The one How an ancient idea holds the future of physics

Physicist Päs (The Perfect Wave) argues that "all is one" in this overly knotty survey of monism, or the belief that "in a quantum universe, there are no individual objects. All that exists is merged into a single 'One.'" Though the notion may sound "bizarre to us," he suggests it follows "straightforwardly from quantum mechanics." Contending that monism holds truths about physics and is also rooted in philosophy, Päs bolsters his case with biographical snippets of Plato (who "assumed that hidden on the most fundamental level there exists only one single object in the universe: the universe itself"), Leonardo Da Vinci (who believed in the harmony of nature), Mozart (who, Päs notes, was "inspired" by monism), and Albert Einstein (who argued for "an objective reality beyond what can be observed"). Though the philosophical discussions are easy to grasp, if a bit winding, Päs is less successful when it comes to science, and his explanations can be tough to parse ("gauge symmetries relate the existence of forces to the freedom to redefine physics differently, in different patches of space-time, and thus reveal the coherence of space-time"). Theoretical physicists might find some fascinating concepts worth considering, but lay readers are likely to be left scratching their heads. (Jan.)

The universe explained by a particle physicist. Päs, a professor of theoretical physics and author of The Perfect Wave, examines "what we actually mean when we talk about 'the universe.' " It can't be everything we see at night; our Milky Way Galaxy, which has 100 billion stars, is only one of trillions of galaxies. It can't be everything astronomers see because invisible gas clouds contain 10 times more matter. It can't be ordinary matter because there is five times more "dark matter," whose exotic makeup no one understands. The universe itself may be a meaningless concept because there may be an innumerable number of them in an uncountable proliferating "multiverse." Standing under the stars, Päs feels that he is one with the universe. The notion that everything in the universe is part of one unified whole is called "monism," a belief that was codified by the ancient Greeks. Most scholars agree that the Greeks invented science and made important discoveries. They also got many things wrong, but Päs focuses on philosophy, where even concepts of "right" and "wrong" are debatable. The author devotes the first third of the book to his specialty, quantum physics, in which "objects get so completely and entirely merged that it is impossible to say anything at all about the properties of their constituents anymore." Serious explanations of quantum physics require close attention, so most readers will breathe a sigh of relief when Päs switches gears to deliver a history of science and religion in Western culture, which he describes as a battle between Christianity and monistic scholars, who were persecuted until the Renaissance, when modern science revived the ideas of ancient Greece. Päs has no doubt that the great thinkers (e.g., Spinoza and Kant) and scientists (Galileo, Newton, Einstein) were monists. This is difficult stuff, but the glossary helps. A dense philosophical exploration of the cosmos--not for the faint of heart. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.