Everyone is fascinated today with the possibility of alternate dimensions and parallel universes existing right alongside our own. But author Lawrence M. Krauss points out in his exciting and intriguing book Hiding in the Mirror that the idea of alternate realities has been around for a long, long time. In fact, it goes back to Plato and beyond.
Krauss, who also wrote The Physics of Star Trek, takes us on a highly entertaining ride down the rabbit hole as he shows how the concept of other dimensions has been a part of philosophy, physics and fiction from ancient times to today’s cutting edge theories courtesy of the top theoretical physicists like Michio Kaku and Brian Greene. With a style that makes physics easy to grasp, even fun, Krauss chronicles the pursuit of understanding of these other dimensions, and shows how the quest for such understanding really is a quest for truth – the truth about reality and our place in it.
The book has a wide scope, covering everything from string theory to M Theory, parallel worlds to the use of multiple dimensions in fiction, to the physics of black holes and the brave new world of “branes.” Anyone interested in quantum and theoretical physics will devour this book, written by a scientist with a real grasp of the complexities, and the simplicities, of both the quantum and the cosmic.
I loved this book and found so much food for thought. In a world that is constantly revealing itself to be far more intricately detailed and cleverly patterned than we’ve ever imagined, it helps to have writers like Krauss to guide us as we wrap our minds around far-reaching concepts, especially those as far-reaching as multiple dimensions and alternate levels of reality that we cannot yet prove…but are getting close to.