Is The Road to Reality by Penrose a Good Buy for a Beginner?

[iosman001]

Hello,

i live in the US and decided to get this book off of amazon i was wondering if anyone has read, or atleast skimmed (its pretty big) through it and would mind telling me if its a good buy(although if it isnt, its a little late now ).

also, I am pretty new to most of the theories. all of my knowledge has come from "A Brief History of Time", "The Elegant Universe", "The Universe in a Nutshell", and "Hyperspace". Do you think i could plow my way through this book or would it be way over my head?

thanks
alexsunny

 

[AndreasC]

Hmmm, I haven't read it but I have skimmed it. It's a tough book for a layman with little knowledge. It is much different from the other books you mentioned. What is the level of your math knowledge and familiarity? If you don't remember at least high school math it may be very rough. It has like, what, almost 400 pages of math? It is interesting math, not boring math, and it is approached on an intuitive level rather than getting deep into technicalities, but I would say you need some familiarity and facility with basic math to be able to get through all that stuff. I would say skim it and see for yourself. It's definitely not impossible or whatever but you'd have to set finishing the book as a target.

 

[Dragon27]

This book's been discussed here just recently
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/anyone-read-road-to-reality.1000552/

You could go ahead and read it, of course, but actually understanding it for a layman, who doesn't already have familiarity with mathematical content of this book, is pretty unrealistic in my opinion.

 

[Vanadium 50]

It's also not really a textbook.

 

[iosman001]

thanks my issue has been fixed.