Volume 40, Number 17 · October 21, 1993
Nature's Biggest Secret
By Roger Penrose
Dreams of a Final Theory
by Steven Weinberg
Pantheon, 334 pp., $25.00.
Is there an ultimate theory of nature—a 'Final Theory'—from whose principles all laws that govern the workings of the physical universe may be deduced? Such a theory would provide the complete underlying rules that control, in finest detail, every action of inanimate or animate matter—including all the (non-random) activities of our very selves. Might such a theory even be within the actual grasp of today's physicists? Steven Weinberg, in his new book, Dreams of a Final Theory, provides an unqualified 'yes' in answer to the first of these questions, and he also gives expression to a belief in the genuine plausibility of the suggestion put forward in the second. Should we be persuaded by these striking claims? Wherever our sympathies initially lie, we must, indeed, pay close attention to what Weinberg says; for, probably among all of today's theoretical scientists, he most authoritatively represents the viewpoint of established fundamental physics.
Review, 5661 words
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