The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far is written with two purposes. First, Dr. Krauss has provided a powerful summary of modern physics from the perspective of the contemporary state of the science. This is an important point. Most histories of physics get bogged down by describing scientific breakthroughs from the vantage point of the discoverer and so the reader is often left without a grasp of how this fits into a contemporary understanding.
Largely, Dr. Krauss looks at the history of physics, beginning with Galileo and Newton, as the unification of disparate phenomenon by the understanding of symmetries both whole and broken. Dr. Krauss does an excellent job of explaining such abstract notions as gauge symmetry and super symmetry and how they're relevant to contemporary physics. Even more impressive, he accomplishes this without the use of equations, rendering the book accessible to a reader who is intelligent but an amateur in physics. In short, Dr. Krauss accomplishes for contemporary physics what Stephen Hawking accomplished for astrophysics in A Brief History of TIme. I hope that this part of the book is widely read.
I think Dr. Krauss is less successful in his second purpose. Beginning with Plato's allegory of the cave, Dr. Krauss makes the explicit claim that contemporary physicists are the descendants of the early Greek philosophers and provide a narrative of the history of humanity and the universe as a whole which is opposed, in kind, to traditional religion. Where religion relies on reasoned submission to an authority greater than oneself in faith, with the consequence that criticism of doctrine is a sin, science actually revels in falsification of old theories and replacement by new ones.
Certainly, Dr. Krauss is right in how physics should proceed. There should be no dogmas, no infallible authorities, no censorship of ideas. Promoting theories that have empirically testable results and so can be falsified is the correct model of inquiry for the sciences as Karl Popper taught some generations ago,
However, Dr. Krauss goes on to urge this method as not only an approach to physics but more as a philosophy, even a way of life. To constantly challenge old ideas, to not rely on the argument from authority, to believe only in the power of the human mind to create theories which result in increasingly better predictions of the world.
But has he justified that the method which applies to physics should apply to philosophy and religion? If immaterial entities exist, they are by their very nature not empirically verifiable. Should we a priori dismiss the possibility of immaterial entities because they don't accord with the correct approach used in physics? Maybe these questions are answered in Dr. Krauss's book but all I was able to find was the repeated instance that the narrative believed in by billions around the world is, in its very nature, wrong because it does not proceed accord to the methods of modern science. One may make such a point, of course, but it at least deserves a reasoned argument. This part, or rather theme woven throughout the book, I found to be less convincing. Mere assertion does not an argument make.
Krauss seems blind to the fact that traditional religious narratives help many to make sense of how they should live their lives. The Bible has a direct answer to how to deal with forgiveness. But how can I derive how I should act towards someone who has wronged me from Krauss's narrative? Until a scientific approach can offer a thorough worldview/ethic which is relevant to the day to day life of human beings many will continue to find their answers in authority based religion.
Even though I thought this theme needed more development, to write on such a difficult subject matter with such clarity and elegance makes this a must read. I hope this book goes on to the kind of success Hawking had with A Brief History of Time. Hopefully, it will awaken a new interest and respect for the onward progress of contemporary physics.
The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far: Why Are We Here?
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars | 1,377 ratings
Price: 6.99
Last update: 12-12-2024
About this item
From award-winning physicist, public intellectual, and the bestselling author of A Universe from Nothing Lawrence Krauss, comes “a masterful blend of history, modern physics, and cosmic perspective that empowers the reader to not only embrace our understanding of the universe, but also revel in what remains to be discovered” (Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Museum of Natural History).
In this grand poetic vision of the universe, Lawrence Krauss tells the dramatic story of the discovery of the hidden world that underlies reality - and our place within it.
Reality is not what you think or sense - it’s weird, wild, and counterintuitive, and its inner workings seem at least as implausible as the idea that something can come from nothing.
