way to solve many of the most important questions . . ." (pg 453); with these necessary admissions reappearing every few paragraphs throughout much of the book. The profound secrets of nature are indeed arresting, but strings/branes speculations have NOT presented us with any verifiably real knowledge of nature. Nor is it apparent how strings/branes could ever do so. After dominating research for 25 years, it seems that strings/branes cannot bring us anything as physically concrete as Abbott's Flatland did nearly 125 years ago. Regarding the growing mathematical *inelegance* of braneworlds, as well as the scientific irrelevance of the speculation, I recommend mathematician Peter Woit's important book, Not Even Wrong.

"The postulated braneworlds are a theoretical leap of faith, and the ideas they contain are speculative. However, as with the stock market, riskier ventures might fail but they could also reward you with greater returns." Sound familiar science fans? This popular apologetic pitch for strings/branes has been written quite a few times over the past two and a half decades. Lisa Randall's Warped Passages stands with the best of the several I've read, but the risky market of her analogy is more connectable to the physical world than are `braneworlds', whose "greater returns" continue to have no physical home beyond such happy sounding analogies and the professional commitments of Ed Witten's disciples.

The story of string/branes cannot be well told without expositing the history of theoretical physics. Newton's brilliant and far reaching understanding of gravitation and his promising but limited grasp of particles and of relativity, eventually had to give way to the deeper understandings introduced by Plank and Einstein, and advanced by Bohr and Heisenberg. But even with its tremendous and ongoing successes, quantum theory has always suggested that it is not a complete picture of nature. George Gamow, one of the principle `completers' of quantum physics had expected a deeper view of nature to begin to appear forty years ago. But nature's deepest secrets have remained beyond our grasp. String theory promised access to `the mind of God' -- borrowing Hawking's famous hyperbole of nearly 25 years ago (which he had borrowed from Einstein) -- reducible to elegant mathematics. But string theory became many string theories, which became M theory, which became braneworlds theory, the mathematics became less elegant and the theory abjured from what most would be willing to call the scientific method and from the logical principle of economy commonly referred to as Okham's Razor. There could be no conceivable greater violation of Okham's principle than braneworlds theory, which demands 10 to the 500th power, or more, possible ensembles of non-examinable and unknowable `worlds'. This is a very far cry from "elegant".

Randall offers that there *might* be *possible* future experimental results that *could* be more consistent with braneworlds theory than other possible results, this is as much of an olive branch as the strings/branes speculation can hold out to the real world of scientific falsifiability. It's okay to be unimpressed. At this point, I think it should be mandatory.

Randall's book is well organized and well presented, and if you're looking for an exposition on braneworlds that is thorough at an accessible `entry level', this book will be better than most. On the one hand, I'd like to rate her book at 4 or 5 stars, based on style and presentation. But the intractable problems remain with the open-ended, extra-scientific speculations that she is pitching. Like Leonard Susskind, another ardent apologist for strings/branes, Randall cannot avoid constant admissions that the entire field of study is as speculative as ever, and may prove to be a wasted effort. In the end, this is as much as can be honestly said of strings/branes. We may call strings/branes a conjecture, but it fails to amount to a theory unless that word is dispossessed of its normal meaning.

With 25 years of strings/branes to scrutinize, it is apparent that it is a topic better fitted to mathematical and theological studies than to theoretical physics. It is not fitted to experimental physics at all.

Regarding the growing mathematical inelegance of braneworlds, as well as the scientific irrelevance of the speculation, I recommend mathematician Peter Woit's book, Not Even Wrong.

I thought this was a great book. It provided me, a person with almost no hard science background, the best explanations of relativity and particle physics that I have read - and I have trundled through a few. Unfortunately, the last 200 pages or so bounced against my brain instead of being absorbed by it. I am not angry. I don't blame the author. I just don't have the background and really I am just not that smart.

One point off for not warning people with an IQ under 120 that they may not comprehend.

I thought this was a great book. It provided me, a person with almost no hard science background, the best explanations of relativity and particle physics that I have read - and I have trundled through a few. Unfortunately, the last 200 pages or so bounced against my brain instead of being absorbed by it. I am not angry. I don't blame the author. I just don't have the background and really I am just not that smart.

