by Marcus Chown
It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science, edited by Graham Farmelo (Granta Books, London, 2002).
The Particle at the End of the Universe: The Hunt for the Higgs and the Discovery of a New World by Sean Carroll (Oneworld, London, 2012).
Beyond the God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill (Prometheus Books, New York, 2013).
Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature by Steven Weinberg (Vintage, London, 1994).
9: The voice of space
Ripples in Spacetime: Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future Astronomy by Govert Schilling (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2017).
Einstein in Berlin by Thomas Levenson (Bantam Books, New York, 2003).
10: The poetry of logical ideas
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality by Max Tegmark (Penguin, London, 2015).
A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Media, Illinois, 2002).
The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come From? by Victor Stenger (Prometheus, New York, 2006).
Conjuring the Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature by Peter Atkins (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018).
Is God a Mathematician? by Mario Livio (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2010).
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature’s Deepest Secrets by Graham Farmelo (Faber & Faber, London, 2019).
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the following people who helped me directly, inspired me or simply encouraged me during the writing of this book: Karen, Laura Hassan, Felicity Bryan, Rowan Cope, Anne Owen, Nick Humphrey, Michele Topham, Manjit Kumar, Graham Farmelo, Paul Murdin, Michela Massimi, Govert Schilling, Marco Drago, Jon Butterworth, Christine Sutton, Ken Strain, Sheila Rowan and Loretta Donato.
Index
Aberdeen 1
absolute zero 1, 2, 3, 4
accelerator, particle 1, 2, 3, 4
accretion disc 1, 2
Ackroyd, Peter 1
action 1; see also least action, principle of
action at a distance 1
Adams, Douglas 1, 2
Adams, John Couch 1, 2, 3
Adams, Walter 1, 2
Admiralty (Royal Navy) 1
Aiken 1, 2
Airy, George Biddell 1
Alamogordo 1
Albemarle Street 1, 2
Albert, Prince 1
Albert Einstein Institute: see Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Albertopolis 1
Alpha Centauri 1
alpha decay 1, 2
alpha particle 1, 2, 3, 4
alpha process 1
Alpher, Bethe and Gamow 1
Alpher, Ralph 1, 2, 3, 4
Alpher, Victor 1
aluminium tape 1
American Physical Society 1, 2
Amman, Julius 1, 2
Ampère, André-Marie 1, 2
anaesthetic 1
Anderson, Carl 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Anderson, Philip 1
Anglo-Australian Telescope 1
angular momentum 1 conservation of 1
Annalen der Physik (journal) 1
annihilation 1, 2, 3
anthropic principle 1, 2, 3
antimatter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
antimatter rocket 1
antineutrino 1, 2, 3
antineutron 1
antiparticle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
antiproton 1
anti-Semitism 1
Apollo Program 1
apple pie 1
Aquarius, constellation of 1
Aquitania, RMS (ship) 1
Ashkenazis 1
asteroid 1
Astronomer Royal 1
Astronomische Nachrichten (journal) 1
Astrophysical Journal, The 1, 2
Astrophysical Journal Letters, The 1, 2
AT&T 1, 2, 3
Athenaeum Club 1
Atkins, Peter 1, 2, 3
Atkinson, Robert 1
Atlantic Ocean 1, 2, 3
ATLAS 1, 2, 3
atom 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
atomic bomb 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 test 1, 2
atomic nucleus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 fission of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
neutron-rich 1, 2
splitting of: see fission of
Australia 1, 2
Australopithecus afarensis 1
axiom 1
B-29 bomber 1
B2FH 1, 2
Baade, Walter 1, 2, 3, 4
Babylon 1
bacterium 1
Baltimore 1
Bath 1
Batygin, Konstantin 1, 2
Baur au Lac hotel 1
Bazalgette, Joseph 1
Becquerel, Henri 1
Bekenstein, Jacob 1
Bell, Jocelyn 1
Bell Labs 1
Berlin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Observatory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
University of 1
Berry, Michael 1
beryllium 1, 2
beryllium barrier 1, 2
beta decay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Fermi theory of 1
inverse 1, 2
puzzle of 1
beta particle 1, 2, 3
Betelgeuse 1
Bethe, Hans 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Bevatron 1
Bhagavadgita 1
Big Bang 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 afterglow of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
