Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1 Time and Its Arrows 1
Chapter 2 Bare-Bones Thermodynamics 23
Chapter 3 Statistical Mechanics in a Nutshell 43
Chapter 4 Boltzmann's Tussle with Zermelo 59
Chapter 5 The Curious History of Boltzmann Brains 77
Chapter 6 The Janus Point 87
Chapter 7 The Minimal Model 101
Chapter 8 The Foundations of Dynamics 113
Chapter 9 The Complexity of Shapes 139
Chapter 10 Shape Space 147
Chapter 11 A Role Reversal 155
Chapter 12 This Most Beautiful System 165
Chapter 13 Two Kinds of Dynamical Laws 173
Chapter 14 A Blindfolded Creator 181
Chapter 15 An Entropy-Like Concept for the Universe 191
Chapter 16 A Glimpse of the Big Bang? 207
Chapter 17 The Big Bang in General Relativity 245
Chapter 18 The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe 263
Chapter 19 The Creation of Structure in the Universe 285
Chapter 20 What Does It All Mean? 319
List of Illustrations 333
Notes 335
Bibliography 363
Index 369