I've been drooling over it in the bookshop this last couple of weeks, and finally yesterday I bought it. amazon link A monumental book, over 1000 pages, subtitled: "A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" haha It has a lot of very heavy math in it. But he writes so well about it; I think it's much better than the "sweep under the carpet" trick that the usual pop-sci theory of the universe books use. And there are plenty of good diagrams to back up the concepts. He even uses very interesting looking hieroglyphics for some of the tensor equations (I've never seen these in the text books!) I love reading physics from someone who expects "further changes of direction [in physics] greater even than those of the last century." Wow. Simon.
Sounds cool, but I do the happy dance when I can figure out my gas mileage. I wouldn't know a tensor equation if it was in a lineup of werewolves.
@ mathgenius: you may find interesting Baez site: Open questions in physics : http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/open_questions.html No math involved. But if you want some math check "fun staff" and "quantum gravity seminar" (no more then linear alebra requied) om his site. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/FUN.html Pity that quantum gravity theory which he research seems in trouble now though not completly dead...(but it fun - length and volume have only discret values on plank scale !)
Lots of dancing in this book for you then . Unless you are a math/physics professor you will have difficulty comprehending this book. Probably even then it's not bedtime reading . Yeah, Baez doesn't really dig into the math tho'. He's more of a sports commentator about it. But I have read some of his views of higher dimensional category theory (aka the arrow theory that my site is named after). So much of mathematics is written in an exclusionary way, obfuscated so that only a select few may join the club of understanding. It's nice that someone has taken the time out to communicate to the rest of us. The only other author I have read who parallels this level of clarity (and sheer joy) is John Conway, eg. his book "On Numbers and Games" is the alice in wonderland of mathematics. Simon.
Amazon UK has 40% off the road to reality at the moment -- not sure if you can order such a heavy book from across the pond though. But it's certainly worth a try! If you like maths and physics and think you could be the Einstein of the 21st century (or even want to know what he might be reading) this is the book. Best buying point: it's a great wormwhole into the universe of archivx papers. Check out reviews, interviews, etc from this dedicated portal: http://www.321books.co.uk/reviews/the-road-to-reality-by-roger-penrose.htm
Aw man... I just spent about an hour reading this link, and then the one about superconductors linked off of that page. Damn!