I love Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn by Amanda Gefter more than I've loved any book in a long time.

I first became fascinated by cosmology in third grade (no kidding, in third grade I wrote an essay for school titled, "When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Cosmologist." You can ask my mom—she still has it.) While I didn't dedicate my life to pursuing the subject the way that Ms. Gefter has, her delight and fascination with the theories of cosmology perfectly captures my own. I know the thrill of them the same way she does.

More than any other, this book reminds me why I love this field of study.

Most readers expect popular science books about cosmology to be written as fairly straight-forward informational texts. Ms. Gefter takes a very different approach here—she wrote this book as a personal memoir, the story of her path of discovery. It's a deft strategy which grants a deeply personal resonance to a subject that defines "esoteric".

Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn is probably the best all-in-one summary of the cutting-edge ideas that have formed cosmology to date. Ms. Gefter explains each theory in layman's terms about as well as possible—an impressive feat, given that some of these theories can't really be stated in layman's terms at all. She draws lines of connection between these various ideas to show how they all relate to each other.

It's impossible to explore any aspect of cosmology in depth without using the abstruse language of the subject to some degree. Given that I've been an avid amateur cosmological enthusiast since I was a boy, I'm already quite familiar with this specialized vocabulary. Therefore, I can't properly gauge how well readers new to the topic will be able to follow along. I feel that Ms. Gefter defines these specialist terms quite well, but it may be that this book isn't as layman-friendly as I think it is.

It took me longer to read Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn than I anticipated, given my love for the subject matter and my previous familiarity with it. The reason it took me so long to get through it is because I had to stop every couple of pages to write things down—reactions, questions, disagreements, newly inspired thoughts. This book is dense with ideas, there's so much on every page to mull over and evaluate. I haven't had this many fresh thoughts about cosmology galloping around my head in a long time. I was compelled to take regular breaks to let my brain settle down and catch up.

This book inspired me.

If the book opens itself to criticism, it's because Ms. Gefter offers her own rather extreme interpretation of where the current cutting-edge of cosmology is taking us. It's worth noting that some of the best cosmologists in the field don't agree with her. It's also true that Ms. Gefter clearly prefers the ideas of some cosmologists over others (a statement which describes every professional cosmologist, as well, so she's in good company). But even if you don't agree with her conclusions, and even if she does display a degree of personal bias, her explanations of cosmology overall are very well done.

You don't have to agree with any of the theories laid out in these pages to find joy in exploring them. There's tremendous delight in trying to wrap your mind around such mind-twisting ideas. Knowing that human beings are capable of conceiving such complex structures of thought is awe-inspiring.

Ms. Gefter's excitement for cosmology is infectious. She's a wonderful tour guide through one of the most extreme and counter-intuitive subjects out there. ( )

