书名：The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality宇宙的结构：空间、时间以及真实性的意义

作者：Brian Greene
出版社名称：Penguin
出版时间：2005
语种：英文
ISBN：9780141011110
商品尺寸：12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：592 （以实物为准）

作者为世界知名学者，布赖恩·格林的著作《宇宙的琴弦》在全世界引起巨大的反响。本书The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality《宇宙的结构：空间、时间以及真实性的意义》是作者第二本关于宇宙的普及读物，可以作为《宇宙的琴弦》的续篇。

如果说《宇宙的琴弦》是在相对论和量子论的框架下具体地介绍弦理论及其物理学结果，那么本书则是从更高的角度来讨论时空和宇宙的物理学。

媒体评论：
“将读者的想象力送上了一次奇妙的穿越宇宙之旅，富于技巧却又耐心阐释……他那对于科学处在重大突破门前的兴奋之情令每个人感同身受。”——《纽约时报》

“一次纯粹的智力探险，本书可算是尽善尽美，甚至可与霍金的《时间简史》相媲美，格林的书展示了其勃勃雄心……剥去复杂概念的神秘外衣，却又保留了科学的原汁原味。”——《今日新闻》

“内容丰厚，却又明晰诙谐……在介绍广义相对论及量子力学——真正理解空间和时间的知识领域——的奇思妙想方面没有能出其右者。”——《探索》

“或许是当今世界深奥科学很好的解读者……在寻找正确的妙比方面，格林独具天赋。”——《华盛顿邮报》    

From the bestselling author of The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos takes us on an irresistible and revelatory journey through the biggest of the big questions.
What is reality? Could we exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? What are the limits of the universe?
Brian Greene has made the mysteries of space and time accessible to millions with his acclaimed writings and award-winning TV series. Now he reveals a world more beautiful and bizarre than we could have imagined, where 'dark matter' reigns, space warps and wiggles through eleven dimensions, minute particles dance, fizz and teleport across vast distances, everything is made of vibrating strings and, like an ant on a lily-pad, we may be floating on a sliver of spacetime.
Revealing new layers of reality that lie just beneath the surface of our everyday lives, this grand tour of the universe will make you look at the world in a completely new way.

Review
'A must-read' --Sunday Times

'Greene takes us to the limits of space and time' --Guardian

'Sends the reader's imagination hurtling through the universe on an astonishing ride' --The New York Times

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality《宇宙的结构：空间、时间以及真实性的意义》的主要内容可分为以下五个部分：

第1部分：从“实在性”讨论时空，特别是量子时空；
第二部分：讲时间的方向性，从经典与量子的角度讨论时间箭头；
第三部分：讲时空和宇宙学，涉及了一些新内容，比如暴胀宇宙和相关的宇宙学问题；
第四部分：讲大统一的起源，即从弦和膜的观来讨论宇宙学问题；
第五部分：讲实在与幻想，谈一些新实验（比如引力波和基本粒子的新实验），也谈时空旅行和时间机器，还展望了弦理论的未来。

布赖恩·格林（Brain Greene），毕业于哈佛大学，在牛津大学获博士学位。1990年，他来到康奈尔大学物理系，1995年被聘为教授，1996年到哥伦比亚大学任物理学和数学教授。他曾在20多个国家和地区开过普及讲座和专业讲座，被公认在超弦理论中有过许多开拓性的发现。他现住在纽约绮色佳。

Brian Greene,author of the bestselling book about string theory, The Elegant Universe, was educated at Harvard and Oxford, graduating in 1987. After spending time at Harvard and Cornell, he is currently a Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia. Greene was presenter of the Channel Four series The Theory of Everything, screened in November 2003.

Part I Reality’s Arena

Part II Time And Experience
Part III Spacetime And Cosmology
Part IV Origins And Unification
Part V Reality And Imagination

Historiansdiffer on exactly when themodern scientific age began, but certainlyby the time Galileo Galilei, RenéDescartes, and Isaac Newton had bad their say, it was briskly under way. In those days, the new scientific mind-set was being steadily forged, as patterns found in terrestrial and astronomical data nude it increasingly dear that there is an order to all the comings and goings of the cosmos, an order accessible to careful reasoning andmathematical analysis.These early pioneers of modern scientific thought argued that, when looked at the right way, the happenings in the universe not only arc explicablebut predictablethe power of science to foretell aspects of the future — consistently and quantitatively — hadbeen revealed.

Early scientific study focused on the kinds of things one might see or experience in everyday life. Galileo dropped weights from a leaning tower (or so legend has it) and watchedballs rolling down inclined surfaces: Newton studied falling apples (or so legend has it) and tile orbit of themoon.The goal of these investigations was to attune the nascent scientific ear to nature’s harmonies.To be sure,physical reality was thestuff of experience, but the challenge was to hear the rhyme and reason behind the rhythm and regularity.Many sung amid unsung heroes contributed to the rapid andimpressive progress that was made, but Newton stole the show.With a handful ofmathematical equations, he synthesized everything known about motion Oil earth and iii tile heavens, and in so doing, composed tile score for hat hascome to be known as classical physics.
In the decades followingNewton’s work, his equations were developed into an elaboratemathematical structure that significantly extended both their reach and their practical utility. Classical physics gradually became a sophisticated and mature scientific discipline. But shining clearly through all these advances was the beacon of Newton’s original insights.Even today, more than threehundred cars later, you can see Newton’s equations scrawled on introductory-physics chalkboards worldwide, printed on NASA flight plans computing spacecraft trajectories, and embedded within tile complex calculations of forefront research. Newtonbrought a wealth of physical phenomena within a single theoretical framework.
But while formulating his laws of motion, Newton encountered a critical stumbling block, one that is of particular importance to our story (Chapter 2). Everyone knew that things could move, hut what about the arena within which the motion took place?Well, that’s space, we’d all answer. But, Newton would reply, what is space? Is space a real physical entity or is it an abstract idea born of the human struggle to comprehend the cosmos? Newton realized that this key question had to be answered, because without taking a stand on the meaning of space and time, his equations describing motion would prove meaningless. Understanding requires context; insight mustbe anchored.