I have mixed feelings about this one!

It's an exploration of the history and development of scientific theories regarding multiverses and parallel dimensions. I was very excited to get into that! There were some very fascinating sections, such as Nietzsche's eternal return theory and how scientists and philosophers of different eras went back and forth on how 'out there' MWT needed to be to actually take every variable into account. The writing style was quite conversational at times, which was both enjoyable and a great aid in making complex theories easier to grasp.

However I would caution that you'll need at least passing familiarity with/understanding of some foundational physics concepts to really grasp the theories discussed here. Physics has always been the science I struggled with the most, and that was definitely to my detriment when the book got into quantum theories and particle physics. It's a fascinating discussion, but there were definitely sections that just went over my head completely! I feel like if the writing style was more uniformly conversational, instead of dipping between that and strictly academic paragraphs, it might aid in facilitating understanding for readers who are less familiar with physics concepts.

The Allure of the Multiverse by Paul Halpern delves into the scientific history of the theory that seems to have taken over pop culture. Admittedly difficult at time thanks to the relatively esoteric nature of some of the theories such as string theory or M-brane theory, and also perhaps a bit mistitled, it remains a mostly clear exploration of 20th and 21st century physics.

The book opens with what might come as a surprise to some readers who have steeped in the multiverse concept via film, TV, and books for some time now: the theory is far from universally accepted by scientists thanks to “the stark disadvantage of a lack of direct detectability.” Scientists prefer theories that can be tested, and so, as Halpern puts it, while “many theorists are willing to accept unobservable components … if it supports a promising way of explaining the basic facts of the reality we experience … there is a wide range of opinions and tastes about how seriously to take multiverse schemes.” Halpern’s own stance is to “remain cautiously open-minded about various multiverse schemes — rather than dismissing them outright,” pointing out how “what is fringe sometimes slips into vogue”, such as the concept of the fourth dimension which was once considered mystical nonsense and now is “standardly applied” in space-time calculations.

From there it’s a relatively deep dive into classical physics, particle physics and the weird world of quantum physics, with all the usual stop-offs at Newton, Einstein, Schrödinger’s Cat, the Standard Model, Bohr, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the Big Bang, Hawking, String theory, black holes, the Higgs boson, and more. Halpern methodically lays out the questions all these are supposed to answer, then more importantly for the book’s subject, all the questions they don’t answer, which leads to the origination of Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation, one of several multiverse theories.

One of the better elements of the book is in fact how Halpern makes clear there is more than one way to skin Schrödinger’s Cat and get to the multiverse: there’s Everett’s theory, the argument that in an infinite universe filled with finite material it’s inevitable to have multiple Earths, the theory of eternal inflation (meant to explain things like the uniformity of the observable universe), and even Nietzsche’s concept of a never-ending cycle of repeating lives and events. Another point I appreciated was how he made clear that the pop culture view of Everett’s theory doesn’t actually align with the actuality of the theory, which is far more prosaic than the idea that every decision creates another “you” out there somewhere. As Halpern notes, “the MWI would not produce dueling Kirks, bearded versus clean-shaven Spocks … battling Lokis … Rather it might distinguish between near-identical versions of a scientist witnessing one type of blip versus another type of blip.” Hardly “Avengers Assemble!”

For the most part Halpern does a good job of making this all understandable, employing the usual tools of popular science: analogy, metaphor, and of course clear, easy-to-follow language and syntax. That said, it does at times get a little hard to follow, as with this passage:

The Randall-Sundrum model attempts to resolve the cosmological constant problem by adding a large positive value to a slightly smaller negative value to produce a tiny positive value for the overall cosmological constant. The large positive value is the vacuum energy of our brane due to the baseline of quantum interactions in the Standard Model. The slightly smaller negative value is the negative cosmological constant of the higher dimensional anti-de Sitter space in which our brane resides.

The reality of course is these are abstruse concepts and lots of times writers will go too far in oversimplifying them. So this is less a criticism than simply an observation that readers may face some difficulties. That said, passages like this one are rare; for the most part the book simply requires some readerly attention.

A bit more of a criticism is the titling, which I’d say implies a more far-ranging, in-depth exploration of the multiverse in pop culture than what we get, which is mostly limited to a single chapter. So those coming for that book may be a bit disappointed. But as an exploration of modern-day physics, Halpern more than satisfies.

There are certain aspects of the book I really liked. The best part of the book was the discussion of falsifiability and what constitutes science. Halpern uses some great analogies to get his points across and he couples this with a conversational tone and some humour. There is also a lot of history of science and some pop culture references. Despite the strengths in the writing, there were some areas that were over my head but I am not sure that better explanations are possible without pages and pages of equations - happily this book had none. Overall, this was a worthwhile read. Thank you to Netgalley and Basic Books for the advance reader copy.

