Table of Contents
Foreword Sean Carroll xi
Introduction Thomas Lin xvii
I Why Doesn't Our Universe Make Sense?
Is Nature Unnatural? Natalie Wolchover 3
Alice And Bob Meet The Wall Of Fire Jennifer Ouellette 9
Wormholes Untangle A Black Hole Paradox K. C. Cole 15
How Quantum Pairs Stitch Space-Time Jennifer Ouellette 21
In A Multiverse, What Are The Odds? Natalie Wolchover 27
Multiverse Collisions May Dot The Sky Jennifer Ouellette 35
How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space Frank Wilczek 43
II What Is Quantum Reality, Really?
A Jewel At The Heart Of Quantum Physics Natalie Wolchover 53
New Support For Alternative Quantum View Dan Falk 61
Entanglement Made Simple Frank Wilczek 67
Quantum Theory Rebuilt From Simple Physical Principles Philip Ball 75
III What Is Time?
Time's Arrow Traces To Quantum Source Natalie Wolchover 87
Quantum Weirdness Now A Matter Of Time George Musser 93
A Debate Over The Physics Of Time Dan Falk 101
IV What Is Life?
A New Physics Theory Of Life Natalie Wolchover 111
How Life (And Death) Spring From Disorder Philip Ball 117
In Newly Created Life-Form, A Major Mystery Emily Singer 127
Break Through DNA Editor Born Of Bacteria Carl Zimmer 131
New Letters Added To The Genetic Alphabet Emily Singer 139
The Surprising Origins Of Life's Complexity Carl Zimmer 145
Ancient Survivors Could Redefine Sex Emily Singer 153
Did Neurons Evolve Twice? Emily Singer 159
V What Makes Us Human?
How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains Ferris Jabr 167
New Evidence For The Necessity Of Loneliness Emily Singer 177
How Neanderthal DNA Helps Humanity Emily Singer 183
The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions Emily Singer 189
Infant Brains Reveal How The Mind Gets Built Courtney Humphries 195
VI How Do Machines Learn?
Is Alphago Really Such A Big Deal? Michael Nielsen 203
New Theory Cracks Open The Black Box Of Deep Learning Natalie Wolchover 209
A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn Andreas von Bubnoff 217
Clever Machines Learn How To Be Curious John Pavlus 223
VII How Will We Learn More?
Gravitational Waves Discovered At Long Last Natalie Wolchover 233
Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story Of Stars Natalie Wolchover 239
Neutron-Star Collision Shakes Space-Time And Lights Up The Sky Katia Moskvitch 245
VIII Where Do We Go From Here?
What No New Particles Means For Physics Natalie Wolchover 253
To Solve The Biggest Mystery In Physics. Join Two Kinds Of Law Robbert Dijkgraaf 259
The Strange Second Life Of String Theory K. C Cole 263
A Fight For The Soul Of Science Natalie Wolchover 271
Acknowledgments 281
Contributors 283
Notes 287
Index 303