Parallel Universes
by Wolf, Fred AlanEdition: Reprint
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 1990-02-15
Publisher(s): Simon & Schuster
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Summary
Is science fact stranger than science fiction? In an "outrageous ride along the frontiers of science" (New Age Journal), physicist Fred Alan Wolf explores the startling concept of parallel universes - worlds that resemble and perhaps even duplicate our own - and puts a refreshing and illuminating spin on the complex theories challenging our perceptions of the universe. Through such lively examples as a superspace theater and zero-time ghosts, Wolf deftly guides the reader through the paradoxes of today's physics to explore a realm of scientific speculation in which black holes are gateways of information between universes, and alter egos spring into existence at the flip of a coin. Wolf explores a future when time travelers will make history - and alter the past - while testing Earth's first time machine; when lucid dreaming and schizophrenia may mark the overlap of parallel universes; when quantum computers may predict the stock market. Book jacket.
Author Biography
Fred Alan Wolf is the author of several books, including Taking the Quantum Leap, which won the American Book Award. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he lectures extensively around the world. He and his wife make their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 17 |
| Quantum Physics: Bringing in an Observer | p. 21 |
| Relativity: Relationships-Weird and Wonderful | p. 22 |
| Cosmology: A Search for the Beginning | p. 22 |
| Psychology: Consciousness and Machine Intelligence | p. 22 |
| Parallel Universes and Communication with the Future | p. 23 |
| What Are Parallel Universes? | p. 25 |
| How Quantum Physics Predicts the Existence of Parallel Universes | p. 30 |
| The New Physics Had Strange Ideas | p. 32 |
| The Penultimate Experiment: Shooting Through Double Slits | p. 34 |
| The Mystery Persists | p. 37 |
| The Wave Was Not Real | p. 37 |
| Why Parallel Universes Were Invented | p. 38 |
| Riding the Wave Through Parallel Worlds | p. 40 |
| A Dizzy Atom in an Infinity of Worlds | p. 42 |
| The Quantum Magic Lantern Theater | p. 44 |
| The Electron Exists in Parallel Universes | p. 46 |
| A Wave Passes Through Copenhagen | p. 47 |
| Trouble in the New Physics | p. 52 |
| The Observer Participates Whether She Wants to or Not | p. 53 |
| The Meaning of a Quantum Wave Function | p. 56 |
| The Wave Was Invisible | p. 57 |
| The Emperor's New Clothes: The Quantum Wave Function | p. 58 |
| Does the Universe Quantum Jump? | p. 59 |
| A Reappraisal: What Happened to the Unity in Universe? | p. 63 |
| The Business of Isness | p. 68 |
| Infinity, Infinity Everywhere and Not a Spot to Think | p. 69 |
| The First Infinity: A Straight Line | p. 71 |
| Infinity Number 2-It's All Done with Mirrors | p. 72 |
| How Things That Are Depend on Things That Aren't and How We Aren't Normally Aware That Anything is Any Different | p. 74 |
| Reflections in a Parallel Universe | p. 75 |
| In-Betweenness or Room for One More | p. 76 |
| Reflection | p. 77 |
| Self-Reference: Isness and Ain'tness | p. 80 |
| It's a Complementary World After All | p. 82 |
| An Example: A Coin in Four Universes | p. 83 |
| Look Up in the Air-It's Superspace! | p. 88 |
| Superspace! Broadway Theater Style | p. 89 |
| Uncertainty in Superspace | p. 91 |
| What If Newton Was Right? Silly Superspace | p. 93 |
| A Pattern of Order in Superspace: Consciousness Emerging | p. 97 |
| A Mouse, a Coin, and a Quantum Conspiracy | p. 99 |
| A Conspiracy of Universes | p. 101 |
| Inside and Outside: Time Bends and Space Warps | p. 105 |
| Relativity and Time As a Dimension of Space | p. 112 |
| Primal Time | p. 113 |
| The First Time I Saw Spacetime | p. 113 |
| The Popular Dimension of Time | p. 114 |
| How Time Can Be Viewed as the Fourth Dimension | p. 115 |
| The Democratization of Space and Time | p. 115 |
| A Relativistic Game of Catch | p. 116 |
| What Does a Four-Dimensional Object Look Like? | p. 118 |
| Time Is Space Is Time Is... | p. 118 |
| Real Time, Zero Time, Imaginary Time and Real Space, and Imaginary Space | p. 120 |
| Invariance in Geometry | p. 121 |
| Invariance in Spacetime | p. 122 |
| Imaginary Space | p. 123 |
| A Change in Time | p. 124 |
| Going Down Fifth Avenue in Spacetime | p. 125 |
| An Ordinary Particle | p. 126 |
| A Zero-Time Ghost | p. 127 |
| An Imaginary Time Superman | p. 129 |
| Einstein's Parallel Universe | p. 131 |
