And the Beginning of Everything - the Meaning of Nothing

Amanda presents physics from an autobiographical point of view that is not only entertaining, but also explores the deep underbelly of physics from an often philosophical point of view. Only one equation (actually and identity) but very clear portraits of modern physics and physicists!

This was a surprisingly good read, and Gefter's explanations of difficult physics concepts were clear and easy to understand. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about particle physics and its relationship to reality.

The story can be summarized as follows: One night the author and her dad were having dinner and he asked a question that peeked author's interest in science. So she started reading about physics and cosmology and decided to pursue a career change as a science journalist/reporter. And then she went to lots of conferences and met famous physicists and asked a lot of questions, and she tells you what she learned. The end.

This is not really a memoir and, frankly, it is not particularly well written. It was picked up by a publisher and gets reviews from the media only because the author is a journalist and has connections in the publishing world. As a memoir, this is as close to a zero as you can get. Seriously. It is that bad.

Nevertheless, Tresspassing on Einstein's Lawn is not without value. As a science book, it provides an accurate presentation of modern physics and cosmological theory for those who cannot handle the mathematical modeling these fields demand of its scientists. Still, the content is weighty and requires intense concentration to absorb the presentations. But the author does a nice job of this.

Buy it and read it only if you are interested gaining a fundamental understanding of modern physics and cosmology. If you are looking for a memoir or an interesting story, don't waste your money.

The through-line driving this narrative is a daughter's attempt to win her father's approval.
With this thread functioning as a narrative hook, Amanda Gefter goes after an exploration of Particle Physics, the Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics -and what used to be called the Unified Field Theory. It's to her supreme credit that she makes this quest accessible to the layman (me) by imbuing her search with the drama of approaching eminent names in the field as an (alleged) reporter on the subject, though she has absolutely NO qualifications. She simply bulls her way through on sheer gall and initiative, and you're with her all the way...at least I was until the concepts -and the language- became a little too abstruse for me.
But even reading half this book will teach you some rudiments -and make you sound intelligent enough at the casual dinner party.

Amanda Gefter has taken on the formidable task of describing our knowledge of the physical world based on observations in physics, philosophy and cosmology. The author has a remarkable ability to render complex scientific concepts into common, understandable language. It helped me get up to date on developments in quantum theory and theoretical cosmology. But there are some problems.

The author’s rendition of notable personalities is interesting and informative, although she seems to display a bias toward people who were apparently nice to her. A more thoughtful presentation might have been more enjoyable.

I began reading the book with the misconception that it was about science, philosophy and related topics. I renormalized my bearings when I realized that the book is a memoir and not a science book. The author is describing her experiences with her father as she sets out on a career in journalism and the philosophy of science. Since she is portraying her own experiences, it’s appropriate that she do so in her own style. But the text is liberally sprinkled with gratuitous invective. In reading books about science, this is the first time I’ve encountered four-letter words embedded in the text, and I must admit it was a distraction. The younger reader contemplating a career in science should be aware that this style is a departure from the norm.

The reader should also acquaint herself with the subject matter before attempting this book, and I would recommend any of various books by Sean Carroll, and also a book entitled Nothingness by Henning Genz—of which an excellent translation from German by Karin Heusch is available. My advice is based on my feeling that these authors present science with due respect for what is well established and are careful to distinguish it from speculative, untested ideas. The book we’re reviewing here makes no such distinction, and may therefore be confusing to the uninitiated reader.

I have a quarrel with the author and perhaps the majority of cosmology theorists regarding the definition of “nothing.” The concept is centrally important in dealing with the so-called “big bang,” because we would like to assume that the event had no initiating cause; we cannot know the origin of existence without exploring the “cause”—a formidable and perhaps even an impossible task. I define nothing as that which does not exist. If it were to exist, it would be something and therefore not worthy of the name nothing. With this definition, one cannot form a picture of nothing; it cannot be described, it simply doesn’t exist. It is in this sense that philosophers from the beginning have claimed Ex Nihili Nihil Fit, nothing can be made from nothing. The author, and by her account many present-day cosmologists, think of nothing as an infinite space filled with homogeneous, unfathomable stuff. The contention is that this stuff did exist, and that the “big bang” had its genesis from within. But if it did exist it could not be nothing, and placing a label on it doesn’t make it such.

