Cover Image: Fear of a Black Universe

Fear of a Black Universe

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Member Reviews

An interesting book. A good read if you love physics and have a general interest in the subject. Thank you. 😊

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This book is a departure from the other books about physics I've read. In fact, that's the point. The author is challenging the physics community to think differently. He draws on his experiences as an outsider to show how conformity suppresses innovation. He argues that the the desire to fit in has led to too much focus on math and too little on ground-breaking ideas.

The actual physics in the book isn't easy for a layperson to understand by casual reading. But in a way, that's kind of the point. These ideas stretch current understanding. They show the opportunity for the field to grow. That seems to be the real purpose of the book. It's an interesting look at how far we've come and how far we still have to go.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

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Fear of a Black Universe is a fascinating read that asks the question: where does great physics come from? As a young graduate student, cosmologist Stephon Alexander had a life-changing lesson in the subject. When asked by the legendary theoretical physicist Christopher Isham why he had attended graduate school, Alexander answered: "To become a better physicist." He could hardly have anticipated Isham's response: "Then stop reading those physics books." Instead, Isham said, Alexander should start listening to his dreams. This is only the first of a great many surprising and even shocking lessons in Fear of a Black Universe. As Alexander explains, greatness in physics requires transgression, a willingness to reject conventional expectations. He shows why progress happens when some physicists come to think outside the mainstream and both the outsiders and insiders respond to the resulting tensions.

He also shows why, as in great jazz, great physics requires a willingness to make things up as one goes along and a willingness to rely on intuition when the path forward isn't clear. Unfortunately, most physicists are too afraid of being wrong -- and jeopardising their careers -- to embrace this sort of improvisation. Indeed, for a long time, Alexander was, too. Of course, Alexander doesn't mean that physics should be lawless. After all, even jazz musicians must respect the key and tempo of the music their fellow musicians are playing. But it does mean that not all the answers can be found, as Isham argued, as equations in a book. Drawing on Einstein's notion of principle theories -- ideas that constrain the shape that other theories take -- Alexander shows that from general relativity to quantum theory, three principles underlie everything we know about the Universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle and the principle of emergence.

Using these three principles as a guide, Alexander takes a stab at some of the greatest mysteries of the Universe, including what happened before the Big Bang; the quantum theory of gravity; the nature of dark energy and dark matter; and the quantum physics of consciousness. Along the way, he explains where our understanding of the universe and those principles don't jibe, as in the nature of the Big Bang, and asks what such discrepancies mean. He shows us what discoveries lie on the horizon, and crucially, calls on us not just to embrace improvisation and knowledge outside of physics but to diversify our scientific communities by reaching out to people of colour. As compelling as it is necessary, Fear of a Black Universe offers us remarkable insight into the art of physics and empowers us all to the topic using a mix of philosophy, history, physics, cosmology, biology and of course science, Alexander has produced an interesting, accessible and refreshingly original approach to the issues surrounding our vast universe. Highly recommended.

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I greatly enjoyed this book, but I wish I had more grey matter to fully comprehend what the author was saying. So let me be completely honest with you, this isn’t an easy astrophysics for dummies book. Compared to other layperson-friendly books on cosmology that I have read so far, this one goes much deeper into more complex theories, including superconductivity, string theory, emergence and supersymmetry. So as such this isn’t a very accessible read, but the author still did a marvellous job trying to explain everything in digestible chunks.

What I really loved about this book is the fact that it’s different: not only it’s more challenging to read, but it also offers the author’s perspective and experiences. While some may not want to read about racism in science or how thinking outside the box is discouraged, I personally found those parts of the book the most fascinating. My favourite chapter was this crazy theory about potential existence of alien supercomputers that run on dark energy. Sounds ridiculous, right? But in the end, if our current knowledge of physics can’t disprove this wild theory, then maybe we shouldn’t ridicule it at this point. I bet the reality is even much stranger than we can imagine.

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This book is almost a complete waste of time so you should skip reading it. The author is more interested in dreams, Zen theory, and racism than he is in physics. This is regrettable because when he writes about straight physics he is quite good. he has a gift for making complex ideas very clear. If his entire book was like his words in Chapters 2 & 3 my rating would have been much higher. This is very sad.

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Author delves into latest of our knowledge in physics. Book is beyond common famous physics books like the brief history of time. It describes latest in the field of physics especially on unification of gravity and quantam physics. Alongwith it writer describes biased environment in current scientific community. A very good book for science lovers. Written in a easy prose.

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This book is fascinating .
It deals with Einsteinian concepts -- so not a light read, but you will get a lot out of this. Second book by the author who is also a jazz pianist in addition to being a physicist.
For me, it is the second book in 2021 by a top-level Black physicist -- the first being A Quantum Life by Hakeem Oluseyi, which was a simple read, being a memoir. I am looking for a third book in the same realm -- hopefully by an African-American woman physicist to complete my trilogy for the year.

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