Dear Owen, I am actually reading it at the moment, I am at around page 300. It is my second go, the first one was before I had CompSci Math under my belt and I got lost.
This time is much better, although he of course employs a rather broad sweep of mathematics, most of which you will only hear as a physics student (like Riemannian geometry etc) But the going is quite nice, though you have to believe him some stuff. I have also bought Needham's Visual Complex Analysis (excellent book!!), and concepts somewhat thin in Penrose's book make sense after going through a chapter in the Needham book. (Penrose loves complex analysis, and I am beginning to share his fascination :-)) Also for the later math chapters some additional mathematical literature is recommended. I can really recommend this book - I have of course already made "sneak reads" into the physical sections, and if you work through this book (instead of reading it casually and ignoring the parts you don't understand) I guess there is no quicker way to be informed about modern/foundational physics at a considerably more than superficial level (the next step is to study physics, really). But it will take work - that is the question you have to ask yourself: if you are willing to "tackle" the book instead of just "reading" it, I give it a serious thumbs up :) Cheers, Günther Owen Densmore wrote: > OK, I admit it .. I find the book kinda fascinating. This review by > Jaron Lanier, is quite enthusiastic: > http://tinyurl.com/2kb5f8 > > Has anyone on the list actually read most of the critter? It's a bit > daunting at 1099 pages! > > -- Owen > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