An example of where this thinking might lead can be seen in the sentence “A universe made of nothing, however, could potentially explain itself.” This is nonsense, gibberish. But if you postulate the existence of a nondescript substance, and call it nothing, then we can see how the logic is derived. I’m not concerned that this sort of thing is done in this book, since it is a memoir told by the author from her own perspective, and of course, she wants it to be interesting. The book suggests, however, that all of the main theoretical physicists working in cosmology also think this way, and that would give me cause for concern.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: This is a combination memoir, scientific road trip, and attempt to explain the philosophical and scientific significance of recent developments in cosmology and quantum mechanics. Amanda Gefter, a burgeoning science journalist, and to a lesser extent her father, a radiologist, want to know “What is the nature of reality?” They eventually distill this into a quest to know if any structure, object, or phenomenon is invariant and can exist in the absence of an observer. Easy peasy.

To find the answer the Gefters traipse all over the country, interviewing leading physicists (Leonard Susskind, David Gross, Joseph Polchinski), attending conferences (Princeton, Berkeley), poring over the writing of all the great luminaries (John Wheeler, Stephen Hawking), and trying to put it all together for the reader.

PROS: Ms. Gifter wants to know the philosophical ramifications implied by the discoveries and theories of modern science. She’s received some criticism on that point from the “shut up and calculate” crowd. She’s a thoughtful writer who’s done her homework. And at times the writing is clear, self-confident, and insightful.

Moreover, the serious material is interlaced with large dollops of humor and fun (“quantum rodents”). I count a science book a success if I learn one or two new things from it. And I learned more than that from TRESPASSING. (Who knew that size was not “invariant”?)

CONS:

1. Hard going at times. I write astronomy books for children and teens (THE MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE: SUPERNOVAE, DARK ENERGY, AND BLACK HOLES). At times Gefter’s language and concepts were almost impenetrable. Some examples: “And the similarity of gauge transformations to the differomorphisms of general relativity was no coincidence: gravity is a gauge force.” And “The holographic principle tells you that the properties of spacetime are encoded into which quantum operators commute with each other and how big the space of states is, the Hilbert space, the entropy.”

Authors like Paul Davies and Brian Greene (who also teach) know how to bring their readers along a step at a time and dole the insights out in more manageable chunks.

2. The memoir aspect isn’t convincing. Ms. Gefter has a brother who’s mentioned casually once or twice then completely disappears from the narrative. I forgot he even existed. Mom is presented as the comic relief, and even Dad is an adjunct to Amanda who makes the discoveries and drives the action.

3. I’m skeptical of Amanda’s premise: that what’s “real” is what’s “invariant.”

Does the speed of light really lack invariance? Her entire argument rests on the fact that it does. She says that the photon itself has no time dimension and that it’s “everywhere at once in a single instant.” But the rules for translating coordinates from one frame to another only work for frames moving at less than c with respect to each other. And, at c, space would contract to a point--not expand to infinity. Anyway, no device could ever measure such a thing because its mass would increase to infinity. Maybe a better way to say it is that a photon of light traveling through a vacuum is, in a sense, outside of both time and space.