One point off for not warning people with an IQ under 120 that they may not comprehend.

This book is fascinating and infuses Physics with a newfound Energy and sense of excitement. Although I have a Master's Degree, I could not even pass High School Physics... it was so dull. This book ROCKS and is definately not boring... I finally "get it"...
Dr. Lisa Randall is a Physics Professor at Harvard, who will likely win the Nobel Prize one day. If she had been my Professor, I'd probably be a Scientist today.
This book is educational and FUN to read... she has a Hip style; quoting Bjork and Eminiem, as well as Einstein. A Good Buy & a Keeper.

Book was shipped quickly and was a in perfect condition, great gift for my boyfriend's father for Christmas.

I read a chapter in another book in which Lisa Randall was interviewed so I rushed out and got this book. What I found was very long preamble to a not terribly informative book full of references to well known books, pop culture, how NYC residents view themselves, and tidbits about Ms. Randall's life none of which was particularly interesting nor helpful.

There is a lot of self love in this book. Unfortunately, the information could have been distilled down to a book one quarter its size and been better written, as well.

this book is written really well and is easy to understand. I have a college-level knowledge of physics and found it informative but not too cumbersome.

This is a very educational book for lay readers interested in science, particularly in physics, to know the current scientific understanding of particle-physics and our universe. The author, a Harvard professor of physics, writes at the end of the book: "If, instead, other extra-dimensional models describe the universe, energy will disappear into extra dimensions and we'll ultimately detect these dimensions through the resulting unbalanced energy accounting." I am sure, however, that the author knows the tale of "the missing 21 grams" (which has been also an unaccountable energy loss from "our brain?") of Dr. Duncan MacDougall published in 1907, but just does not take it seriously, maybe because it is too big a loss for her to be true, compared with the loss of gravitons from "our brane."

One of the best books I read on the subject.
Lisa Randall explains very complicated matters in a very simple and accessible way -- some times almost overdoing it by using examples which we experience in our daily life.

If string theory has lots of dimensions, where are the other ones? asked Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall. To make sense out of string theory, the understanding of how this theory behave's at a strong coupling, which is by now well-established, first came as quite a surprise. One possibility, stated Randall, is that the extra dimensions are rolled-up into sizes so incredibly minuscule that they cannot be measured.

Another possibility, proposed by Randall and her colleagues was, an infinite extra dimension that blends in with the others except at a very compact scale. The five-dimensional theory was born, and could answer questions that had tormented physicists since Einstein. Why is gravity so much weaker than the other fundamental forces of physics? Randall explains that much of the gravity field leaks away into another realm, via the extra dimension.

Lisa Randall explanations of extra dimensional cosmology give's us this new 11-dimensional phase of string theory, and the various dualities between string theories. Lisa Randall is a leading theoretical physicist, and through her book, we're led to the very exciting prospect that there is only a single fundamental underlying theory. There are additional dualities that arise when more dimensions are consolidated, which Randall only briefly discuss', however.

Regardless, Lisa Randall is one of the leading experts in the field of string theory. As well as a professor at Harvard for theoretical physics. And though her research may be controversial at times, Randall does know what she is talking about.

This is a very philosophical and traditionally scientific approach to an explanation of the universe for the layman or the academic. Lisa Randall does an amazing job and it is wonderful to see a female physicist with such a clever mind publishing such an approachable book. Highly recommended - well worth the read.

I have noticed that most of your five star reviews are by string theorists, or at least by Physic's majors.

NOW FOR THE REST OF US, this is a very meandering, chatty, long-winded topic-hopping ordeal that leaves the less-informed reader wondering what he is supposed to have learned. After closing the book, he may very well have no idea at all about what he just read.

The solution would be to get rid of 2/3 of the ideas presented and place some emphasis on the remaining third. This would help the less-bright gain some perspective on what this is about.

It may very well be that the fault lies not so much in the author as in the subject, which simply may be a useless intellectual exercise, a game of musical chairs to figure out who can move around faster than the rest.

