Farewell to Reality
Page 38
anthropic multiverse 268—9, 278, 281—3
carbon coincidence 262—5
goldilocks enigma 265—7
intelligent design, the
argument from 270—7
reality check 277—81
strong anthropic principle 269—70, 272
weak anthropic principle 267—8, 278, 283
Anthropic Cosmological Principle,
The (Barrow/Tipler) 270, 272—3, 275—6, 279
anti-de Sitter space (AdS) 255—6
anti-matter 58, 60, 167
anti-neutrino 67, 160, 161
anti-particles 66, 160, 161, 166, 175, 189
anti-quark 74, 75, 77, 130, 136, 185, 185n
Arkani-Hamed, Nima 200
Arrhenius, Svante 184
Aspect experiment 48, 135
Aspect, Alain 48
Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) 13
asymptotic freedom 76, 188
ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC
Apparatus) 10, 10n, 11, 72, 73, 74, 178
atoms 56
atomic spectrum 109
Big Bang and 103, 109, 110, 111, 113, 128, 132, 133
construction of mass and 77—8, 79
primeval 110, 111
properties of 56
auxiliary assumptions or
hypotheses 19, 20, 105
axion 141—2
Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX), University of Washington’s Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics 142
Barnett, Lincoln 93
Barrow, John 270, 272, 274, 275—6, 279
baryonic matter 127, 127n, 141, 148
baryons 65, 74, 76—7
Bayes, Thomas 281—2, 283
Bekenstein, Jacob 247, 248, 249
Bell Laboratories, New Jersey 115, 244
Bell, John 46—51, 50, 51, 53, 129, 134, 135, 210, 213
Bell’s inequality 47—51, 53, 129, 135, 210
Bellevue, Switzerland 49
Berkeley, George 5
Bernex, Switzerland 49
beta function 185, 195
beta-radioactivity 56—7, 67, 75
Bethe, Hans 62
Big Bang cosmology (ACDM) 111—12, 216, 221, 229
COBE, WMAP and 121—3
cosmic inflation and 117—19
cosmic microwave
background and 112—14
cosmological constant and 104—6, 120, 124—6, 127, 143, 145, 261, 278
dark energy and 124—7
dark matter and 122—4
expansion of universe and 104, 107—8, 125—7
fine-tuning problem 222
flatness and horizon problem 115—16, 221
grand unification epoch and 118, 121
hot 114, 227, 230
Hubble’s law and 108—9
inflation see inflation
standard model of 102—28, 159
symmetry/supersymmetry and 159, 168, 170, 171, 172
why the standard model can’t be right 129, 130, 134, 139, 142, 143, 150, 229
big splat 228
black holes:
complementarity 250—2
dark matter and 142—3
Hawking radiation and 142—3, 248—50, 251, 252, 257, 258
‘information paradox’ 250—1
MACHOs and 124
reality check 256—9
second law of
thermodynamics and 246—8
war 250—2, 256, 260
X-ray emission and 257
blueshift 99, 109
Bohm, David 210, 211
Bohr, Niels 31, 39—40, 42, 43, 45, 50, 51, 55, 130, 182, 184, 215, 251
Boltzmann, Ludwig 242, 243
Bondi, Hermann 112
bootstrap theory 180, 288
‘Bose condensation’ 34
Bose, Satyendra Nath 34
bosino 166, 167, 173
boson 34, 65, 71, 72, 73, 77n, 117, 118, 130, 131, 136n, 139, 140 160, 161, 162, 163—5, 166, 167, 169, 173, 174, 178, 186, 187, 188, 194, 195, 204, 229, 282, 228, 298, 300 see also Higgs boson
Bostrom, Nick 277—8, 281—2
Bousso, Raphael 223—4
Brahe, Tycho 13, 13n, 14
branes and braneworlds 16, 198—202, 203, 204, 226—7, 228, 229, 230, 254—6, 261, 286
British Association for the
Advancement of Science 298
Broglie, Louis de 39, 54, 210—11
Brookhaven National
Laboratory, New York 75
Brooks, Michael xiii, xiiin, 16n
Brout, Robert 69, 70
brown dwarf stars 124
Butterworth, Jon 11
Calabi—Yau space 192—6, 200, 204, 224, 225, 226, 227, 229, 282, 230
Calabi, Eugenio 193—4
California, University of, Santa
Barbara 194, 250
