The Hidden Reality

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos is a

Content

In his book, Greene discussed nine types of parallel universes:

• The quilted multiverse conditions in an infinite universe necessarily repeat across space, yielding parallel worlds.
• The
  inflationary multiverse
  says that eternal cosmological inflation yields an enormous network of bubble universes, of which our universe would be one.
• The
  brane multiverse states that in M-theory, in the brane
  world scenario, our universe exists on one three-dimensional brane, which floats in a higher dimensional expanse potentially populated by other branes – other parallel universes.
• The cyclic multiverse is saying that collisions between braneworlds can manifest as big bang-like beginnings, yielding universes that are parallel in time.
• The
  landscape multiverse
  states that by combining inflationary cosmology and string theory, the many different shapes for string theory's extra dimensions give rise to many different bubble universes.
• The
  quantum multiverse creates a new universe when a diversion in events occurs, as in the many-worlds interpretation
  of quantum mechanics.
• The holographic multiverse is derived from the theory that the surface area of a space can simulate the volume of the region.
• The
  simulated multiverse
  implies that technological leaps suggest that the universe is just a simulation.
• The
  ultimate multiverse
  is the ultimate theory, saying the principle of fecundity asserts that every possible universe is a real universe, thereby obviating the question of why one possibility – ours – is special. These universes instantiate all possible mathematical equations.

Reception

• Timothy Ferris reports in the review in The New York Times Book Review that “If extraterrestrials landed tomorrow and demanded to know what the human mind is capable of accomplishing, we could do worse than to hand them a copy of this book.”^[1]
• Boston Globe, wrote that "Greene might be the best intermediary I’ve found between the sparkling, absolute zero world of mathematics and the warm, clumsy world of human language." Doerr praised Greene's use of analogies to explain the complex phenomena of parallel universes.^[2]
• three-dimensional universes.^[3]
• Publishers Weekly hails The Hidden Reality “An in-depth yet marvelously accessible look inside the perplexing world of modern theoretical physics and cosmology . . . Greene presents a lucid, intriguing, and triumphantly understandable state-of-the-art look at the universe.”(Starred review)
• Janet Maslin, The New York Times claims “Mr. Greene has a gift for elucidating big ideas . . . Exciting and rewarding . . . [The Hidden Reality] captures and engages the imagination.”^[4]
• John Horgan. Scientific American "Is speculation in multiverses as immoral as speculation in subprime mortgages?." "Horgan’s exasperation with seeing the multiverse heavily promoted by famous physicists appears to have more to do with the idea that this is a retreat by physicists from engagement with the real world, something morally obtuse in an era of growing problems that scientists could help address."^[5]
• Peter Woit "My own moral concerns about the multiverse have more to do with worry that pseudo-science is being heavily promoted to the public, leading to the danger that it will ultimately take over from science, first in the field of fundamental physics, then perhaps spreading to others.^[5]

In popular culture

The book and its author were featured on the television series The Big Bang Theory in episode 20 of season 4, "The Herb Garden Germination".^[6]

See also

• Multiverse
• Shape of the universe

Related books

• Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004)
• Lisa Randall, Warped Passages (2005)
• Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds (book) (2004)
• Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape (2005)
• Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes (July 2006)
• Sean Carroll, From Eternity to Here
• John Gribbin, In Search of the Multiverse
• Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (book)
• Steven Manly, Visions of the Multiverse
• Richard Panek, The 4 Percent Universe (2011)

Footnotes