While these priests of the theory are busy conjuring up the illustrious name of Einstein, they are not so likely to use this quote:

It is anomalous to replace the four-dimensional continuum by a
five-dimensional one and then subsequently to tie up artificially one
of those five dimensions in order to account for the fact that it does
not manifest itself. -Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest

Einstein, I realize was very sure about the postulates of the Special theory of Relativity.. He was not speculating about what might or might not be, not shooting in the dark, but was convinced from the study of Maxwell's equations and certain experiments, that the premise was true.
This contrasts mightily with String Theory where they have no certainly about anything, and as some have noticed, can not even be shown to be wrong. Perhaps, then, this book reflects this butterfly, intellectual hopping about, sort of stuff.

I have noticed that most of your five star reviews are by string theorists, or at least by Physic's majors.

NOW FOR THE REST OF US, this is a very meandering, chatty, long-winded topic-hopping ordeal that leaves the less-informed reader wondering what he is supposed to have learned. After closing the book, he may very well have no idea at all about what he just read.

The solution would be to get rid of 2/3 of the ideas presented and place some emphasis on the remaining third. This would help the less-bright gain some perspective on what this is about.

It may very well be that the fault lies not so much in the author as in the subject, which simply may be a useless intellectual exercise, a game of musical chairs to figure out who can move around faster than the rest.

While these priests of the theory are busy conjuring up the illustrious name of Einstein, they are not so likely to use this quote:

It is anomalous to replace the four-dimensional continuum by a
five-dimensional one and then subsequently to tie up artificially one
of those five dimensions in order to account for the fact that it does
not manifest itself. -Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest

Einstein, I realize was very sure about the postulates of the Special theory of Relativity.. He was not speculating about what might or might not be, not shooting in the dark, but was convinced from the study of Maxwell's equations and certain experiments, that the premise was true.
This contrasts mightily with String Theory where they have no certainly about anything, and as some have noticed, can not even be shown to be wrong. Perhaps, then, this book reflects this butterfly, intellectual hopping about, sort of stuff.

You really don't need my opinion because there are already over 100 reviews. I don't have a serious review to offer because the serious ones have already been done. I will agree with the best of them because this lady author has many great talents in putting such an amazing book together with such STYLE!!!! Many points of praise. I got this book in hardcover and decided I needed another one so I got two.

You go scientists!!!! Please continue writing books like this one that are so so delicious to read and well put together in SO many ways. Keep them (books) real long like this one (or even longer) and packed with lots of goodies. Brian Greene, I still LOVE your work also--ESPECIALLY The Fabric of the Cosmos, so Lisa Randall, Briane Greene and other talented scientists--keep on dishing out books like these that keep us wanting more more more!!!

SOME speculation is HEALTHY SCIENCE. Always know that there is A BEYOND EVERYTHING! Be certain of that. You scientists have now acquired an audience of the MASSES. We will be there to hail you or boo you like the jury of Q in Star Trek The Next Generation. We want more and better and more and better. Ha Ha Ha. Great work!

Randall, along with many other, such as Susskind The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design makes a serious mistake in leaping to the conclusion that reality corresponds to her mathematical models. Along with other string theorists, they assume that if the math they use to build their models contains some number of additional dimensions, then the real world must contain those dimensions. I see this in much of the literature, including, for example Woit Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory And the Search for Unity in Physical Law who debunks string theory, but nevertheless seems to accept the idea that if the math contains extra dimensions, reality must also contain those extra dimensions.
A mathematical model is just that - a model. It is the best math we can construct at this point in time to describe the reality we are trying to model. It is not the reality itself. If the string theorists are successful in constructing a model that includes six or seven tiny dimensions, that does not mean that those dimensions actually exist. All it means is that the best model we can currently construct has to include those dimensions in the math. Susskind really goes off the deep end with this. We must remember that much more math will come along. Someday, we may have a math that describes the same reality without the additional dimensions.
That said, if the string theorists can make a prediction that absolutely, positively depends upon those extra dimensions and if that prediction is confirmed by experimental results, then they may have a case. So far, the string theorists have failed utterly to make such a prediction. Even here, a different math may come along. The night is young.

In order to keep this short and sweet, this is a very readable book about string, superstring theory, and branes! An excellent job by the author! Also contains references to nice music lyrics and quotes! Fantastic book, highly recommended!

In order to keep this short and sweet, this is a very readable book about string, superstring theory, and branes! An excellent job by the author! Also contains references to nice music lyrics and quotes! Fantastic book, highly recommended!