California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) 188—9
Cambridge University 206, 219, 227, 247, 267
Candelas, Philip 193, 194
‘canonical quantization’ 146
carbon coincidence 262—5, 278, 279
Cartan, Elié 60
Carter, Brandon 247, 267, 268, 269, 270
Cartwright, Nancy 296—7
Casimir, Hendrik 41, 42, 143
CERN 185, 190, 288
Large Electron-Positron (LEP)
Collider 176, 177
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 10, 10n, 12, 22, 59n, 72, 73, 117, 139, 163, 169, 177, 178, 180, 203—4, 208, 288, 299, 300
Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory, Chile 126
CFT/AdS duality 256
Chadwick, James 56
Chien Shiung Wu 66
‘Chinese room’ thought
experiment 285—6
Clarke, Arthur C. 40—1
CMS (Compact Muon
Solenoid) 10, 10n, 72, 73, 178
coherence theory of truth 259—60
collapsing universe 105—6
colour force 76—7
Columbia University, New York xiv, 74, 174
Columbia, Space Shuttle 127
Coma cluster 123
compactification 184, 192, 193, 202, 226, 229, 230, 282
Compton, Arthur 30
computing, quantum 240—1
conformal field theory (CFT) 256
contraction of length 89—91
Copenhagen interpretation 30—1, 32, 36, 39, 40, 42—5, 50, 184, 215, 216, 218
Copernican Principle 22—4, 105n, 131, 148, 261, 267, 269, 272, 278, 281
Copernicus, Nicolaus 13, 24, 217, 222, 267
correspondence theory of truth 259—60
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) 121, 122, 124
cosmic inflation 117—20, 124, 150, 221—4
cosmic landscape 224—6, 229, 230—1, 261, 269, 281, 283, 293—4
Cosmic Landscape, The (Susskind) 269, 281, 283, 293—4
cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation 103, 112—15, 117, 120, 121, 127—8, 228, 230, 257, 286
cosmological principle 105, 105n
anthropic x, 261—83
cosmology, quantum 216
Cox, Brian xiii
Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) 179
D-brane 199—201, 203, 226, 254—6
d’Espagnat, Bernard 6
dark energy 104, 124—5, 127, 128, 143, 149, 218n, 228—9, 255, 261
dark matter 104, 122—4, 127, 127n, 128, 141, 142, 143, 170 173, 174—5, 178—9, 203, 208, 218n, 228—9, 261
David X. Li 289—90
Davies, Paul 274, 275
Dawkins, Richard 276—7
de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave
theory 210—11
de Sitter, Willem 255
Debye, Pieter 30
decoherence 212—14, 217, 241
Descartes, René 262
Deutsch, David 217—18, 240
DeWitt, Bruce 216, 217
Dick, Philip K. 6
Dicke, Robert 114, 115, 116—17
dimensions, hidden extra 55, 59, 94, 104, 146, 158, 159, 159n, 160, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 190, 191, 192—203, 205, 206, 211, 224—30, 253, 261, 265, 266, 282, 286
Dimopoulos, Savas 165, 200
Dirac, Paul 45, 59—60, 61, 63, 64, 79, 166, 167, 182, 206
Discourse on Method (Descartes) 262
Discover 237
Discovery Institute, Seattle 270—1, 272
Doppler effect 108—9, 109n
Duff, Michael 196—7, 198
Duhem, Pierre 12
Dvali, Gita 200
Dyson, Freeman 63
E = mc2 59, 62, 91—3, 144, 248
Eddington, Arthur 18, 18n, 97
Edinburgh International Book
Festival, 2011 xiii
Edinburgh University 69
Ehrenfest, Paul 184
Einstein, Albert xiii, 1, 7, 15, 17, 27, 38, 54, 102, 116, 129, 136, 144, 155, 182, 192, 194, 208, 209, 211, 234, 255, 261, 262, 284
challenges Bohr with series of
‘thought experiments’ 42—6, 50, 55
contraction of length and 89—91
cosmological constant and 104—6, 120, 125, 127, 143, 145, 261, 278
criticism of quantum theory 38, 42—6, 49
dilation of time and 87—9
E = mc2 59, 62, 91—3, 144, 248
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
thought experiment and 43—6, 47, 50, 51