What is real? Really real? Real for everyone everywhere? This is essentially the philosophical question Amanda Gefter is exploring in this truly unique book. It's part memoir, part philosophy, and part science. It's a narration of her personal quest to find an answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. It's a story about how she finagles a job as a science journalist in order to talk to some of the most eminent people working in theoretical physics today, and it's an exploration of the metaphysical implications of some of their ideas. (Reviewers note to reader: Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the ultimate nature of reality. It's kind of like real physics, especially theoretical physics, but without all the messy math and testability requirements.)
I write (soft) science fiction, but I'm not a scientist. Relativity seemed rational enough to me (after some mental gymnastics), but many of the implications of quantum mechanics boggled my mind. It could make accurate predictions, but it never really made sense. It was like a superposition of 'true' and 'bat-crap crazy'. After joining Amanda on her search in the pages of this book, I feel I have a better intuitive grasp of entanglement, wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and entropy than those I possessed before. My shaky understanding may still be dead wrong, of course, but at least I have some framework to give these ideas structure now.
This would have been enough for me to proclaim this a great science book for nonscientists. But it has more.
She shows us some of the major physicists of our time not as embodiments of their ideas but as real people who interact with the world around them much as we of lesser intellect do. They have personalities, egos, disagreements, and quirks. They are real people who also just happen to be brilliant scientists. As she related her interviews with them, I thought about young students who might be reading this and drawing inspiration from it. We sometimes put great achievers on pedestals, implying that greatness is out of reach for us 'normal' people. Gefter brings them down to earth, showing us their humanity and thereby reminding us that they are not so different from the rest of us.
I think this book also reminds us of the tenuous relationship between theory, experiment, and the 'reality' behind them. Experiments yield data and theories provide beautiful equations, but what are they telling us about the underlying reality (assuming there is some)? This seems largely open to interpretation, at least on the quantum level. Yeah, the math works, but what does it MEAN? Is the 'thing' found 'real' or is it just a data point that tells us about a relationship with other data points from a particular point of view? Apparently, the answers depend on the questions asked, and if those answers seem contradictory, it may be because some of our underlying assumptions are wrong.
Some books about science suggest that scientists are simply fine tuning, adding details to the standard model, and working out a few remaining unknowns, such as the nature of dark energy or whatever. Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn, I think, is telling us something entirely different. There are still a great number of things to learn and new theories needed to make sense of them. Science is not almost done. It has barely begun. There remains much to discover and understand.
I found this book informative, thought provoking, and entertaining. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in science and philosophy.
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I really liked this book. Of course, I liked the whole father inspires daughter element. Made me really aware of how far I've fallen behind in my science reading. Last, I can't decide if the story of reality is frightening or reassuring, God-centric or atheistic.

Amanda Gefter kiest voor een autobiografisch perspectief om haar zoektocht naar de aard van de fysische werkelijkheid te beschrijven. Aan het eind van het boek wordt duidelijk waarom ze hiervoor gekozen heeft.
Tot die tijd is het een boek dat de lezer op sommige momenten onheilspellende gevoelens kan bezorgen over de aard van de werkelijkheid en zijn eigen bestaan.

Het autobiografisch perspectief kan voor lezers een beperking zijn; het lijkt alsof het werkelijke verhaal er bij tijd en wijle aan onderschikt is.

Wie geen voorkennis heeft van relativiteitstheorie, kwantumtheorie, string- en braantheorie moet rekening houden dat er erg goed opgelet moet worden, omdat de lezer overspoeld wordt met theorieën die niet allemaal even heldere namen van de theoretici hebben gekregen. Als ze dan nog eens gecombineerd worden om Amanda's zoektocht tot dan toe samen te vatten kan het lastig lezen zijn.

Het verhaal houdt daarmee het midden tussen een populair-wetenschappelijk verhaal (dat het eigenlijk ook is) en een samenvatting van wetenschappelijke ideeën.

Wie wil nadenken over de werkelijkheid zonder (semi-) religieuze invalshoeken en geïnteresseerd is in moderne kosmologische en natuurkundige theorieën heeft hiermee een prachtboek in hand. Als de verhaalstijl bevalt is dat nog mooi meegenomen ook. ( )

What a great book -- a self-taught science journalist's 17-year quest not only to comprehend all the current ideas in fundamental physics and cosmology (managing to talk to many of the fields' biggest of big names in the process) but also to enunciate the secret of ultimate reality. Try this on for a deep concept: Science begins when naturalistically minded people look at the world and ask, "What the hell is all this stuff?". Or this: A thing can be ultimately real only if it is invariant across all frames of reference ("observers"). Or this: Physics makes sense only within a single reference frame. Or this: Instead of asking how something came from nothing, we should have realized there's only nothingness and asked why it *looks* like something. The ideas of John "Participatory-Universe" Wheeler are central to the journey and, towards the end, those of Carlo "Relational-Quantum-Mechanics" Rovelli get a rare airing. Altogether a sparkling and mind-blowing 400 pages, and surely the best book of 2014.