The public lecture by Roger Penrose I attended this summer in Ireland was also an informal launch of The Road to RealityUS launch is only in September 2005, according to Amazon., his latest publishing effort. In the intervening months, this book has acquired something of a reputation; not just for its ambition — the dust jacket bills it as “A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe” — but also for its optimism — the notion that, with some dedication, these ideas are accessible to a target readership of standard-issue analytical mindsThe book’s third footnote even explains what it means to say “x to the n^th power”..

The reviews agree that Penrose’s eight-year project is a magnum opus, but differ on its chances of success. Martin Gardner’s piece in the New Criterion lauds the result as “monumental,” in the same league as Feynman’s Lectures on Physics (now also in streaming video!), but then Gardner makes mathematical puzzles for a living. John Gribbin in The Independent thinks the effort is lost on us plebeians, though he says the book should be required reading for all research physicists, as it imparts Penrose’s considered views on what’s hot and what’s not in physics todayIt’s no coincidence that the lecture he gave in Dublin was titled Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in Modern Physical Theories; string theory being fashionable, quantum mechanics requiring a leap of faith, and inflationary models of the early universe being rather fantastical. There is streaming video of a longer version of his Dublin lecture, in three parts, on this page (which BTW is a trove of other great lectures).. Meanwhile, this MIT review and The Scotsman both note the book’s considerable girth, at 1100 pages, and Penrose’s refusal to excise equations from the book for the sake of higher sales — indeed, it makes Hawking’s A Short History of Time look like pulp fiction in comparison.

I soon bought the book, and have been on brief tentative forays into its innards. Two things stand out: First, Road spends a lot of time explicating the mathematics needed to understand the physics — over a third of the book is pure maths. Second, (unintentional alliteration alert) Penrose peppers his prose with problems, inviting interaction with the material. He even promises solutions, to be posted on the book’s website, though once there you find an apology for a delay in doing so.

Good expository writing is hard to do, but Penrose is among the best, so I intend now to embark on a thorough reading of his bookThere is some stunningly good expository writing in Prime Obsession (available in its entirety online), about the Riemann Hypothesis, which I read over the summer. It inspired me to try my hand at some mathematical writing too, in fact.. I’ll report back here with discussion, attempts at solutions for the easier problems, and online resources I might find as I work through its 34 chapters. I’ll try to go faster than one chapter a month, but I’m in no hurry. And if Penrose doesn’t begin putting up solutions soon, maybe I’ll start a wiki for it. If anyone wants to come along for the ride, the book is available at Hedengrens in Stockholm and at all respectable UK bookshops.