This Way to the Universe: A Theoretical Physicist's Journey to the Edge of Reality

For readers of Sean Carroll, Brian Greene, Katie Mack, and anyone who wants to know what theoretical physicists actually do.

This Way to the Universe is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives. The enigmas that Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe.

Asked where to find out about the Big Bang, Dark Matter, the Higgs boson particle--the long cutting edge of physics right now--Dine had no single book he could recommend. This is his accessible, authoritative, and up-to-date answer. Comprehensible to anyone with a high-school level education, with almost no equations, there is no better author to take you on this amazing odyssey.

Dine is widely recognized as having made profound contributions to our understanding of matter, time, the Big Bang, and even what might have come before it. This Way to the Universe touches on many emotional, critical points in his extraordinary carreer while presenting mind-bending physics like his answer to the Dark Matter and Dark Energy mysteries as well as the ideas that explain why our universe consists of something rather than nothing. People assume String Theory can never be tested, but Dine intrepidly explores exactly how the theory might be tested experimentally, as well as the pitfalls of falling in love with math. This book reflects a lifetime pursuing the deepest mysteries of reality, by one of the most humble and warmly engaging voices you will ever read.


About the Author
Michael Dine is Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the world's leading physicists. He has been a Sloan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and in 2010 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dine is a recipient of the 2018 J. J. Sakurai Prize honoring outstanding achievement in particle physics theory. In April 2019, he was elected to membership of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served the physics profession in numerous roles, including as Chair of the Committee on the Future of Theoretical Particle Physics of the American Physical Society.