building of elements in 1, 2, 3, 4
coining of term 1
hot 1
origin of term 1
big crunch 1
black body 1 spectrum of 1
black box 1
Black Cloud, The (Hoyle) 1
black-eyed peas 1
black hole 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 apparent horizon of 1
discovery of first 1, 2
entropy of 1
evaporation of 1, 2
event horizon of 1
image of 1
information paradox 1
Jupiter-mass 1
merger 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
origin of term 1, 2
singularity of 1
spinning/Kerr 1
stellar-mass 1
supermassive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
temperature of 1
Black Hole Blues (Levin) 1, 2
Blackett, Patrick 1
Blake, William 1, 2
blazar 1
blind injection 1
Bohr, Niels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Bolton, Tom 1
Bondi, Hermann 1, 2
Boolean algebra 1
Born, Max 1, 2
boson 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 scalar 1
vector 1, 2
Boulder, Colorado 1
Bradbury, Norris 1
Bridgman, Percy 1, 2
Bristol 1, 2
British Embassy, Washington DC 1, 2
Brontë, Charlotte 1
Brookhaven, New York 1
Brout, Robert 1, 2
Brown, Mike 1, 2
Brownian motion 1
Brussels 1
Burbidge, Geoffrey 1, 2
Burbidge, Margaret 1, 2
Burke, Bernie 1
Burney, Venetia 1, 2
Butterworth, Jon 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
cadmium 1
cadmium chloride 1
calcium 1, 2, 3, 4
California Institute of Technology 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 282
californium 1
Caltech: see California Institute of Technology
Cambridge Observatory 1
St John’s College 1
transit telescope 1
Trinity College 1, 2
University of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Cameron, Alastair 1
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 1
Canary Isl
ands 1
Capricorn, constellation of 1
Carnegie Institution 1
Carter, Brandon 1
cathode rays 1
Catholic Church 1
Cavendish Laboratory 1
carbon 1, 2, 3
carbon nucleus 1, 2, 3, 4 excited state of 1, 2, 3
ground state of 1
carbon tetrachloride 1
Caroline, Queen 1
Caxton Hall 1
CCTV 1
CERN 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Chabon, Michael 1, 2
Chadwick, James 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Challis, George 1
champagne 1, 2
Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan 1, 2
Chandrasekhar limit 1
charge: see electric charge
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl) 1
Chicago 1, 2 University of 1
City Philosophical Society 1
Clarke, Arthur C. 1, 2
cleaning fluid 1
Close, Frank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
cloud chamber 1, 2, 3
CMS 1, 2, 3
CNO cycle 1
Coca-Cola 1
Cockcroft, John 1
cold load 1, 2, 3
colours invisible 1, 2
of the rainbow 1, 2, 3
Columbus, Christopher 1
comet 1, 2, 3
compass 1, 2
Compton, Arthur 1
Compton scattering 1
computational irreducibility 1
computational reducibility 1
co-ordinate system 1, 2
Copenhagen 1, 2
Cornell University 1
Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE) 1
cosmic background radiation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
cosmic ray 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
cosmology 1, 2, 3, 4
Cotham School 1
covariance 1
Cowan, Clyde 1, 2
Crawford Hill 1, 2, 3
Creation of the Universe, The (Gamow) 1
Creator, the 1, 2, 3, 4
Crick, Francis 1, 2
Crime and Punishment 1
Crimea 1
critical mass 1
cyanogen 1
Cygnus, constellation of 1
Cygnus X- 1 161, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Dahl, Roald 1
Dance, George 1
dark energy 1
dark matter 1, 2, 3
d’Arrest, Heinrich 1, 2
Darwin, Charles 1
Darwin, Charles Galton 1
David Dunlap Observatory 1
Davis, Raymond 1, 2
Davy, Humphry 1, 2
Dawkins, Richard 1, 2
decoupling of radiation from matter 1
delayed coincidence 1
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Carnegie Institution of Washington) 1, 2
Deppner, Käthe 1
Deschanel, Zooey 1
deuterium 1
deuteron 1
Dicke, Robert 1, 2, 3
Dickens, Charles 1
dielectric 1, 2
dimension extra 1
familiar 1, 2, 3, 4
Dirac, Paul 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Dirac equation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 negative-energy solutions of 1
DNA 1
Doeleman, Shep 1
Donato, Loretta 1, 2
Doppler effect 1, 2
Drago, Marco 1, 2, 3
Drever, Ronald 1
Dukas, Helen 1
Dumfries 1
Dunbar, Noel 1, 2
dwarf planet 1
E = mc2 1
Earth first photograph from space 1
mass of 1
Echo 1 satellite 1
École Polytechnique 1
Eddington, Arthur Stanley 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Edinburgh 1, 2
Edinburgh Academy 1
Edinburgh, University of 1
Edison, Thomas 1
Egypt 1
Ehrgott, Vic 1