With his trademark wit and accessible style, Krauss leads us to realms so small that they are invisible to microscopes, to the birth and rebirth of light, and into the natural forces that govern our existence. His unique blend of rigorous research and engaging storytelling invites us into the lives and minds of remarkable scientists who have helped unravel the unexpected fabric of reality with reasoning rather than superstition and dogma, and to explain how everything we see - and can’t see - came about. A passionate advocate for reason, Krauss gives the rationale for the seemingly irrational - and the mysteries and apparent contradictions of quantum physics, and explores what that means for our lives here on Earth - and beyond.
At its core, The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far is about the best of what it means to be human - an epic history of our ultimately purposeless universe that addresses the question, “Why are we here?”
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Top reviews from the United States
Aran Joseph Canes5.0 out of 5 stars 21st Century Physics Has Found its Storyteller
Book Shark4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good but will Challenge Laypersons
The Greatest Story Ever Told – So Far: Why Are We Here? by Lawrence M. Krauss
“The Greatest Story Ever Told – So Far" tells the story of our hidden world. Award-winning theoretical physicist and iconic defender of reason, Lawrence M. Krauss takes the reader on a five hundred year journey of progressive scientific understanding of our reality. This interesting 337-page book includes twenty-three chapters broken out by the following three parts: 1. Genesis, 2. Exodus, and 3. Revelation.
Positives:
1. A well-written, well-researched book.
2. A fascinating topic in the masterful hands of Lawrence M. Krauss, revealing our hidden reality. “We cannot understand that hidden world with intuitions based solely on direct sensation.”
3. Makes use of a clever analogy between the once “greatest story ever told” the Bible, to what truly is the greatest story, the one told by science. The book is broken out into three parts: Genesis, Exodus, and Revelation. Each chapter begins with a chapter-appropriate Bible verse.
4. Good use of diagrams to complement the narrative.
5. Dr. Krauss may be a great scientist but he also has flair with words. “Surely that is the greatest contribution of science to civilization: to ensure that the greatest books are not those of the past, but of the future.”
6. So is there a plan or purpose to the world we find ourselves in? Find out.
7. The value of the scientific method. “Today, Plato’s vision of “pure thought” has been replaced by the scientific method, which, based on both reason and experiment, allows us to discover the underlying realities of the world.”
8. This is also a book of the greatest scientists that ever lived. “I don’t believe in hero worship, but if I did, Faraday would be up there with the best. Perhaps more than any other scientist of the nineteenth century, he is responsible for the technology that powers our current civilization.”
9. The contributions of Maxwell. “After Maxwell, electricity and magnetism were no longer viewed as separate forces of nature. They were different manifestations of one and the same force.”
10. The great Albert Einstein. “Thus, on the surface, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity appears to make physical reality subjective and observer dependent, but relativity is in this sense a misnomer. The Theory of Relativity is instead a theory of absolutes. Space and time measurements may be subjective, but “space-time” measurements are universal and absolute. The speed of light is universal and absolute.”
11. An interesting look at light. “In fact, light also behaves like both a particle and a wave, depending on the circumstances under which you choose to measure it.”
12. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle. “The Heisenberg uncertainty principle epitomizes in many ways the complete demise of our classical worldview of nature. Independent of any technology we might someday develop, nature puts an absolute limit on our ability to know, with any degree of certainty, both the momentum and position of any particle.”
13. An interesting look at quantum electrodynamics. “The theory in which these virtual particles are incorporated, along with the electromagnetic interactions of electrons and positrons, called quantum electrodynamics, is the best scientific theory we have so far. Predictions based on the theory have been compared with observations, and they agree to more than ten decimal places. In no other area of science can this level of accuracy be obtained in the comparison between observation and prediction, based on the direct applications of fundamental principles on the most basic scales we can describe.”
14. Provocative facts of science. “The entire stability of the nuclei that make up everything we see, including most of the atoms in our body, is an accidental consequence of the fact that the neutron and proton differ in mass by only 0.1 percent, so that a small shift in the mass of the former, when embedded in nuclei, means it can no longer decay into the latter.”
