The Big Picture
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M O R E P R A I S E F O R T H E B I G P I C T U R E
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‘A nuanced inquiry into “how our desire to matter fits in with the nature of
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reality at its deepest levels,” in which Carroll offers an assuring dose of what he
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calls “existential therapy” reconciling the various and often seemingly contra-
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dictory dimensions of our experience.’
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
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‘True to the grand scope of its title. .anyone who enjoys asking big questions
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will find a lot to consider.’
Booklist
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‘A tour de force that offers a comprehensive snapshot of the human situation
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in our infinitely strange universe, and it does this with highly accessible lan-
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guage and engaging storytelling.’
Salon.com
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‘Carroll is the perfect guide to this wondrous journey of discovery. A bril-
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liantly lucid exposition of profound philosophical and scientific issues.’
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Kirkus (starred review)
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‘From the Big Bang to the meaning of human existence, The Big Picture is
exactly that – a magisterial, yet deeply fascinating, grand tour through the
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issues that really matter. Blending science and philosophy, Sean Carroll gives
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us a humane perspective on the universe and our place in it. As gripping as it
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is important, The Big Picture can change the way you think about the world.’
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Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish
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‘Until now you might have gotten away believing modern physics is about
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things either too small or too far away to care much about. But no more. Sean
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Carroll’s new book reveals how physicists’ quest to better understand the fun-
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damental laws of nature has led to astonishing insights into life, the universe,
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and everything.’
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Sabine Hossenfelder, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
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‘Weaving the threads of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and philosphy
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into a seamless narrative tapestry, Sean Carroll enthralls us with what we’ve
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figured out in the universe and humbles us with what we don’t yet understand.
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Yet in the end, it’s the meaning of it all that feeds your soul of curiosity.’
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Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
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‘Instead of feeling humbled and insignificant when gazing upward on a clear
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starry night, Carroll takes us by the hand and shows us how fantastic the in-
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animate physical universe is and how special each animate human can be. It is
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lucid, spirited, and penetrating.’
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Michael Gazzaniga, author of Tales from Both Sides of the Brain
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A L S O B Y S E A N C A R R O L L
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From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
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The Particle at the End of the Universe: The Hunt for the Higgs
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and the Discovery of a New World
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A Oneworld Book
First published in Great Britain and Australia by Oneworld Publications, 2016
This ebook published by Oneworld Publications, 2016
Copyright © Sean Carroll 2016
The moral right of Sean Carroll to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78074-606-7
eISBN 978-1-78074-607-4
All photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.
Photograph on part title pages © Chad Baker/Photodisc/Getty Images
Design by Nancy Resnick
Oneworld Publications
10 Bloomsbury Street
London WC1B 3SR
England
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication.
Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Stay up to date with the latest books,
special offers, and exclusive content from
Oneworld with our monthly newsletter
Sign up on our website
www.oneworld-publications.com
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To my teachers:
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Mrs. Eberhardt, Edwin Kel y, Edward Guinan, Jack Doody,
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Colleen Sheehan, Peter Knapp, George Field, Sidney Coleman,
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Nick Warner, Eddie Farhi, Alan Guth, and so many others.
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Thank you for chal enging me.
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Contents
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Prologue 1
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PA RT ONE: COSMOS
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1. The Fundamental Nature of Reality
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2. Poetic Naturalism
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3. The World Moves by Itself
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4. What Determines What Will Happen?
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5. Reasons Why
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6. Our Universe
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7. Time’s Arrow
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8. Memories and Causes
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PA RT T WO: U NDER STA NDING
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9. Learning about the World
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10. Updating Our Knowledge
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11. Is It Okay to Doubt Everything?
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12. Reality Emerges
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13. What Exists, and What Is Illusion?
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14. Planets of Belief
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15. Accepting Uncertainty
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C O n t E n t S
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16. What Can We Know about the World without Actually Looking at It?
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17. Who Am I?
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18. Abducting God
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PA RT THR EE: ESSENCE
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19. How Much We Know
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20. The Quantum Realm
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21. Interpreting Quantum Mechanics
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22. The Core Theory
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23. The Stuff of Which We Are Made
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24. The Effective Theory of the Everyday World
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25. Why Does the Universe Exist?