Einstein, Albert 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and the Big Bang 1
and black holes 1
and gravitational waves 1, 2, 3, 4
Einsteinium 1
electricity charge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
conservation of 1, 2
quantisation of 1
current 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
dynamo 1
electric potential 1
field 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
force 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
motor 1, 2
electrochemistry 1
electromagnetism 1, 2, 3 electromagnetic field 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
electromagnetic force 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 range of 1
strength compared with force of gravity 1
electromagnetic wave 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 equivalence with light 1, 2
speed of 1
Maxwell’s equations of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
electron 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 degeneracy pressure 1
hole 1
measuring charge of 1, 2
electroscope 1
element, chemical 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
element-building in the Big Bang 1, 2
element-building in stars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Ellis, Charles 1, 2
Elugelab 1
Encke, Joseph Franz 1, 2
energy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 gravitational 1, 2, 3, 4
law of conservation of 1, 2
mass as a form of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
of motion 1
nuclear 1, 2
orbital 1, 2
potential 1
rest 1
of the vacuum 1
energy of motion 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Enewetak Atoll 1, 2, 3
entropy 1
Enz, Charles 1, 2
epoch of last scattering 1
Euclidean geometry 1, 2
event horizon 1
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) 1, 2, 3
exoplanet 1, 2
Experimental Researches in Electricity (Faraday) 1
Falcke, Heino 1
Faraday, Michael George, nephew of 1
Faraday’s magnetic laboratory 1
Farmelo, Graham 1, 2, 3, 4
Fermi, Enrico 1, 2, 3, 4
Fermilab 1
fermion 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
fermium 1
Feynman, Richard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 281
field 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 electric 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
electromagnetic 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
gravitational 1, 2, 3
magnetic 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
51 Pegasi B 1
First Three Minutes, The (Weinberg) 1, 2, 3, 4
Fizeau, Hippolyte 1
Flammarion, Camille 1, 2
Flamsteed, John 1
Fletcher, Harvey 1
Ford, Kent 1
formal system 1
Fowler, William 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) 1
Frankenstein, Victor 1
Frankenstein’s monster 1
Fraunhofer telescope 1, 2
Freundlich, Erwin 1, 2
Friedmann, Aleksandr 1
Frisch, Otto 1, 2
fundamental constants 1
fundamental force 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
fusion, nuclear 1
galaxy elliptical 1
formation of 1, 2
spiral 1
Galilei, Galileo 1, 2, 3, 4
Galle, Johann 1, 2, 3, 4
Galvani, Luigi 1
gamma ray 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 gamma ray burster 1
Gamow, George 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ‘Mr Tompkins’ books 1
gauge 1
gauge invariance global 1, 2
local 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
particle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Gauss, Carl Friedrich 1
Geiger-Müller tube 1, 2
Gell-Mann, Murray 1, 2, 3, 4
general theory of relativity: see relativity
Geneva 1, 2, 3, 4
geometry Euclidean 1, 2
Riemannian 1
George II, King 1
George III, King 1
George Washington University 1
George’s star 1
geosynchronous orbit 1
Ghez, Andrea 1, 2
Giacconi, Riccardo 1
Gianotti, Fabiola 1, 2
Giant Molecular Cloud 1
giraffes 1
Giudice, Gian Francesco 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Glasgow 1, 2
Glashow, Sheldon 1, 2
glass, lead borosilicate 1
Glenlair 1, 2, 3, 4
gluon 1, 2, 3, 4
Go-Between, The (Hartley) 1
God, as a mathematician 1, 2, 3
God particle 1, 2
gold 1, 2
Gold, Tommy 1, 2
Goldfinger, Paul 1
Goldschmidt, Victor 1
Goldstone, Jeffrey 1 Goldstone boson 1, 2, 3
Goldstone theorem 1
Gonzáles, Gabriela 1
graphite 1
gravitational waves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
graviton 1
gravity 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 repulsive 1
Great Depression 1
Great Exhibition 1, 2
Greenstein, Jesse 1
group theory 1
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory 1, 2, 3
guided missile 1
Guralnik, Gerry 1
GW150914 1