Superb summary of contemporary cosmological crucial questions. Not not for the novice, but she writes so clearly--who knows?

1.

Why not use any possible monitoring system to collect the local variatons in space as beings dying, being born and fertilizing? We may find something come from and go to some other dimensions or layers.

2.

According to some old chinese books of Buddhism and Taoism,(a) some Buddhists and Taoists could see the future, but they could not change the future, (b) the space is layered, (c) there is something called "the singular door and the invisible armour" in Taoism.

3.

The results of some experiments, such as experiments described in the book authored by "SHE DING MING", in hypnosis are seemly relevant to this dimensional idea.

This is an outstanding book for those like myself who are not physicists or mathematicians but who have an interest in the subject. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to more clearly Einstein's theories, quantum mechanics, String theory etc. and the various areas of physics thought today.

Lisa's historical footnotes are absolutely great for gaining insight into the authors of various theories character.

A truly enjoyable read.

Outlines current thinking in the realm of particle physics for a
wide audience - suitable for all readers curious about the constituent
particles that make up our universe and how the large accelerators
at Fermi Lab and CERN are useful in testing for the existence of
elementary particles that have been predicted by theory.

Outlines current thinking in the realm of particle physics for a
wide audience - suitable for all readers curious about the constituent
particles that make up our universe and how the large accelerators
at Fermi Lab and CERN are useful in testing for the existence of
elementary particles that have been predicted by theory.

This work does a fine job of presenting theoretical physics to the masses. It does not get too deep with equations or math, but it does articulate many key concepts that need to enter the mass consciousness of humanity.

There seems to be a steady flow of this "new" dimension-speak, which simply brings us back full-circle to Aristotle's long discarded theories of meta-physics. Oh how wise we have become... to finally re-present the wisdom of our ancient ancestors... the very knowledge that science chose to either suppress or disregard as foolishness. So hopefully this work is a key stepping stone to pulling our minds back up to functional levels.

I recommend that everyone read and digest this work. I also strongly recommend another work that takes this avenue of thought a step further, uniting spirituality and science to present amazingly simple answers to the multi-dimensional phenomena that intrigue us all. Here's the amazon link: Mysteries of the Universe: A Revolutionary Commentary on UFOs, Aliens, Angels, Pyramids, Bible Codes, Reincarnation, the Antichrist...

This is the best book for a layman I've ever read -- would recommend to anyone interested in particle physics and cosmology!!

Why leave all the interesting math out of a book like this?

It's nicely written, of course - nothing particularly new or original conceptually, and is good for physics students to use as a wordy and clear introduction to a fascinating topic.

But I think most of the intended readership could cope with an outline of the fascinating math (and some of its complexities) as they read - even if it is put into boxes to one side of the text - or in an Appendix or two. Maybe in a 2nd edition?

Despite what was perceived on the author's part to be an effort to explain complicated theory for the layman, this book would probably appeal more to persons with a good background in physics, than to persons basically untrained but interested in physics and grasping at the concepts. The author's style was refreshing; she was not pedantic as writers of such books often are.

The book does an excellent job of bridging the gap between what I learned in the past and what is being theorized today. You don't have to be a physicist to understand it. Enough background is given to provide a foundation for current thought. There is even the option to skip over the intricate details if only a general overview is desired. I recommend reading the entire book.

Prof. Randall does an excellent job here. The book is well written, the background and examples are presented in a real world context and I look forward to reading her next book.

This is a wonderful book to read for those of us who - like me - are interested in science but don't have the mathematical capability to truly study it. Lisa Randall - in addition to being a great physicist - must be a great teacher, because she managed to take highly complex ideas and make them accessible to a non-scientific mind. She not only introduces very exciting concepts of the construction of the universe, but truly explains necessary concepts such as the nature of electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force, as well as why there is a speed of light. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down.

I recently read "Warped Passages" and wanted to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the author for it. The "dance" between experimentalist and theorist is as elegant as any you will see on "Dancing with the Stars". The highly communicative and refreshing style of this book immensely helped my understanding of the still evolving, state-of-the-art issues addressed. As a particular side note, I must say I also enjoyed the symmetry of a rock musician on a shared airplane flight spontaneously asking the author for an explanation of a 10- versus 11-dimension universe and her use of rock lyrics to introduce the theme of each chapter.

