I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher Doubleday Books for allowing me to receive this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Dream Universe
by David Lindley


"A vivid and captivating narrative about how modern science broke free of ancient philosophy, and how theoretical physics is returning to its unscientific roots

In the early seventeenth century Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed--from Kepler to Newton to Einstein. But in the early twentieth century when quantum physics, with its deeply complex mathematics, entered into the picture, something began to change. Many physicists began looking to the equations first and physical reality second. As we investigate realms further and further from what we can see and what we can test, we must look to elegant, aesthetically pleasing equations to develop our conception of what reality is. As a result, much of theoretical physics today is something more akin to the philosophy of Plato than the science to which the physicists are heirs. In The Dream Universe, Lindley asks what is science when it becomes completely untethered from measurable phenomena?"

This was not exactly a... fast-paced read half the book opened up, as many pop-sci books with a brief entire history of physics. I did find it interesting that the author had a questioning voice to the book of indeed makes the discoveries science. And that would be interesting if it was done in a quicker and snapper way!

I did enjoy quite a lot of the ideas and concepts that Lindley was putting forth about how can it be science if concepts and theories can not be proven but it is so little of the book and a lot of the humor fell flat for me.

After finishing this I looked up the book that is reference multiple times Sabine Hossenfelder's Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray and the synopsis is quite similar, I will probably check it out when I can.

Overall I don't tend to rate Non-fiction but my enjoyment rating is 2.5 / 5

At first glance, the disciplines of science and philosophy would seem to be mostly distinct. To put it simply, science is about considering how the world works, while philosophy is about considering why the world works the way it does. Again, an oversimplified explanation, but close enough.

What the two share, however, is that deep-seated desire to unpack the secrets of the universe. And in some cases, the line of demarcation can become considerably more difficult to find.

In “The Dream Universe: How Fundamental Physics Lost Its Way,” author David Lindley posits that in the bleeding edge world of theoretical physics, that line is all but erased. He walks the reader through a quick-hit history of science and how our conception of what “science” even is has evolved from the philosophical beginnings of the Greeks, growing into something observationally and experimentally based over the centuries, only to relatively recently push so far into the theoretical realm as to circle back round to its thought-driven underpinnings.

That might sound a bit heavy, but Lindley has a real gift for narrative; it’s rare for science writing – even pop science aimed at a broad audience – to be this readable and engaging. Lindley pushes us through the history of science via a handful of touchstone figures, giving us a crash course of sorts. From the early work of Galileo up through the pure-math musings of today’s physics giants, we’re along for the ride.

Basically, up until Galileo came along in the seventeenth century, there really wasn’t anything in the intellectual world that resembled “science” as we understand the term. Essentially, any understanding of the workings of the world was still directly connected to the Platonic and Aristotelian mindsets from centuries prior. All scientific knowledge – such as it was – was essentially rote, pulled from the conclusions of the ancient Greeks. Galileo changed all that with a notion that, while seemingly common sense today, was revolutionary for the time: to base our concept of the universe on what we ourselves can observe, rather than pure thought.

And thus, science was born.

A number of intellectual titans followed the path first pointed out by Galileo. Kepler. Newton. Maxwell. Faraday. And of course, Albert Einstein. All of these men built their own groundbreaking ideas upon the foundations left by those who preceded them. Even as the concepts that they pursued moved more and more into the realm of the theoretical, their work was still based in that notion of observation and experimentation.

But then comes quantum theory, which in many ways utterly upends the study of physics as we know it. The ideas generated in quantum physics steered the discipline into the hard curve toward pure thought. Concepts such as string theory are driven by complex, esoteric mathematics; they are built on the elegance of numbers rather than observed phenomenon.

And so, at the highest levels, physics has become an ouroboros of sorts, devouring its own tail; rather than a line with philosophy at one end and physics at the other, the journey is a circle that ends at its own beginning.

“The Dream Universe” offers a compelling walk through physics history, curated and narrated by a true rarity – a gifted writer who is also a qualified scientist. Lindley’s dual qualifications make him the perfect person to put forward a book like this. Tackling material like this is one thing; doing it while also making it accessible to the layperson is quite another. Yet this book reads easily, even when it occasionally delves into the more esoteric aspects of its subject matter.

We as humans have always been curious about the fundamental operations of the world around us. Over the centuries, that curiosity has led us toward more and more accurate pictures of those operations. But as we gain understanding of the observable, the unobserved becomes even more important. And to contemplate the unseeable, we must redefine what it means to observe.

Ultimately, no matter how deeply we drill down, the universe will always be some variation of Plato’s Cave, a place where we can only strive to learn about the shadows in hopes of one day comprehending that which casts them. That’s the takeaway from Lindley and “The Dream Universe,” this idea that no matter how much we discover, there’s more to uncover – and a multitude of tools with which to dig.

I gotta be honest here, this was not exactly a... fast-paced read.

This book opens up, as many pop-sci books with an eye toward the quantum do, with something like a brief entire history of physics, but this time it's with a twist. The author scrutinizes what feels like every major discovery in the field from Galileo onward with an eye toward what indeed makes them science. And that would be interesting...

...if it didn't take up literally half of the book.

The Dream Universe does what it says on the tin: it wants to tell you how physics as we know it has lost its way, in light of theories like string theory that can almost certainly never (or at least not for a very long time) be proved or disproved, regardless of their accuracy or, indeed, lack of it. And somehow that examination takes up less than 25% of the book, which feels odd to me, considering that's, well, what the book is... sort of... about. I understand you have to lay a solid foundation, especially when you're building an argument, so that your readers, even if they don't agree with you, at least understand you, but most of the foundation-building here is so gratuitous as to feel like filler.

Lindley several times references another book that I know and love, Sabine Hossenfelder's Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray which was slightly cringey since that book basically is The Dream Universe except... well... better. And funnier.

Don't mistake me, if this is a new area of inquiry for the reader, The Dream Universe has got you covered. It's thorough, easy to understand, and not at all poorly written. It's just slow and seems to have a lot of extraneous parts, like the extra bits of Lego you find in the bottom of the bag after you've completed your entire model of the Space Needle. And damn if those extra pieces don't make you doubt the whole thing.