The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
Published 2004 · 717 pages · 160,000 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Science & Nature
How hard is The Fabric of the Cosmos to read?
The Fabric of the Cosmos scores 34 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
- Physics terminology across multiple subfields. More breadth than The Elegant Universe.
- Sentence structure: 32 out of 100
- Abstraction: 52 out of 100
- Fundamental questions about reality. Greene works hard to make them tangible.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Extremely comprehensive. Dense with concepts from relativity to string cosmology.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Sequential, building from simple questions to complex answers.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Fabric as central metaphor. Space-time as texture, as medium, as arena.
- Ironic distance: 80 out of 100
- Enthusiastic, patient teacher. No ironic distance.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- Many questions remain open. Greene is forthright about the limits of current knowledge.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Five parts covering space, time, space-time, cosmology, and reality. Long and comprehensive.
How The Fabric of the Cosmos is regarded
The Fabric of the Cosmos holds a literary regard score of 46 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.