Clearly, there is an appetite among the wider public for highly readable, science books like "Warped Passages". I also believe such books serve a vital need in the US to stimulate and excite young people about pursuing careers in math, science and engineering. As a society, we have not done enough in this area. We have made up for this deficiency by importing the best and brightest students from around the world. In turn, such graduates have often remained here to contribute to the scientific and engineering strength of our country and its economy. However, the scientific and economic climates around the world have improved to the point where we can no longer depend so much on benefiting from this "brain drain". Domestic availability of books such as "Warped Passages" and others is necessary to the future well being of our country.

In fact, the author inserted several clearly indicated, sidebar summary descriptions of a range of physics topics which relate to and impinge upon the main thrust of her book. I found these helpful to my broader understanding of her main points and the context in which she makes them. For those who wish to explore in more depth these related issues, I also recommend "The Whole Shebang, A State of the Universe(s)Report" by Timonthy Ferris, "Deep Down Things, The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics" by Bruce Schumm, "The Quantum World, Quantum Physics for Everyone" by Kenneth Ford, "Quantum Reality" by Nick Herbert, and "Relativity" by Albert Einstein (Nothing like getting it straight from the horse's mouth!). Each offers very clear descriptions and explanations of the topic at hand, with a minimum of jargon and mathematics.

Lastly, I want to encourage the author to write a "sequel" to "Warped Passages", probably in no more than five years. By that time, substantive first results from the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be available and theories will have been further confirmed, pruned, refined and created to continue the "dance".

Maybe you have to be a particle physicist or somebody deeply immersed in Lisa Randall's chosen field to have an appreciation for this book, but for the rest of us(around 99.9% of the remainder of the population), Warped Passages will seem tantalizing in its subject matter before becoming buried in slipshod forays into particle physics theory and plain unreadability.

I understand such specialized books are meant for a target audience and not for an average bloke who just want to take their understanding of physics beyond the rudimentary education he/she received in high school, but why is this the case? Are these books purposely written in this fashion just to showcase the genius of these admittedly, impressive minds just to remind we IQ-challenged knuckle draggers that we can only bow before their immense mind power?

No, I think Lisa Randall is a very, very smart woman who knows her subject who, like most brilliant minds, is awful in relaying what she knows to others, whether it be by verbal or written word. Honestly, this book is painful to read. The possibility of more than 3 dimensions is nothing new(just watch any B grade sci-fi movie/TV show), but Lisa Randall professes to at least make it theoretically possible. However, while I was still intrigued with the early chapters of this book, I couldn't help but feel that the possibility of extra dimensions was more self-indulgent rather than relevant; therefore, all you have left is the fun theoretical rummagings of extra dimensions, but that is quickly sucked out by a book that seems really devoid of joy and appeal to all but the most fantasty science-based nerds.

Just as it seems as if Warped Passages is building to an interesting apex with the meat of extra dimensionality, Lisa Randall decides to veer carelessly into giving all sorts of modern physical theory, ranging from Einstein's theory of relativity to current quantum physics and unification theory. This has all been explained much better before(check out some revised Stephen Hawking for readable, yet fascinating instances), and seems to be given a rough run-through that is ridiculous in how it introduces all sorts of concepts in such a haphazard and unorganized way that I was left wondering what I had just read.

What makes matters worse is that Randall doesn't even seem to make reading this material relevant, suggesting you skip ahead a few chapters if not interested. If this is irrelevant to proving her points on extra dimensions, then why bother?? It all becomes such a mess that even leafing forward to the good parts seems like a pointless endeavor since there's no real differentiation between what you should be reading and what isn't all that important. I just quit around page 205 and decided to read something that wasn't such a chore.

I really appreciate Lisa Randall's ability to bring complex ideas down to within grasp of the typical educated reader. She does an excellent job explaining concepts and offering analogies. Individuals who enjoy books like Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality or Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos will really appreciate this book.

Sure, Lisa speculates a bit, but who wouldn't? She's truly excited about her work and the opportunity to share that excitement with her readers. It's true that some of her ideas will become testable upon completion of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. It will be exciting to follow the research and see where the data leads. I'd encourage anyone with an interest in high energy physics to read this book!