‘equivalence principle’ 96
expansion of universe,
attitude towards idea of 107, 108
general theory of relativity 17—18, 30, 43, 55, 81, 95—101, 104—6, 107, 145—8, 182, 193, 235, 247, 258
gravity and curvature of
spacetime 94—7
light quantum hypothesis 28—30, 31, 91, 130
redshift and 98—9
Schrödinger’s cat and 132—3
search for way to unify
gravity and
electromagnetism 182—3, 184
simultaneity and speed of light 84—7
Spacetime and 93—101
special theory of relativity 30, 34, 42, 55, 58—9, 59n, 70n, 81, 84—7, 91, 96, 99—100, 134
‘spooky action-at-a-distance’,
calls collapse of the
wavefunction 42, 46
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
thought experiment 43—6, 47, 50, 51
Ekpyrotic universe 228
electro-nuclear force 118, 139, 160, 170
electro-weak epoch 118, 119, 139
electro-weak force 67—8, 69, 70—1, 72, 73, 77, 117, 118, 130, 139, 140 158, 160, 169, 177, 200, 288, 298, 300
electromagnetism 28, 55—6, 57, 61, 170
Big Bang and 103
fluctuations of field in a
vacuum 41—2
forces of nature and 55—6
goldilocks enigma and 265—6
quantum electrodynamics
(QED), formal theory of 63—4, 77, 136, 145, 158, 159, 198
radiation and light 3, 27, 28
search for theory of
unification with gravity 182—4, 185, 192, 200
strong nuclear force and see
strong nuclear force
SUSY and 168, 169, 170 171, 172, 173
theory of 28
unifying weak nuclear force
and 67—8, 139
electrons:
abstract nature of 16
Big Bang and 103, 109, 111, 113
bounced off each other 61—2
collapse of wavefunction and 54—5
exchange of photon between
as experience of force 62
field 61
g-factor 63—4
left hand of the 65—6
light ‘bounced’ off 30
matrix mechanics and 58
scalar electron 166
‘self-energy’ of 62—3
spinning 58—60
two-slit interference patterns 54
volt 10, 10n, 118, 137 139, 142, 169
elements, formation of 263—5
Ellis, George 274, 275
End of Science, The (Horgan) 297—8, 299
Englert, François 69, 70
ensemble of universes 268
‘equivalence principle’ 96
eternal inflation 221—4, 225, 227, 229
Euclid 96—7, 116, 183, 255n
Euler, Leonhard 185
Everett III, Hugh 215, 216, 221
External Reality Hypothesis (ERH) 236
Fabric of the Cosmos, The (Greene) 94, 206
Fact Principle 12, 130 Facts and Mysteries in Elementary
Particle Physics (Veltman) 202
fairy-tale physics ix—xi, xii—xiii, 1, 2, 24, 131, 135, 180, 181, 259
end of physics and 297—9
harm of 291—4
it isn’t science, what is it? 284—7
philosophy and 295—7
what do you want me to do
about it? 299—300
falsifiability xii, 18—20, 21, 293—4
Fermi Gamma-ray Space
Telescope 143, 257
Fermi, Enrico 33, 62, 64, 143, 257
Fermilab x, 117
Tevatron 176, 177
fermions 33, 34, 65, 163—5, 166, 167, 169, 173, 187, 188, 194, 195, 229, 282
Ferrara, Sergio 173
Feynman, Richard 63, 64, 205, 293, 294
‘Feynman diagrams’ 63
fine-tuning problem 139, 140 148—50, 163, 222, 262, 266, 268, 278, 281, 283
FitzGerald, George 90
flatness and horizon problems 115—17
force carriers 67, 68, 72, 77, 78, 118, 146, 158—9, 170, 173
force particles 65, 77, 78, 80, 136n, 158, 159, 160, 164, 167, 188, 234
Ford, Kent 123
frame-dragging 100, 101
Frank, Adam 237
Freedman, Daniel 173
Friedman, Alexander 107, 108
Frigg, Roman 296—7
Fritzsch, Harald 76
Galileo 55, 217, 237
Galle, Johann 19
Gamow, George 106, 111, 112—13, 114
Gaussian copula function 289—90
Gell-Mann, Murray 74, 76, 777
general theory of relativity 17—18, 30, 43, 55, 81, 95—101, 104—6, 107, 145—8, 182, 193, 235, 247, 258
Geneva, University of 49
geodetic drift 101
Georgi, Howard 118, 119, 121, 159, 160—1, 162, 165, 170