15. The basis of atomic physics. “In 1925, Wolfgang Pauli proposed the “exclusion principle,” which disclosed that two electrons could not occupy exactly the same quantum state at the same time and place, and which laid the basis of all of atomic physics.”
16. Particle physics. “Over the 1950s, Gell-Mann would produce many of the most important and lasting ideas in particle physics from that time. He was one of two physicists to propose that protons and neutrons were made of more fundamental particles, which he called quarks.”
17. Superconductors. “In other words, Anderson’s nonrelativistic argument in superconductors did carry over to relativistic quantum fields. The universe could behave like a superconductor after all.”
18. Throughout the book, Dr. Krauss namedrops Nobel Prize winners and their discoveries. “But a mere year later, in October 1979, Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg were awarded the Nobel Prize for their electroweak theory, now validated by experiment, that unified two of the four forces of nature based on a single fundamental symmetry, gauge invariance.”
19. The importance of gauge symmetry. “And at the heart of all of the forces governing the dynamical behavior of everything we can observe is a beautiful mathematical framework called gauge symmetry. All of the known forces, strong, weak, electromagnetic, and even gravity, possess this mathematical property, and for the three former examples, it is precisely this property that ensures that the theories make mathematical sense and that nasty quantum infinities disappear from all calculations of quantities that can be compared to experiment.”
20. Discusses key characteristics of the CERN machine.
21. The Standard Model discussed.
Negatives:
1. No formal notes or bibliography!
2. The layperson will have difficulty following this book. There is no kind way to put it, topics like particle physics even at its most basic are very hard to follow.
3. A step down from the masterpiece that was “A Universe From Nothing”.
In summary, this is a very good though more scientifically demanding book. Even at its most basic, the layperson will struggle to follow the scientific progression that Dr. Krauss lays out. Readers with science aptitude will obtain more enjoyment from reading this excellent book than your average person. It’s not the masterpiece that “A Universe From Nothing” was but it’s a solid sequel worth reading. I recommend it!
Further recommendations: “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence M. Krauss, “Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth” by Jim Baggott, “Spectrums” by David Blatner, “The Elegant Universe” and “Hidden Reality” by Brian Greene, “About Time” by Adam Frank, “Higgs Discovery” and “Warped Passages” by Lisa Randall, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, “The Quantum Universe” by Brian Cox, “The Blind Spot” by William Byers, and “The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning” by Victor Stenger.
“The Greatest Story Ever Told – So Far" tells the story of our hidden world. Award-winning theoretical physicist and iconic defender of reason, Lawrence M. Krauss takes the reader on a five hundred year journey of progressive scientific understanding of our reality. This interesting 337-page book includes twenty-three chapters broken out by the following three parts: 1. Genesis, 2. Exodus, and 3. Revelation.
Positives:
1. A well-written, well-researched book.
2. A fascinating topic in the masterful hands of Lawrence M. Krauss, revealing our hidden reality. “We cannot understand that hidden world with intuitions based solely on direct sensation.”
3. Makes use of a clever analogy between the once “greatest story ever told” the Bible, to what truly is the greatest story, the one told by science. The book is broken out into three parts: Genesis, Exodus, and Revelation. Each chapter begins with a chapter-appropriate Bible verse.
4. Good use of diagrams to complement the narrative.
5. Dr. Krauss may be a great scientist but he also has flair with words. “Surely that is the greatest contribution of science to civilization: to ensure that the greatest books are not those of the past, but of the future.”
6. So is there a plan or purpose to the world we find ourselves in? Find out.
7. The value of the scientific method. “Today, Plato’s vision of “pure thought” has been replaced by the scientific method, which, based on both reason and experiment, allows us to discover the underlying realities of the world.”
8. This is also a book of the greatest scientists that ever lived. “I don’t believe in hero worship, but if I did, Faraday would be up there with the best. Perhaps more than any other scientist of the nineteenth century, he is responsible for the technology that powers our current civilization.”