Lisa Randall has written a sometimes breezy and often vague book that specializes in sentiments like: If this is true, then all these other things might be true, too!

Her expositions of Newton, Einstein and others do not compare favorably with her many predecessors. Her primers on gravity and relativity are memorable for their opacity. She has succeeded in being new and different, but not clearer and better.

A reader interested in modern physics would be well advised to read Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin's book, "A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down." It is smarter and more insightful. His concept of emergence is very important.

I have a limited physics background and began this book thinking the prime purpose was to receive an explanation of string theory, multiple dimensions and membrane theory. It achieved its purpose. In addition, it magnificently delineated the history of this field's development, plus liberal recognition of her colleagues involvement in pursuing these endeavors (despite some being theorists and some experimentalists).

Professor Randall's writing has a continuity of development in concise, lucid, complete, and very clever terms. Terminology is kept simple and (thank goodness) mathematics eliminated. Inclusions of real life analogies helps breakdown the complex into the understandable.

The author's personality, as demonstrated by the book, shows that even physicists are people ... She climbs rocks, communes with nature, appreciates pop-culture, hangs-out in coffee shops and enjoys conferences in beautiful locales. And, best of all, she has a delicious sense of humor (ironic closing at books-end: what is a dimension?) All this and she does not let her intellect get in the way of clarity in describing to the layperson (me) of strings that rock `n' roll, minuscule curlicue dimensions, and wimpy gravity (my characterization).

In summary, I now have a greater appreciation and understanding of this realm of science. It is a magnificent, multifaceted book in revealing science, scientists and one scientist's personality.

Maybe in Professor Randall's sequel (Warped Passages, the Next Generation ?) she can explain: Is time a black sheep dimension among the spatial dimensions? How does one particle communicates attraction and/or repulsion? What about variable speed of light or gravity?

Now I am impatient for the results of bashing those energetic particles together and letting the shower's fall where they might. Let the fireworks begin, thank you Doctor Randall.

I have to confess shock that so much of the praise of this book is centered on its readability for popular audiences. I regularly read philosophy and popular physics and biology books and articles, and I took a modern physics course in college and quite enjoyed it and did well (I did a degree to be a secondary science teacher), but I did not learn what I wanted to learn from this book. I want to say that Randall is just not a good writer, but perhaps thats too strong; maybe she just doesn't speak my language.

I understand the basic ideas of quantum mechanics and particle physics, and I want something more, a deeper understanding. She states the facts that can be found in an encyclopedia (e.g., "the uncertainty principle means that position and momentum cannot both be measured"), but when she tries to go deeper and into more detail, I found her explanations incomprehensible. They seem to me to be both too simple (and her tone often condescending) and too complex. I beat my head against the wall re-reading sections of the text trying to grasp her meaning, which she is maddeningly confident that she has conveyed, but finally concluded that in many of the sections the words simply were not there that needed to be there. Sufficient bridges are not created from one idea to the next, and in her effort to avoid scaring people away with long explanations, she has instead given insufficient explanations. A lot of space that could have been given over to actual explanation is taken up with literary fluff and the typical popular-science-book encouragements of "don't worry if this seems hard, I know you can do it!" I have stopped halfway through, and haven't even gotten to the parts about extra dimensions. Maybe I should just skip to those. (The 'preliminary' parts on other aspects of physics besides extra dimensions, by the way, take up about 2/3 of the book)

Randall (and maybe writers on physics in general) could learn quite a bit from popular biology writers like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Steve Pinker, E.O. Wilson and Oliver Sacks. All of these writers assume an intelligence equal to their own in their readers, and I find this assumption lacking in Randall. Quoting rock lyrics at the beginning of a chapter in an effort to be more accessible sounds like an idea a book marketer would come up with to sell books to people who think Alice Cooper or Johhny Rotten are intellectuals, not something a thoughful writer would do. (Nothing wrong with Alice Cooper or Johhny Rotten though.) The writers above talk to you like its a dinner conversation (albeit an intense one in the case of Dawkins) between friends with a great respect for each other, while Randall talks exactly like an esteemed academic teaching a dumbed down version of what she knows for an undergraduate class of English majors trying to get their science requirement completed. Further, I come away from a work by the afforementioned writers feeling as though a circle has been completed. Everything they mention is explained in full, taking as much space as is needed; if there is something too technical to fully explain to a non-scientist, I nonetheless come away satisfied that I understand why it cannot be explained.

