The Shape of Inner Space String Theory and the Geometry of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions

String theory says we live in a ten-dimensional universe, but that only four are accessible to our everyday senses. According to theorists, the missing six are curled up in bizarre structures known as Calabi-Yau manifolds. In The Shape of Inner Space, Shing-Tung Yau, the man who mathematically proved that these manifolds exist, argues that not only is geometry fundamental to string theory, it is also fundamental to the very nature of our universe. Time and again, where Yau has gone, physics has followed. Now for the first time, readers will follow Yau’s penetrating thinking on where we’ve been, and where mathematics will take us next. A fascinating exploration of a world we are only just beginning to grasp, The Shape of Inner Spacewill change the way we consider the universe on both its grandest and smallest scales.

Shing-Tung Yau has won many awards, including the Fields Medal. He is a professor of mathematics at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Steve Nadis is a Contributing Editor to Astronomy Magazine. He has published articles in Nature, Science, Scientific American, New Scientist, Sky&Telescope, the Atlantic Monthly, and other journals. He has written or contributed to more than two dozen books. A former staff researcher for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Nadis has also been a research fellow at MIT and a consultant to the World Resources Institute, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and WGBH/NOVA. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.