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26. Body and Soul
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27. Death Is the End
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PA RT FOUR: COMPLE X IT Y
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28. The Universe in a Cup of Coffee
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29. Light and Life
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30. Funneling Energy
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31. Spontaneous Organization
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32. The Origin and Purpose of Life
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33. Evolution’s Bootstraps
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34. Searching through the Landscape
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35. Emergent Purpose
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36. Are We the Point?
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PA RT FI V E: THINK ING
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37. Crawling into Consciousness
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38. The Babbling Brain
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39. What Thinks?
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C O n t E n t S
40. The Hard Problem
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41. Zombies and Stories
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42. Are Photons Conscious?
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43. What Acts on What?
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44. Freedom to Choose
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PA RT SI X: C A R ING
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45. Three Billion Heartbeats
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46. What Is and What Ought to Be
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47. Rules and Consequences
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48. Constructing Goodness
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49. Listening to the World
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50. Existential Therapy
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Appendix: The Equation Underlying You and Me
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References 443
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Further Reading
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Acknowledgments 455
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Index 457
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Prologue
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nly once in my life have I been truly close to dying.
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My judgment was a bit off. It was dark, the traffic was heavy.
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An inattentive driver on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles veered
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in front of me to avoid an exit ramp, and I swerved to avoid him. The enor-
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mous eighteen- wheeler in the lane to my left wasn’t as far back as I thought.
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The very last inch of my back bumper caught the very front corner of the
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truck’s cab. That was enough. I lost all control of my car, which executed a
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slow and stately counterclockwise turn, ending with my driver’s side flush
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into the front of the truck, still speeding down the freeway. It was slow and
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stately from my perspective, anyway. I felt as if I were trapped in amber,
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watching helplessly as my car moved of its own volition, until it nestled
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against the truck’s grill, perpendicula
r to the direction of traffic, a blinding
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headlight shining in my face.
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I was shaken but unhurt. The car was a bit rumpled, and needed some
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serious work in the body shop, but it was able to drive me home once all the
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police reports had been filled out. A few inches here, a change of speed
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there, a bit more panic on the part of the truck driver— things could have
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been different.
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Many of us come close to dying, long before we do die. We confront the
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finitude of our lives.
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In my professional capacity as a physicist I study the universe as a whole.
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It’s a big universe. Fourteen billion years after the Big Bang, the region of
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space we can directly see is populated by a few hundred billion galaxies,
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T H E B IG PIC T U R E
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averaging a hundred billion stars each. We human beings, by contrast, are
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quite tiny— a recent arrival on an insignificant planet orbiting a nonde-
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script star. Whatever the outcome of my freeway misadventure had been,
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my lifetime would be measured in decades, not in billions of years.
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A person is a diminutive, ephemeral thing, standing smaller in com-
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parison with the universe than a single atom stands in comparison with the
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Earth. Can any one individual existence really matter?
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In some sense it obviously can. I live a fortunate life, with family and
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friends who care about me, and who would be extremely upset were I to die.
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I myself would be quite unhappy if I somehow knew ahead of time that my
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life was going to end. But from the perspective of a vast, seemingly indiffer-
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ent cosmos, does it really matter all that much?
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I like to think that our lives do matter, even if the universe would trun-
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dle along without us. But we have to respect the question, and work hard to
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understand how our desire to matter fits in with the nature of reality at its
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deepest levels.
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A friend of mine, a neuroscientist and biologist, can make individual cells
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young again. Scientists have developed techniques for taking stem cells in the
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adult human body, which have aged and taken on some more mature charac-
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teristics, and reverse- aging them until they are just like newborn stem cells.
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There is a long road from cells to complete organisms. So I asked her,
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half- jokingly, whether we would someday be able to reverse- age human be-
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ings, and potentially keep them young forever.
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“You and I are going to die someday,” she mused. “But if either of us has
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grandchildren, I wouldn’t be so sure.”
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That’s thinking like a biologist. As a physicist, I know it doesn’t violate