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New Theories of Everything
Will we ever discover a single scientific theory that tells us everything that has happened, and everything that will happen, on every level in the Universe? The quest for the theory of everything - a single key that unlocks all the secrets of the Universe - is no longer a pipe-dream, but the focus...
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| Format: | Printed Book |
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New York
Oxford University Press
2007
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Table of Contents:
- 1. Ultimate explanation. An eightfold way ; Myths ; Creation myths ; Algorithmic compressibility
- 2. Laws. The legacy of law ; The quest for unity ; Roger Boscovich ; Symmetries ; Infinities : to be or not to be? ; From Strings to 'M' ; A flight of rationalistic fancy ; Goodbye to all that
- 3. Initial conditions. At the edge of things ; Axioms ; Mathematical Jujitsu ; Initial conditions and time symmetry ; Time without time ; Cosmological time ; The problem of time ; Absolute space and time ; How far is far enough? ; The quantum mystery of time ; Quantum initial conditions ; The great divide
- 4. Forces and particles. The stuff of the Universe ; The copy-cat principle ; Elementarity ; The atom and the vortex ; A world beside itself
- 5. Constants of nature. The importance of being constant ; Fundamentalism ; What do constants tell us? ; Varying constants ; The cosmological constant
- 6. Broken symmetries. The never-ending story ; Broken symmetry ; Natural theology : a tale of two tales ; The flaws of nature ; Chaos ; Chance ; The unpredictability of sex ; Symmetry-breaking in the Universe
- 7. Organizing principles. Where the wild things are ; Big AL ; Time ; Being and becoming organized ; The arrow of time ; Far from equilibrium ; The sands of time ; The way of the world
- 8. Selection effects. Ubiquitous bias
- 9. Is 'pi' really in the sky? In the centre of immensities ; The number of the rose ; Philosophies of mathematics ; What is mathematics? ; Mathematics and physics : an eternal golden braid ; The intelligibility of the world ; Algorithmic compressibility rides again ; Continuity : a bridge too far? ; The secret of the Universe ; Is the Universe a computer? ; The unknowable.