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In this illuminating book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that fundamental physics -- the search for the laws of nature -- losing its way. Ambitious ideas about extra dimensions, exotic particles, multiple universes, and strings have captured the public’s imagination -- and the imagination of experts. But these ideas have not been tested experimentally, and some, like string theory, seem to offer no possibility of being tested. Yet these speculations dominate the field, attracting the best talent and much of the funding and creating a climate in which emerging physicists are often penalized for pursuing other avenues. As Smolin points out, the situation threatens to impede the very progress of science. With clarity, passion, and authority, Smolin offers an unblinking assessment of the troubles that face modern physics -- and an encouraging view of where the search for the next big idea may lead.

'Quantum mechanics is perhaps the most successful theory ever formulated. The only problem with it, argues Lee Smolin, is that it is wrong ... a fount of provocative ideas ... lucid, upbeat and, finally, optimistic' Graham Farmelo, Nature

Human beings, says Lee Smolin, author of The Trouble With Physics, have always had a problem with the boundary between reality and fantasy, confusing our representations of the world with the world itself. Nowhere

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We can think novel thoughts by which we can alter the future. Novelty must then be intrinsic to how we understand nature, if minds are to be natural. Therefore, to understand how a machine could have a mind, we must deepen our concept of nature. Эссе на 3 страницы опубликовано в сборнике
What to Think About Machines That Think, ed. J. Brockman Это ответ на вопрос The Edge 2015 года:
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MACHINES THAT THINK? (ЧТО ВЫ ДУМАЕТЕ О МАШИНАХ, КОТОРЫЕ ДУМАЮТ?)

Nothing seems more real than time passing. We experience life as a succession of moments. But just as some of us see God as eternal, so physicists understand the truths of mathematics and the laws of nature as constant, transcending time. These laws dictate how the future will evolve: there is no freedom, no uncertainty about the future at all.
Yet, argues Lee Smolin, this denial of time is holding back both physics, and our understanding of the universe. We need a major revolution in scientific thought: one that embraces the reality of time and places it at the centre of our thinking. Time, he concludes, is not an illusion: indeed, it is the best clue that we have to fundamental reality. Time Reborn explains how the true nature of time impacts on us, our world, and our universe.

The Trouble with Physics is a groundbreaking account of the state of modern physics: of how we got from Einstein and Relativity through quantum mechanics to the strange and bizarre predictions of string theory, full of unseen dimensions and multiple universes.
Lee Smolin not only provides a brilliant layman's overview of current research as we attempt to build a 'theory of everything', but also questions many of the assumptions that lie behind string theory. In doing so, he describes some of the daring, outlandish ideas that will propel research in years to come.