Warped Passages was one long exercise in frustration for me. I've heard good things about Roger Penrose's explanations of modern physics, so I'm going to get his "The Road To Reality" in hopes that this will be the key to my continued physics education. Maybe all attempts at explaining modern physics deeply to people without a Ph.D. are doomed to failure; modern physics is surely harder than biology and medicine to explain to non-scientists. But that doesn't make a book like Warped Passages any more of a success.

I have to confess shock that so much of the praise of this book is centered on its readability for popular audiences. I am a great fan of popular science books, and even took a modern physics course in college and quite enjoyed it (I did a degree to be a secondary science teacher), but I struggled to gain anything from this book. I think Randall is simply not a good writer. Her goal is to 'simplify' ideas to make them understandable, but instead she gives us incomplete sketches in a somewhat infantilized tone. I beat my head against the wall re-reading sections of the text trying to grasp her meaning, but finally concluded that in many of the sections the words simply were not there that needed to be there. I have stopped halfway through, and haven't even gotten to the parts about extra dimensions. Warped Passages was one long exercise in frustration for me. I really think it needs to be stripped of its reputation as a good popular book on the subject. The people who have labelled it thus seem to mostly be scientists, who are not the right people to be making judgments on such things. Listen to laymen when deciding what will be understood by the layman.

Randall is a Harvard professor of physics who provides a non-mathematical review of why space may have more than the 3 spatial dimensions and the 1 temporal dimension we are familiar with. The short answer is that experiments bashing particles into each other show very strange results, which make better sense if certain attributes of those particles and the forces that interact with them operate in dimensions beyond the ones we're directly aware of. Like other books of its type, such as Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, this book recaps a bunch of physics you may already know to get to the strangeness that you probably won't understand even after you've read it three times. Still, I loved it.

Already having an extensive science background and an interest in cosmology, physics and astronomy for years, I found Lisa Randall's book incredibly provocative and fascinating. (I was also delighted to discover a WOMAN in this field predominantly filled with male physicists...) Honestly, it may be a little over the head of someone with little or no science background, unless, of course, they were highly motivated and interested in the subject to begin with. I would put it right up there with Brian Greene's works (The Elegant Universe, etc.) in that it makes the subject very relevant to everyday existence as well as existential questions. (As an aside, I would also supplement your reading with viewing the DVD, "What the (Bleep)? Down the Rabbit Hole" to contemplate string theory's possibility of connecting science to spirituality...)

I think its one of few books where string theory is conceptualized very nicely. I also liked the chapters related to GTR and Quantum Mechanics

I think its one of few books where string theory is conceptualized very nicely. I also liked the chapters related to GTR and Quantum Mechanics

String theory is a very difficult subject mathematically but Lisa Randall explain the interesting but very abstract concepts in very understandable way. She took time to explain the concept of multi spacial dimensions starting from 1-D, then 2-D, 3-D, 4-D and so on. I especially like the explanation from 2-D to 3-D because I can easily relate it to higher dimensions. But the later chapters do require me to read slowly so I can remember and "understand" each and every concept in order to able to continue reading it (even though it isn't math).

One of the best books on cutting edge physics I've ever read. How Dr. Randall found time to get tenure at 3 Universities, Push the boundries of Physics into unforseen areas and write such a wonderful book makes me wonder if she hasn't invented a device to manipulate time.
Her sense of humor and playfullness reminds me a little of Richard Feynman. She goes well beyond making translating Complex Math into day to day English, she makes it fun to read as well. Cheers Doctor.

One of the best books on cutting edge physics I've ever read. How Dr. Randall found time to get tenure at 3 Universities, Push the boundries of Physics into unforseen areas and write such a wonderful book makes me wonder if she hasn't invented a device to manipulate time.
Her sense of humor and playfullness reminds me a little of Richard Feynman. She goes well beyond making translating Complex Math into day to day English, she makes it fun to read as well. Cheers Doctor.