Most actual physicists working in such esoteric areas as cosmology, quantum mechanics, or dissipative systems would be uncomfortable with this book, which not only dares to transform the most difficult mathematical formulations of reality into the conceptual terms of language in the attempt to explain them, but does so with panache, grace, and clarity. Amanda Gefter is as gifted a scientific writer – someone who translates mathematical physics used to configure reality and its sources into normal human speech – as I have ever read. Her "translations" and actual interviews with numbers of famous physicists taught me great deal how these brilliant minds work, and how they speculate – often firmly against the speculations of other such physicists. They have been led to the edge of reality through mathematical formulae and struggle with the words to explain it. Is it ultimately unimaginable tiny energy strings? Are we holographic projections from a 2D reality? Does the universe have a boundary? She makes the answers as clear as possible, it seems to me. But Gefter is much more than a mere interpreter here, for she has interwoven a memoir about the quest (first initiated by her father) to find ultimate reality, that single thing in the universe that is invariant (i.e., not relative or dependent on an observer). She and her father, no physics slouch himself, work as an intellectual team to investigate various theories and to attend some high-echelon conferences (sneaking into the first few) to meet various top-notch physicists. In her capacity as a science writer, Amanda gets to interview quite a number of them, striking up a helpful friendship with the universe-as-hologram physicist Leonard Susskind and even managing to communicate with Stephen Hawking. However, the initial inspiration for both her and her father comes from John Archibald Wheeler, whose most "eccentric" theories she finally does not embrace. Her writing is both informative and personal, always engaging, though some of the most complex theories seem unable to be made into common sense. It is a fun read in the human sense and often surprisingly funny.

I have only four stars because of two quibbles, which are, as it turns out, of universal importance. She seems to conclude that "nothing" (maybe "the nothing" might make more sense) is the only invariant, and that everything else is "observer dependent", as John Wheeler had insisted. In fact, the Wheeler paradox is that the observer must arise from the "H-Field" (the quantum flux of the Nothing) for the observed (matter & energy) to gain the spacetime qualities of existence, just as there must be something to observe for there to be an observer. Gefter, near the end, notes the interdependence: "Indeed, all observers are, from some other reference frame, the observed. Reality is radically observer-dependent" (p. 380). But for her the observer could be a non-conscious function of relativity or even a measuring device while for Wheeler the observer must ultimately be conscious (or "aware"). Gefter, who must be know of the ontological consciousness controversy, dismisses her hero's deepest intuition with a quick materialist slash: "Wheeler thinks consciousness could be the criterion for an observer, but that's obviously bullshit. I mean, consciousness is just a physical process in the brain. It's not magic" (p. 281). No, not magic, but it may in fact be perfectly natural and extend far beyond the limits of individual minds. As Max Velmans made clear in his 2009 book, Understanding Consciousness, no meaningful observations are possible without a conscious observer. Who built the measuring device? Who will interpret its meaning? Who will note the "collapse" of superposition into measurable particles? Only minds make meaning. By never really dealing with the nature of "the observer", something definitely feels left out.

The second disappointment is that in the chapter just before she and her father seem to conclude that only "nothing" is invariant, she makes the case that for light-in-itself – that is, from the perspective that light would have if it had a perspective – there is no light. Neither is there velocity, time, space nor boundaries of any sort. In other words, light-in-itself is invariant and sounds just like the H-Field nothing, but the nature of light is never mentioned again. How are light-in-itself and the H-Field nothing related?

Still, I highly recommend the book, both for the knowledge astutely imparted and for the sheer pleasure of Amanda Gefter's prose.

Amanda Gefter has presented most of modern quantum cosmology in a very down-to-earth and non-mathematical way that should be understandable by anyone with some prior knowledge of contemporary physics. If you are interested in the subject matter, she will most definitely keep you engaged from beginning to end of her "journey" through the subject. The first-person narrative writing style makes this one of the most "contemporary" of the contemporary science books for a non-scientific audience.
Gefter presents modern theories from a philosophical viewpoint called structural realism which focuses on the relations between objects rather than objects themselves. By doing this, the author can very convincingly make a case that the universe is made of nothing at all in the way of material objects and that nothing remains firm and invariant. As such, the philosophy comes very close to complete relativism as far as the physics goes. But there is only one flaw in the ointment which was fully addressed by the logician Gotlieb Frege over a century ago - even in a completely relativist universe we need the mathematics and logic to remain invariant in order to be able to discuss anything at all. And so, if one takes the position that everything, including human consciousness and awareness, is to be contained entirely within the universe with nothing whatsoever left outside, then you have to also accept that the necessarily invariant logical and mathematical tools that the conscious mind uses are also within that universe. And so, structural realism is essentially burdened with the same problem that Platonic realism faces, "Where does the mathematics and logic really come from and where is it located?". No matter whether your philosophy and epistemology is about mathematical objects or mathematical relations, both schools of realism seem to posit human consciousness as maintaining a continuous connection to a universe outside of the one that our physical bodies are located in. The shared metamathematics of the mind negates the relativism but also re-establishes the covariance and equivalence principles. Mathematics negates complete observer-dependency and returns science to a position of a "God's-eye", other-worldly, view of things..
All-in-all, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read that should keep almost anyone with any interest in the philosophy of modern physical and cosmological science intrigued throughout. In the end, you will be driven to the realization that the human mind is quite a fascinating "thing" (or perhaps I should say, "relational non-entity"?).

