- Barrow, John D., Paul C.W. Davies,
and Charles L. Harper, Jr., eds. Science and Ultimate
Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004. ISBN 0-521-83113-X.
- These are the proceedings of the festschrift at Princeton in March 2002 in honour
of John Archibald Wheeler's 90th year within our light-cone.
This volume brings together the all-stars of speculative physics,
addressing what Wheeler describes as the “big questions.” You
will spend a lot of time working your way through this almost
700 page tome (which is why entries in this reading list will be
uncharacteristically sparse this month), but it will be well worth
the effort. Here we have Freeman Dyson posing thought-experiments
which purport to show limits to the applicability of quantum theory
and the uncertainty principle, then we have Max Tegmark on parallel
universes, arguing that the most conservative model of cosmology has
infinite copies of yourself within the multiverse, each choosing
either to read on here or click another link. Hideo Mabuchi's
chapter begins with an introductory section which is lyrical prose
poetry up to the standard set by Wheeler, and if Shou-Cheng Zhang's
final chapter doesn't make you re-think where the bottom of reality
really lies, you're either didn't get it or have been spending way
too much time reading preprints on ArXiv. I don't mean to
disparage any of the other contributors by not mentioning them—every
chapter of this book is worth reading, then re-reading carefully.
This is the collected works of the 21th century equivalent of the
savants who attended the Solvay Congresses in
the early 20th century. Take your time, reread difficult material
as necessary, and look up the references. You'll close this book
in awe of what we've learned in the last 20 years, and in wonder of
what we'll discover and accomplish the the rest of this century and
beyond.
July 2004 