When Einstein Walked with Gödel

From Jim Holt, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Does the World Exist?, comes an entertaining and accessible guide to the most profound scientific and mathematical ideas of recent centuries in When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought.Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who've tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction-and whether the universe truly has a future.

PART I: THE MOVING IMAGE OF ETERNITY1. When Einstein Walked with Gödel2. Time--the Grand Illusion?PART II: NUMBERS IN THE BRAIN, IN PLATONIC HEAVEN, AND IN SOCIETY3. Numbers Guy: The Neuroscience of Math4. The Riemann Zeta Conjecture and the Laughter of the Primes5. Sir Francis Galton, the Father of Statistics...and EugenicsPART II: MATHEMATICS, PURE AND IMPURE6. A Mathematical romance7. The Avatars of Higher Mathematics8. Benoit Mandelbrot and the Discovery of FractalsPART IV: HIGHER DIMENSIONS, ABSTRACT MAPS9. Geogemetrical Creatures10. A Comedy of ColorsPART V: INFINITY, LARGE AND SMALL11. Infinite Visions: Georg Cantor v. David Foster Wallace12. Worshipping Infinity: Why the Russians Do and the French Don't13. The Dangerous Idea of the InfinitesimalPART VI: HEROISM, TRAGEDY, AND THE COMPUTER AGE14. The Ada Perplex: Was Byron's Daughter the First Coder?15. Alan Turing in Life, Logic, and Death16. Dr. Strangelove Makes a Thinking Machine17. Smarter, Happier, More ProductivePART VII: THE COSMOS RECONSIDERED18. The String Theory Wars: Is Beauty Truth?19. Einstein, "Spooky Action", and the Reality of Space20. How Will the Universe End?PART VIII: QUICK STUDIES: A SELECTION OF SHORTER ESSAYSLittle Big Man * Doom Soon * Death: Bad? * The Looking-Glass War * Astrology and the Demarcation Problem * Gödel Takes On the U.S. Constitution * The Law of Least Action * Emmy Noether's Beautiful Theorem * Is Logic Coercive? * Newcomb's Problem and the Paradox of Choice * The Right Not to Exist * Can't Anyone Get Heisenberg Right? * Overconfidence and the Monty Hall Problem * The Cruel Law of Eponymy * The Mind of a RockPART IX: GOD, SAINTHOOD, TRUTH, AND BULLSHIT21. Dawkins and the Deity22. On Moral Sainthood23. Truth and Reference: A Philosophical Feud24. Say Anything