Glashow, Sheldon 67, 68, 69, 119, 121, 159, 160—1, 162, 202
Global Positioning System (GPS) 89
gluinos 166, 167, 177, 178
gluons 77, 79, 136n, 159, 166, 177, 254, 255
God particle see Higgs boson
Gold, Thomas 111—12
Goldilocks enigma 265—7, 275
Goldilocks Enigma, The (Davies) 275
Graham, Neill 216
Grand Delusion 289—90
grand unification epoch 118, 120, 121, 139
grand unified theory (GUT) 119, 119n, 120, 121, 159—64, 175
gravitons 73, 146, 173, 189, 200
gravity 15, 55—6, 57, 123, 125, 127, 128, 136
Big Bang and 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 112, 119n, 123, 125, 127, 128
black holes and 246
curvature of spacetime and 94—7
Goldilocks enigma and 265—6
Gravity Probe B 100—1
quantum 145—7, 182—207, 216, 222, 227, 246, 248, 258
relativity and 94—101
search for way to unify
electromagnetism and 182—207
supergravity 172—4, 190, 197, 206
Green, Michael 190, 192
Greene, Brian 94, 206, 207, 221, 224, 225—6, 229, 231, 232—3, 268—9
Gross, David 190, 192, 231
ground state 68, 69
Grover, Leo 240
Guralink, Gerald 69, 70
Guth, Alan 116—17, 119, 120, 224, 225
hadrons 65, 74, 77
> Hagen, Carl 69, 70
Harvard University 67, 76, 99
Harvey, Jeffrey 192
Hawking, Stephen xiii, 142
black hole war and 256
fairy-tale physics and xiii, 206
radiation 142, 143, 247—50, 251, 252, 257, 258
The Grand Design 206
Heisenberg, Werner 7, 31, 38, 39, 40, 41, 58, 62, 79, 130, 143, 182, 248
Herman, Robert 113, 114, 114n, 115
Herschel, William 19
Heuer, Rolf 72
Hidden Reality, The (Greene) 221, 224, 229, 232—3, 257—8, 268—9, 291—4
hidden variables, non-local 46—51, 210, 21 4
‘crypto’ non-local hidden
variable theories 50—1, 210
hierarchy problem 138—40, 163, 168—9, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 200, 208, 261
Higgs boson 10, 11, 11n, 12, 22, 32n, 71—3, 77, 77n, 130, 131, 136n, 139, 140 159, 166, 167, 169, 178, 204, 288, 298, 300
Higgs doublet 175—6
Higgs field 55, 70, 78, 80, 118, 120, 121, 137, 155
Higgs mass 163, 165, 168, 169, 177
Higgs mechanism 69—70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 117, 130, 188, 235, 288
Higgs triplet 176
Higgs, Peter 69, 288
Higgsino 166, 167, 172
High-z Supernova Search Team 126
Higher-z Supernova Search
Team 127
holographic principle ix, x, 252—6, 259, 260
and superstring theory 254—6
Hooft, Gerard’t 71, 188, 250, 252, 253
Hořava, Petr 199, 201, 226
Horizon:‘What is Reality?’ x, 214—15
Horowitz, Gary 194
Hoyle, Fred 111—12, 113n, 114, 263, 264, 278, 279
Hubble Space Telescope 126
Advanced Camera for Surveys
(ACS) 127
Hubble, Edwin 108, 109—10, 111
Hubble’s Law 108—10, 115
Humason, Milton 108, 109—10, 111
Hume, David 287
Imperial College, London 69, 71
inertia 14, 33, 55, 70, 91, 92, 96, 217
inflation 103, 117—20, 122, 124, 126, 150, 221—4, 225—9, 266
information, universe as ix, x
entropy and 241—6
quantum 238—41
Institute for Quantum Optics
and Quantum Information 51
Institute for Theoretical Physics,
University of California,
Santa Barbara 250, 252
interference 28, 35, 36
two-slit 28, 31, 35—6, 37, 37, 38, 54, 55
wave 28, 31, 35—6, 37, 37, 38, 54, 55
integral of the first kind 185
intelligent design 270—3
International Astronomical
Union 276
symposium, Cracow, 10—12
September 1973 267
intuition, importance of 1, 15—16, 17, 130, 164
invariant, laws of physics as 93, 94
Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate,
American Museum of
National History, New
York, 2011 206—7
Israel, Werner 247
Jaki, Stanley 274—5