The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics

Title ......Page 3
Copyright ......Page 4
Contents ......Page 5
The Story in a Nutshell ......Page 11
Preface ......Page 12
Acknowledgements ......Page 16
PART 1. THE BIG PICTURE IN SIMPLE TERMS ......Page 19
The Next Revolution in Physics ......Page 21
The Ultimate Things ......Page 25
Getting to Grips with Elusive Time ......Page 27
The Properties of Experienced Time ......Page 29
Newton's Concepts ......Page 30
Laws and Initial Conditions ......Page 32
Why is the Universe so Special? ......Page 33
The Physical World and Consciousness ......Page 36
Time Without Time ......Page 38
Time Capsules ......Page 40
Examples of Time Capsules ......Page 42
First Outline ......Page 45
The Crisis of Time ......Page 48
The Ultimate Arena ......Page 49
Is Motion Real? ......Page 56
The Big Picture ......Page 59
PART 2. THE INVISIBLE FRAMEWORK AND THE ULTIMATE ARENA ......Page 69
Absolute or Relative Motion? ......Page 71
An Alternative Arena ......Page 77
The Aims of Machian Mechanics ......Page 81
Apparent Failure ......Page 87
Space and Spin ......Page 96
Energy ......Page 100
Where is Time? ......Page 103
The First Great Clock ......Page 107
The Inertial Clock ......Page 109
The Second Great Clock ......Page 114
Nature and Exploration ......Page 119
Developing Machian Ideas ......Page 123
Exploring Platonia ......Page 125
PART 3. THE DEEP STRUCTURE OF GENERAL RELATIVITY ......Page 131
Historical Accidents ......Page 133
Background to the Crisis ......Page 134
Einstein and Simultaneity ......Page 139
The Forgotten Aspects of Time ......Page 142
The New Arena ......Page 148
From Three to Four Dimensions ......Page 149
Are There Nows in Relativity? ......Page 152
Funny Geometry ......Page 157
Einstein's Way to General Relativity ......Page 161
The Main Advances ......Page 166
The Final Hurdle ......Page 170
General Relativity and Time ......Page 172
The Golden Age of General Relativity ......Page 175
Platonia for Relativity ......Page 177
Best Matching in the New Platonia ......Page 180
Catching up with Einstein ......Page 182
A Summary and the Dilemma ......Page 187
PART 4. QUANTUM MECHANICS AND QUANTUM COSMOLOGY ......Page 193
CHAPTER 12. The Discovery of Quantum Mechanics ......Page 195
Introduction ......Page 203
The Wave Function ......Page 204
Interpreting the Wave Function ......Page 208
States Within States ......Page 210
The Copenhagen Interpretation ......Page 213
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ......Page 215
The Enigmatic Gem ......Page 216
Schrцdinger's Vast Arena ......Page 218
Correlations and Entanglement ......Page 221
The EPR Paradox ......Page 228
Bell's Inequalities ......Page 230
The Many-Worlds Interpretation ......Page 231
A Dualistic Picture ......Page 237
The End of Change ......Page 239
Creation and the Schrцdinger Equation ......Page 242
Quantum Mechanics Hovering in Nothing ......Page 245
History and Quantum Cosmology ......Page 248
A Simple-Minded Approach ......Page 251
'That Damned Equation' ......Page 252
PART 5. HISTORY IN THE TIMELESS UNIVERSE ......Page 259
CHAPTER 17. The Philosophy of Timelessness ......Page 261
Dynamics Without Dynamics ......Page 267
Why do we Think the Universe is Expanding? ......Page 271
The Idea of Time Capsules: The Kingfisher ......Page 274
Smooth Waves and Choppy Seas ......Page 278
History Without History ......Page 281
Airy Nothing and a Local Habitation ......Page 284
Schrodinger's Heroic Failure ......Page 288
History and Records ......Page 292
The Creation of Records: First Mechanism ......Page 294
The Prerequisites of History ......Page 297
The Improbability of History ......Page 300
The Creation of Records: Second Mechanism ......Page 302
Many Histories in One Universe ......Page 307
Bell's 'Many-Worlds' Interpretation ......Page 309
The Many-Instants Interpretation ......Page 312
Causality in Quantum Cosmology ......Page 316
Soccer in the Matterhorn ......Page 317
Timeless Descriptions of Dynamics ......Page 319
A Quantum Origin of the Universe? ......Page 321
Vision of a Timeless Universe ......Page 325
A Weil-Ordered Cosmos? ......Page 331
EPILOGUE: Life Without Time ......Page 333
Notes ......Page 346
Further Reading ......Page 371
Bibliography ......Page 373
B ......Page 376
D ......Page 377
F ......Page 378
I ......Page 379
M ......Page 380
P ......Page 381
S ......Page 382
T ......Page 383
Z ......Page 384