9. The contributions of Maxwell. “After Maxwell, electricity and magnetism were no longer viewed as separate forces of nature. They were different manifestations of one and the same force.”
10. The great Albert Einstein. “Thus, on the surface, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity appears to make physical reality subjective and observer dependent, but relativity is in this sense a misnomer. The Theory of Relativity is instead a theory of absolutes. Space and time measurements may be subjective, but “space-time” measurements are universal and absolute. The speed of light is universal and absolute.”
11. An interesting look at light. “In fact, light also behaves like both a particle and a wave, depending on the circumstances under which you choose to measure it.”
12. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle. “The Heisenberg uncertainty principle epitomizes in many ways the complete demise of our classical worldview of nature. Independent of any technology we might someday develop, nature puts an absolute limit on our ability to know, with any degree of certainty, both the momentum and position of any particle.”
13. An interesting look at quantum electrodynamics. “The theory in which these virtual particles are incorporated, along with the electromagnetic interactions of electrons and positrons, called quantum electrodynamics, is the best scientific theory we have so far. Predictions based on the theory have been compared with observations, and they agree to more than ten decimal places. In no other area of science can this level of accuracy be obtained in the comparison between observation and prediction, based on the direct applications of fundamental principles on the most basic scales we can describe.”
14. Provocative facts of science. “The entire stability of the nuclei that make up everything we see, including most of the atoms in our body, is an accidental consequence of the fact that the neutron and proton differ in mass by only 0.1 percent, so that a small shift in the mass of the former, when embedded in nuclei, means it can no longer decay into the latter.”
15. The basis of atomic physics. “In 1925, Wolfgang Pauli proposed the “exclusion principle,” which disclosed that two electrons could not occupy exactly the same quantum state at the same time and place, and which laid the basis of all of atomic physics.”
16. Particle physics. “Over the 1950s, Gell-Mann would produce many of the most important and lasting ideas in particle physics from that time. He was one of two physicists to propose that protons and neutrons were made of more fundamental particles, which he called quarks.”
17. Superconductors. “In other words, Anderson’s nonrelativistic argument in superconductors did carry over to relativistic quantum fields. The universe could behave like a superconductor after all.”
18. Throughout the book, Dr. Krauss namedrops Nobel Prize winners and their discoveries. “But a mere year later, in October 1979, Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg were awarded the Nobel Prize for their electroweak theory, now validated by experiment, that unified two of the four forces of nature based on a single fundamental symmetry, gauge invariance.”
19. The importance of gauge symmetry. “And at the heart of all of the forces governing the dynamical behavior of everything we can observe is a beautiful mathematical framework called gauge symmetry. All of the known forces, strong, weak, electromagnetic, and even gravity, possess this mathematical property, and for the three former examples, it is precisely this property that ensures that the theories make mathematical sense and that nasty quantum infinities disappear from all calculations of quantities that can be compared to experiment.”
20. Discusses key characteristics of the CERN machine.
21. The Standard Model discussed.
Negatives:
1. No formal notes or bibliography!
2. The layperson will have difficulty following this book. There is no kind way to put it, topics like particle physics even at its most basic are very hard to follow.
3. A step down from the masterpiece that was “A Universe From Nothing”.
In summary, this is a very good though more scientifically demanding book. Even at its most basic, the layperson will struggle to follow the scientific progression that Dr. Krauss lays out. Readers with science aptitude will obtain more enjoyment from reading this excellent book than your average person. It’s not the masterpiece that “A Universe From Nothing” was but it’s a solid sequel worth reading. I recommend it!
Further recommendations: “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence M. Krauss, “Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth” by Jim Baggott, “Spectrums” by David Blatner, “The Elegant Universe” and “Hidden Reality” by Brian Greene, “About Time” by Adam Frank, “Higgs Discovery” and “Warped Passages” by Lisa Randall, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, “The Quantum Universe” by Brian Cox, “The Blind Spot” by William Byers, and “The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning” by Victor Stenger.