Free electronic book now available from Weburbia cyberspace editions.

How much can physics explain? "Event-Symmetric Space-Time" presents a startlingly integrated world view from the forefront of physics. So often we read about the new quantum paradigm which has replaced the old mechanistic philosophy of physics, but seldom do we find "what the paradigm is" spelt out so succinctly. "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." (Muriel Rukeyser) This is the storyteller's point of view. Through a literal interpretation of those words we transcend causality and determinism to see the quantum multiverse as a whole.

Throughout this book, the author returns to the principle of event symmetry -- in particle physics, in cosmology, in superstring theory, in epistemology. Coupled to the storyteller's paradigm this new idea of philosophy and physics dares to free us from the constraints of our intuition, to reveal natures truths. We are in the midst of a revolution in our understanding of physics and the universe. This new interpretation of superstring theory is slowly helping to bring physicists' long search for the holy grail of knowledge to fruition.

At the debut of the twentieth century Einstein revealed how the laws of nature are independent of any co-ordinate system. According to general relativity, no matter how a reference frame of space-time is turned, pulled and stretched, the laws of physics remain the same because gravity keeps track of the changes. Einstein's only restriction was that he did not allow space-time to tear. You cannot cut out two pieces of space-time and swap them over expecting the forces of nature to compensate, or can you? Research attempting to form a theory of quantum gravity suggests that space-time can tear and reconnect in ways which change its topology. This book suggests that Einstein's symmetry must be extended to allow space-time to be atomised into space-time events which can be pulled apart and recombined in any permutation. The unified forces of nature must permit this "event symmetry" just as gravity already permits the more restricted co-ordinate transformations.

Recently theorists have discovered matrix models of superstring theories which vindicate these ideas. In this new picture pioneered by Leonard Susskind at Stanford, the co-ordinates of space-time have been replaced by anti-commuting matrices in the same way that quantum theory modified the commuting observables of position and momentum seventy years before. Now it is space-time itself which is being remoulded. In the limit where the co-ordinate matrices commute they can be diagonalised simultaneously so that their eigenvalues represent the co-ordinates of classical space-time events. The order of these events can be permuted under the symmetry of the model and thus the principle of event-symmetry is realised. In the true non-commuting geometry this is generalised to a matrix group symmetry which unifies gauge symmetry and particle statistics. These features had been previously predicted as a natural outcome of event symmetry. Other predictions to be found in this book, such as the relationship between multiple-quantisation and dimension, may further help string theorists to understand the nature of space and time.

ZettaVolt product comparison site (Review)

One of the most useful features of the commercial internet in recent years is the appearance of price comparison sites that allow us to find the best price for a product amongst the best merchant sites on the internet. They are great once you have decided exactly what you want to buy but are frustrating if you have not yet narrowed it down. For example, if I look on pricerunner.co.uk for an HDTV I get a list of over a thousand products on sale and I have to go through each one looking at the specification pages one at a time to see what they are like. Actaully that is not quite true. I can select some of the TVs using tick boxes and compare them side by side, and I can narrow down my search using the filters, but I still find I have to go through a lot of possibilities to find what I want.

ZettaVolt is the antidote that I have been looking for to this malaise. It displays the most important comparison features in a large table that I can scan qucikly, then I can drilldown with simple clicks. One thing I particluarly like is the inclusion of products that are due out soon. The last thing I want to do with a product like an HDTV is buy something that will be obsolete next week. Right now I am keen on getting a screen which is 1080p with 100 Hz refresh rate. There is nothing like that available yet, but on this page I can see what will be coming soon. Perhaps by time you read this they will be out!

when I click through to the page for a specific model such as the Samsung LE52M87BD I see even more details about the product including some features that other price comparison sites dont mention. The details held by ZettaVolt seem more complete than elsewhere and I have not noticed many mistakes. There is also the usual list of sellers listed with the cheapest at the top. I find that some other sites like to empahasise some sellers as "featured merchants" when they do not have the best price. I suspect it is because they give the best commission, which is not very helpful to me. I am also pleased to see that ZettaVolt is not plastered with extra adverts, irrelevant sponsored links or Ebay searches. I hope it can stay that way.

On the down side the site does not yet cover many product types but from what it says on the editorial pages that should change soon. I would also like to see some pictures of the products, and price histories like the ones I have seen on some French sites would be very nice, please. Oh, and I hope they improve the design and get rid of that pun about "Consumer Electronics with High Potential" (Zetta-Volt, get it?)