People are inexorably fascinated by the concepts of parallel universes and wormholes and other such astrological, space-time anomalies. The draw of these fantastical wonders is the topic of this book, in which Halpern tries to get to grips with the allure of these mythical sites of potential.

Multiverse makes me think about Pratchett but there's more to this world than that.
It's an informative and well researched book, not always easy to follow but fascinating and intriguing.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The arc for this book came out right after I finished reading Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter so I was pretty excited to dive into it. I’m a fiction writer, but I can’t write sci-fi to save my life. The research behind sci-fi novels, though, is so fascinating to me. Shows like Sliders and Stargate SG-1, while entertaining and dramatic, have made millions of people wonder, “Is it possible?” While I don’t have the answer to that, I know that all of our science-based knowledge that we think of as law was at one time considered theoretical. The fact that earth is spherical and not flat was once considered fringe science. So who is to say that multiverses aren’t possible? I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting to see the part that the history of physics played in the field, from confirmed physics to theoretical physics, and the future of theoretical physics. And for someone who has taken a couple of physics classes (mostly forensic science, chemistry, and biology), this book was extremely easy to read.

Huge thanks to Basic Books and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

This excellent book assumes some basic knowledge of physics, so might not be suitable for every casual reader. But it provides a thorough — and clear — explanation of how the idea of a multiverse has been proposed through history, and has been adopted by some modern physicists to explain, for instance, quantum reality. Other physicists reject the proposal as “not science” because they view it as inherently untestable (echoing Karl Popper's definition that a scientific hypothesis must be subject to testing and thus disproof).

Meanwhile, the notion of multiple universes has been seized upon by film-makers, novelists and other aspects of popular culture. After all, it seems to allow anything in your imagination to be possible, even travel between such universes. This is simply entertainment. But who knows, maybe science will one day find an all-encompassing theory of reality that must include a multiverse, although we would never directly observe it!

“The Allure of the Multiverse” refers to some of the emotional attachment we might have to the idea, but the author Paul Halpern concludes with a neutral position on the question. What do you think…?

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Basic Books for an advanced copy of this look at the history of one of the most intriguing, controversial, and through media most popular and yet misunderstood ideas in physics, parellel worlds.

All of my science learning and knowledge has probably come from reading books and ingesting science fiction in all shapes and forms. My school was not big on the idea of science, in fact education seemed to get in the way of pep rallies, and all sorts of other noneducational times at school. College I might have taken some classes, but I was going to change the world of literature so Id didn't take science classes out of what I needed. As I have become older I have read a lot more and enjoy many of the books I have come across. However it is probably science fiction writers that have been been teachers. And that is both good and bad. My first experience with the idea of parallel worlds was either the Mirror Universe in Star Trek, or the stories of Earth 1 and Earth 2 in DC comics. My understanding is from a story I read years ago by the great writer Larry Niven. All the Myriad Ways was a story about people realizing there were worlds were they might or might not exist, alone, happy, sad, the same of different. And what happens after. Read the story, it's quite good, and will stay with you. For a better understanding of the idea of multiple universes I highly recommend this book,The Allure of the Multiverse Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes by writer and physicist Dr. Paul Halpern. Dr. Halpern looks at the history of this controversial idea, the many arguments for against, and how media has used it for story telling purpose, while still leaving people in the dark about what it truly means.

The book begins with a look at the worlds around us and the skies above. While we are still learning so much about what is out there, we are in a way limited in how we can find out. Our rockets are still slow, technology can only go so far, and while we keep discovering strange new worlds, most of them will remain as images. Halpern looks at the idea of wormholes, also made popular in movies, and the importance of mathematics has in these grand new ideas. Halpern discusses the idea of the Many Worlds Interpretation which is basically there are many worlds which exist in parallel to us at the same time and place. Many of the names will be known, arguments for and against are presented and shown. In addition the influence of these ideas on popular media, especially in books and movies is examined.

I was a little vague in my summation as there is a lot going on in this book, and being a layperson I am afraid of presenting wrong information. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Some sections might have made me read something a few times, but all in all this is a very well written history of a very large idea in physics. Some of this might not be new to veteran science readers, but much was new to me, and explained in such a way that I was able to understand what was presented. Halpern has a nice style, one can tell Halpern is familiar with the subject, and he presents everything in a way that makes sense. The controversies were kind of amusing, as I am sure only a few people even understood the ideas behind it at the time. Though one can see why there could be a problem, with such a radically strange idea.

A very well written history about science and physics that will be of interest to many people. One I think is well-written and well-presented. A book to keep the brain thinking while the snow is falling. And makes one wonder what the you on a parallel world might be reading.

I have mixed feelings about this. What I understood I enjoyed. But there was so much above my head. Also, too much of the book focused on the history of the science involved, which I feel has been more than adequately covered in other books