Comments on: Review: The Road to Reality, by Roger Penrose http://www.sciscoop.com/2005-4-10-201121-794.html Scooping up science news and dropping it on your desk Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:14:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://www.sciscoop.com/2005-4-10-201121-794.html/comment-page-1#comment-4123 Anonymous Wed, 11 May 2005 19:34:47 +0000 http://localhost/~arielschwartz/wordpress/sciscoop/?p=932#comment-4123 The world of 3d graphics is full of them. They can represent rotations and orientations in a very efficient way that avoids many of the problems associated with Euler angles. The world of 3d graphics is full of them. They can represent rotations and orientations in a very efficient way that avoids many of the problems associated with Euler angles.

]]> By: sondheim http://www.sciscoop.com/2005-4-10-201121-794.html/comment-page-1#comment-3734 sondheim Tue, 03 May 2005 00:56:46 +0000 http://localhost/~arielschwartz/wordpress/sciscoop/?p=932#comment-3734 The Road to Reality fascinates me for a number of reasons. It doesn't hold back on the mathematics, and gives enough bibliographic materials (online and offline) for background information. It also has an odd development of opinion; string theory is presented, partly in relation to Penrose's critical technical analysis, but also in relation to its "hip" content, picked up by the media. This is where Penrose's discussion of fashion in physics is critical - a discussion that should be applied to any number of fields (philosophy or sociology for two examples - where are Sartre and Parsons now?). The reader observes the working physicist throughout these sections, ignoring the cant and carefully evaluating claims - not only of string theory, for example, but of dim > 4 theories in general. There's another important point, I think - too often "popular" accounts gloss over the mathematics. For me the result has always been distorted notions that all-too-quickly are related to Buddhism, holisms, etc. etc. Penrose gives the complexity, if not the details, of the mathematics at work. It's an extremely hard read, but I couldn't put the book down; for once I felt that I was actually learning something about the working of physics _qua_ physics... - Alan Sondheim, sondheim@panix.com The Road to Reality fascinates me for a number of reasons. It doesn’t hold back on the mathematics, and gives enough bibliographic materials (online and offline) for background information. It also has an odd development of opinion; string theory is presented, partly in relation to Penrose’s critical technical analysis, but also in relation to its “hip” content, picked up by the media. This is where Penrose’s discussion of fashion in physics is critical – a discussion that should be applied to any number of fields (philosophy or sociology for two examples – where are Sartre and Parsons now?). The reader observes the working physicist throughout these sections, ignoring the cant and carefully evaluating claims – not only of string theory, for example, but of dim > 4 theories in general.

There’s another important point, I think – too often “popular” accounts gloss over the mathematics. For me the result has always been distorted notions that all-too-quickly are related to Buddhism, holisms, etc. etc. Penrose gives the complexity, if not the details, of the mathematics at work. It’s an extremely hard read, but I couldn’t put the book down; for once I felt that I was actually learning something about the working of physics _qua_ physics…

- Alan Sondheim, sondheim@panix.com

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