| If Pythagoras Is Right, Spacetime Is Flat | p. 132 |
| Visualizing a Curved Space | p. 133 |
| Einstein's Curves | p. 137 |
| Einstein Going Around the Bend | p. 138 |
| Measuring Time Warps | p. 140 |
| A Bend in Time Means a Parallel Universe | p. 142 |
| Black Holes: Gateways to Parallel Universes | p. 144 |
| Space Warps | p. 145 |
| How Space Curvature Creates a Black Hole | p. 146 |
| What Is a Black Hole? | p. 148 |
| How Black Holes Predicted Parallel Universes | p. 151 |
| My Meeting with a Black Hole Map Maker | p. 152 |
| What's Black and White and Dread All Over? | p. 157 |
| An Imaginary Journey to Parallel Universes Through a Black Hole | p. 159 |
| Sending Tachyons to Do a Photon's Work | p. 163 |
| How a Rotating Black Hole Is a Bridge to Many Universes | p. 165 |
| An Infinity of Parallel Universes | p. 169 |
| "In the Beginning There Was..." | p. 171 |
| The First Inconsistency, Not Enough Time to Start the Universe | p. 174 |
| Inflationary Models | p. 175 |
| Inflation Is Not Enough | p. 175 |
| Parallel Universes Solve Another Problem | p. 177 |
| The First Observer of the Big Bang | p. 178 |
| The Names of God | p. 179 |
| A Cloud and the Observer Effect | p. 180 |
| The Observer Disturbs and Creates | p. 180 |
| The Grand Prix at the Beginning of Time | p. 181 |
| Time at the Beginning of Time | p. 181 |
| Space Where No One Has Gone Before | p. 182 |
| Black Holes: Another Way to a Parallel Universe | p. 183 |
| The Scale of the Universe | p. 183 |
| Problems in Eden | p. 185 |
| Singularities Do Not Admit Laws of Physics in Their Domains | p. 186 |
| In the Beginning There Was Uncertainty | p. 189 |
| The Ground Upon Which the Universe Stood | p. 192 |
| An Electron in an Atom and a Universe in a Universe of Universes | p. 193 |
| The Universe at Time Zero: Energy or Location? | p. 194 |
| Who Saw What When? | p. 196 |
| The Measure of All Things | p. 197 |
| Classical Gas on the Mind | p. 197 |
| Classical Coin Flipping | p. 198 |
| Quantum Spin Flipping | p. 198 |
| How Parallel Universes Predict a New Notion of Time | p. 201 |
| Do Thoughts and Wishes Time Travel? | p. 202 |
| Neutron Star Time Machines | p. 205 |
| Time Travel | p. 207 |
| Time Travel Paradox Resolution by Parallel Universes | p. 210 |
| Clashing Waves of Time | p. 213 |
| Time Is Invisible | p. 214 |
| Classical Physics Has No Time Order | p. 215 |
| Quantum Physics Has No Time Order | p. 217 |
| Time Waves | p. 218 |
| A New Picture of Time | p. 221 |
| Which Future Sends the Message? | p. 222 |
| Me in the Future Talks to Me in the Now | p. 223 |
| Wheeler's Choice | p. 225 |
| A Photon from the Dawn of Time | p. 226 |
| Experimental Verification of Backward-Through-Time Travel | p. 227 |
| Now Makes the Past | p. 228 |
| Does the Future Influence the Present? | p. 229 |
| Resolving the Paradox: Time Travel and Parallel Universes | p. 231 |
| Time Is Self-Consistently Connected to Parallel Universes | p. 232 |
| Building a Time Machine | p. 234 |
| Dateline December 3, 2587: Galaxy News Report | p. 236 |
| Dateline December 15, 2587: Galaxy News Report | p. 246 |
| Back to the Present | p. 251 |
| Time and Mind in Parallel Universes | p. 253 |
| The Mind in Parallel Worlds | p. 256 |
| Mind in Parallel Universes | p. 258 |
| Quantum Rules of the Game According to Hoyle | p. 261 |
| A Knight's Alter Egos | p. 265 |
| The Spouse-of-the-Day | p. 269 |
| Quantum "Two-Timers" and more Messages from the Future | p. 271 |
| How to Violate the Uncertainty Principle: Talk to Yourself in the Future | p. 272 |
| Taking a Photograph of Another Parallel Universe | p. 274 |
| Get Your Cameras Ready | p. 275 |
| The Rules of Parallel Universe Photography | p. 276 |
| Taking the Photograph of a Parallel World | p. 276 |
| Using Parallel Universes to Predict the Stock Market | p. 280 |
| How Is something Known? | p. 283 |
| Quantum Computers and Quantum Ethics | p. 291 |
| Quantum Ethics | p. 292 |
| Talking to Tomorrow's Parallel Universe | p. 295 |
| The Infinite Number of Parallel Universes...Inside Your Head | p. 296 |
| The Scientist's Brain Is Split by the Atom | p. 297 |
| Information Flows from Past to Present and from Future to Present | p. 298 |
| Alpha and Omega | p. 300 |
| Both the Future and the Past Exist | p. 302 |
| The Omega Point | p. 304 |
| An Overall View | p. 305 |
| Reality and Existence | p. 309 |
| Notes | p. 313 |
| Glossary | p. 321 |
| Bibliography | p. 331 |
| Index | p. 339 |
| Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved. |
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