The book is marred significantly by the recurring use of crude language, more appropriate to a paperback detective novel than a serious scientific endeavor. Her sense of inquiry and analysis are keen, she just needs to give her writing a bit more dignity.

An interesting book and topic, done in a very unique way.

Ms. Gefter's book covers some pretty heady stuff: the creation of the universe, the nature of reality, and the joining of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. She tackles it in an interesting way, by mixing it with her autobiography and her personal exploration (or maybe I should say obsession) with this topic. Its an interesting approach. The science topics she covers are sort of mild-blowing, and honestly, not a topic I'm so fascinated by. But she tries to make it entertaining and compelling, and I did feel a need to finish the book, even if it made my head spin at time.. I also was amused by the self-referential nature at the end.

This is very much not a book for everyone. In fact, I suspect there is a pretty narrow audience. Hard core physicists and cosmologists will probably think it too elementary and chatty (though they might like the gossip). The casual, non-science reader will be overwhelmed. But the science-geek, particularly if you are interested in these topics, will probably enjoy it (and the gossip and name-dropping).

Amanda Gefter is a writer specializing in fundamental physics and cosmology, and is a consultant for New Scientist magazine. She has a Master's degree in the Philosophy and History of Science from the London School of Economics.

In Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything, Ms. Gefter has written a wise and witty narrative of the current state of theoretical physics and cosmology, the latter being "the branch of philosophy dealing the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and especially of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom; the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe."--Dictionary.com

The basic problem explored by Ms. Geftner's narrative is the conceptual gulf between Einstein's general theory of relativity (which he later regretted not calling his general theory of invariance) and quantum mechanics. The "holy grail" for physics would be finding a synthesis (reconciliation) of these two theories--a viable theory of quantum gravity. The thorny question is: Does ultimate reality demand invariance, that is, is the universe observer-independent? Does the universe exist prior to, and apart from, anyone observing it?

Here's where "weird" gets "weirder than weird." According to quantum mechanics, time, space, and, yes, even the universe itself is relative to the observer's perspective (point of view / frame of reference); in other words, ultimate reality is radically observer-dependent. Each person's universe is different from any and every other person's universe, an astonishing claim reminiscent of the position articulated by 18th-century Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, who asserted Esse est percipi ("To be is to be perceived")--a subjective idealism haunted by the specter of solipsism.

The heart and soul of this book are the interviews and correspondences conducted by Ms. Geftner with some of today's most brilliant theoretical physicists: Stephen Hawking, Joseph Wheeler, David Gross, Leondard Susskind, Raphael Bousso, James Ladyman, Joe Polchinski, Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Ed Witten, Tom Banks, Carlo Rovelli, Fotini Markopoulou, Wojciech Zurek, Kip Thorne, and Lee Smolin.

The author writes: "I was fifteen at the time, and my father had taken me out for dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant near our home in a small suburb just west of Philadelphia. . . . I was pushing a cashew around my plate with a chopstick when [my father] looked at me intently and asked, 'How would you define nothing?'" Years later, Ms. Gefter had a sudden urge to crash a physics conference, although her credentials for admittance to such a conference were highly dubious. An old saying has it, "Fake it 'til you make it!" And this is what she did.

"How would you define nothing?" Thus began the author's all-consuming hunt for ultimate reality. Along the way, she earns her credentials in spades, and became a gifted science writer who often explained the physicists' ideas better than they could. She peppers her memoir with salty expletives that may offend some readers, but which I found hilariously amusing. By all means, read this engaging, intelligent, and funny book, and learn about the weird, bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

More About the Author: Amanda Gefter previously served as Books & Arts editor of New Scientist magazine and founded CultureLab, New Scientist's books and arts blog. She is a 2012-13 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, Mercury, Forbes, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has spoken about science journalism at Harvard and MIT. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is her first book.

"Reality is radically observer-dependent" - indeed this book is entangled with its key finding. Concurring with most reviews, I consider it to be a fabulous, explorative, stream of consciousness narrative but, and this is probably a good "but", it is heavy going in places. And it is a BIG book. Sure, it contains around 400 pages which is not enormous, it has medium size print and the language is not difficult. It is very well written. The reason it is BIG is because the topics covered address the very meaning of reality and Gefter explains her thoughts, and those of others, with wonderful clarity. You stop and reread something, for example about invariant and observer independent reality, or about event horizons or light cones, because Gefter offers one of the most fresh and incisive descriptions you will hear. Inevitably there will be topics that are covered superficially in order to get to another issue. In a book that introduces so much about modern physics and cosmology in a way that the reader gets a comfortable feel for it, flitting over a few bits is fine.

Gefter's journey through the big questions of physics and cosmology can be summed up by her quest to understand the words of her central character, physicist John Archibald Wheeler, in describing the universe as a "self excited loop" and his obsession that "the boundary of a boundary is zero". After Wheeler died, Gefter and her father read Wheeler's vast collection of journals seeking answers. In many ways, Gefter's book is like the Wheeler journals, it is an enquiring narrative of her journey to gain an inkling of the basis of reality.

`Trespassing ...' is embellished with a very helpful glossary, Notes and a well considered `Suggestions for further reading'. However, the warm and entertaining narrative is the strength of Gefter's book. Her journey, accompanied often by her father, to understand reality through discussions with the great thinkers in modern physics is enlightening. Many of the players, for example John Wheeler and Leonard Susskind, emerge pretty much as you would expect them - amazing thinkers - but many others are surprisingly different and are characterised wittily by Gefter. Her allegorical journeys through rat-holes in London and nerdy colloquia reinforce her story of the quest for the `ultimate reality' (this being the title of the first conference she conned her way into, although "ultimate" would be a term the reader will discover to be very relative).

A fascinating, surprisingly gripping read! I say surprisingly because I wouldn’t generally expect quantum mechanics, quarks, boson particles, string theory and the like to hold me hostage for an entire weekend of reading but I couldn’t put this book down! I’m no physicist (not even remotely) but I found the book to be accessible and clear. I have always been interested in the topic but I had never found a text that I could understand, relate to and enjoy, like this one. The memoir format worked well to create a personalized structure within which the (potentially) dry facts could be housed. The main character’s relationship with her parents, and her father in particular, was very heart-warming. I learned a lot from this book and it was refreshing to engage with a text that sparked my brain cells into some real thinking!

As a non physicist, I often didn't understand what she was writing, but I liked the format and appreciated the father/daughter collaberation. I've read a lot of physics books, but still didn'tunderstand what she was saying.

One of the finest, most engaging, and deeply educational books I have ever read. Not only does Amanda Gefter lay out cutting-edge issues in cosmology and quantum theory in a way that makes them (sometimes nearly almost) comprehensible, but she also tell a story that is engaging and heartfelt. The personal glimpses of physics luminaries and the the candid photographs included throughout the book are frosting on the delicious cake. This is simply a wonderful, rewarding book that I plan to purchase (the copy I just read was from the library) and read again.

The best books change your life, leave you a different person after you set them down. The result that I see in the mirror today is a composite of the great books I've incorporated. Amanda has done something with this book I've never felt before: the first chapter had me spinning. I set it down for a few days and gathered myself, got ready for it.

You don't need math for this book, but flexibility is required--and thirst. Amanda will give you a drenching. Is this really the truth? Of course not. She's tidied the truth and saved us some drudgery, spared our brains for the good stuff. But still time has fundamentally shifted. There was BG and now AG. Thank you Gefter.

There are a lot of books about modern physics and cosmology out there, but this one is different: Amanda Gefter, a talented science journalist, doesn't lecture to us; instead, she allows us to follow along as she undertakes her own remarkable journey, meeting with today's leading physicists and struggling to make sense of the most difficult concepts in all of science. Along the way, we're introduced to some some very deep thinkers, both living and dead -- John Wheeler, who coined the phrase "black hole" and who passed away a few years ago, is a central character; Gefter digs into the archives containing his unpublished notes and letters. An even more important presence is Warren, the author's father; it was over a dinner in a favourite Chinese restaurant that he first asks her, "How would you define 'nothing'?" That was the beginning of this poignant father-and-daughter quest, and this book is the end result. Read it for the cutting-edge science; and read it for the humor, which shines on nearly every page. But do read it: Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn will leave you re-thinking everything you thought you knew about the universe and our place within it.

I really enjoyed the memoir style of this fascinating book. It helped me to understand a little about the quantum and relativity. I recommend it for anyone interested in the latest ideas about what our universe might really be like.

It was an immense pleasure for me reading this book and finishing it in a breeze. I sincerely wanted to congratulate the author for the entire effort and sharing her journey with the readers of the book. I was always intrigued myself by John Wheeler but even more with the concept of reality. This book definitely carves out new potential horizons for physicists. I myself have recently authored a book discussing innovation from a broader perspective by amalgamating Big Bang, Life Bang and Technology Bang called 'Universal Innovation'. This book inevitably raises the reality of even the very concept of innovation. My sincere kudos to the author.

This book deserves five stars because Gefter is so gifted at making what can often be arcane physics terminology into 'aha' moments of revelations. Add in the incredible father/daughter love and partnership that inspired this book from start to finish and you've got a real grand slam.

FROM THE OTHER REVIEWS THERE APPEARS TO BE AT LEAST A MINIMAL AUDIENCE FOR THIS BOOK. THE TITLE IS MISLEADING; THE ADVENTURE PROMISED COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH BETTER CONVEYED IN A BOOK HALF THE SIZE. MUCH OF THE PHYSICS IS "EXPLAINED" IN A CURSORY AND USELESS MANNER. THERE ARE A LOT OF QUOTES WHOSE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE ARE UNEXPLAINED AND OBSCURE. FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, THE AUTHOR REVERTS TO USING THE F-WORD.

Wasted my time!! It has been scientifically demonstrated innumerable times that the spooky observer effect is not just for a human observer but for whatever MACHINE this interaction occurs with with when observing a quantum system. I'm sorry, but all of these observer-mind spooky proposals like the over rated kinds I have seen in hundreds of books. (Like the crazy books that say that we're linked to a god-observer, or we're linked to the mind of a supreme alien intelligence books.) All of this religious blathering and all of their non provable wild claims and the endless marketing of these insanely wild claims makes me ill 24/7. All of these wild unprovable claims are all joyfully packaged and sold by spooky sci-fi or theistic peddlers, who sell it and promote it to millions as hard-pop-science, when in reality, no hard evidence supports it. They either imply that humans being are creations that are locked up in a computer virtual reality simulation of some kind, or a non definable matrix, or a supreme demons mind control orgastic playground of evil intentions and injustices. None, of which are based on the slightest bit of HARD evidence!! I mean, I could just as well claim that I'm in a computer program and when I die, I will go to this computer programs heaven. Get it? See where all of this defecation leads to, and notice how much money this non verifiable speculative defecation makes the people and the publishers with no evidence required as hard science. I might as well write a star trek episode and claim that this is reality to. (By the way, this has been done, or will be done after someone reads this.)

A fascinating, surprisingly gripping read! I say surprisingly because I wouldn’t generally expect quantum mechanics, quarks, boson particles, string theory and the like to hold me hostage for an entire weekend of reading but I couldn’t put this book down! I’m no physicist (not even remotely) but I found the book to be accessible and clear. I have always been interested in the topic but I had never found a text that I could understand, relate to and enjoy, like this one. The memoir format worked well to create a personalized structure within which the (potentially) dry facts could be housed. The main character’s relationship with her parents, and her father in particular, was very heart-warming. I learned a lot from this book and it was refreshing to engage with a text that sparked my brain cells into some real thinking!