Hyperspace (59 page)

8
. Quoted in John Gribben,
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat
(New York: Bantam, 1984), vi.

9
. Quoted in Heinz Pagels,
The Cosmic Code
(New York: Bantam, 1982), 113.

10
. Quoted in E. Harrison,
Masks of the Universe
(New York: Macmillan, 1985), 246.

11
. F. Wilczek and B. Devine,
Longing for the Harmonies
(New York: Norton, 1988), 129.

12
. Pagels,
Cosmic Code
, 155.

13
. Quoted in David Freedman, “Parallel Universes: The New Reality—From Harvard’s Wildest Physicist,”
Discover Magazine
, July 1990, 52.

14
. Ibid., 48.

15
. Ibid., 49.

16
. Ibid., 51.

17
. Ibid., 48.

1
. Paul Davies,
Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 168.

2
. Freeman Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe
(New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 76.

3
. Freeman Dyson,
Infinite in All Directions
(New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 196–197.

4
. Dyson,
Disturbing the Universe
, 212.

5
. Carl Sagan,
Cosmos
(New York: Random House, 1980), 306–307.

6
. In fact, aeons ago it was even easier to self-destruct. In order to make an atomic bomb, the fundamental problem facing any species is to separate uranium-235 from its more abundant twin, uranium-238, which cannot sustain a chain reaction. Only the uranium-235 will sustain a chain reaction. But uranium-235 is only 0.3% of naturally occurring uranium. To sustain a runaway chain reaction, you need an enrichment level of at least 20%. In fact, weapons-grade uranium has a 90% or more enrichment rate. (This is the reason why uranium mines do not suffer from spontaneous nuclear detonations. Because naturally occurring uranium in a uranium mine is only 0.3% enriched, it contains far too low a concentration of U-235 to sustain a runaway nuclear chain reaction.)

Because uranium-235 is relatively short-lived compared with its more abundant twin, uranium-238, aeons ago, the naturally occurring enrichment rate in our universe was much larger than 0.3%.

In other words, it was far easier then for any civilization to fabricate an atomic bomb because the naturally occurring enrichment rate was much larger than it is today.

7
. Heinz Pagels,
The Cosmic Code
(New York: Bantam, 1982), 309.

8
. Sagan,
Cosmos
, 231,

9
. Quoted in Melinda Beck and Daniel Glick, “And If the Comet Misses,”
Newsweek
, 23 November 1992, 61.

1
. Quoted in John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler,
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 167.

2
. Quoted in Heinz Pagels,
Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time
(New York: Bantam, 1985), 382.

3
. Ibid., 234.

4
. Astronomers John D. Barrow of the University of Sussex in England and Joseph Silk of the University of California at Berkeley see some hope in this dismal scenario. They write, “If life, in any shape or form, is to survive this ultimate environmental crisis, then the universe must satisfy certain basic requirements. The basic prerequisite for intelligence to survive is a source of energy.

“The anisotropies in the cosmic expansion, the evaporating black holes, the remnant naked singularities are all life preservers of a sort…. An infinite amount of information is potentially available in an open universe, and its assimilation would be the principal goal of any surviving noncorporeal intelligence” (
The Left Hand of Creation
[New York: Basic Books, 1983], 226).

5
. Ibid.

6
. Gerald Feinberg,
Solid Clues
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 95.

1
. Quoted in Heinz Pagels,
The Cosmic Code
(New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 173–174.

2
. Edward Witten, Interview, in
Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?
ed. Paul Davies and J. Brown (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 102.

3
. Quoted in John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler,
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 185.

4
. Pagels,
Cosmic Code
, 382.

5
. James Trefil,
The Moment of Creation
(New York: Macmillan, 1983), 220.

6
. John Ellis, Interview, in
Superstrings
, ed. Davies and Brown, 161.

7
. Quoted in R. P. Crease and C. C. Mann,
The Second Creation
(New York: Macmillan, 1986), 77.

8
. Quoted in Anthony Zee,
Fearful Symmetry
(New York: Macmillan, 1986), 122.

9
. Ibid., 274.

10
. Heinz Pagels,
Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time
(New York: Bantam, 1985), xiii.

11
. Stephen Hawking,
A Brief History of Time
(New York: Bantam, 1988), 175.

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Gamow, G.
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A Brief History of Time
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Heisenberg, W.
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Kaku, M.
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Abbot, Edwin, 55–58

Alvarez, Luis, 296

Alvarez, Walter, 296

Antheil, George, 22

Anthropic principle, 257–259

Antimatter, 122–123, 126

Aristotle, 34

Asimov, Isaac, 5, 279, 310

Askey, Richard, 176

Astrochicken, 280–281, 309

Averaged weak energy condition (AWEC), 250–251

Aztecs, 285–286, 299, 305

Banchoff, Thomas, 11

Barrett, Sir W. F., 53

Barrow, John D., 306, 308–310, 350n.4

Bayeux Tapestry, 63–64

Bell, E. T., 31

Big Bang theory, x, 27, 180, 195–197, 213, 218, 303, 310

Big Crunch, 28, 303, 307

Binding energy curve, 218–219

Blackbody radiation, 197

Black holes, 22, 217–218, 222–227, 245, 253, 306

Blake, William, 124

Bohr, Niels, 137, 260

Bolsheviks, 65, 67–68

Bolyai, János, 377n.4

Bond, Nelson, 75

Borges, Jorge Luis, 262

Borwein, Jonathan, 176

Borwein, Peter, 176

Bose, Satyendra, 144

Boson, 144

Bronowski, Jacob, 81

Buller, A. H. R., 233

Bush, Ian D., 186

Capra, Fritjhof, 319

Carroll, Lewis (Charles Dodgson), 22, 42, 62, 124

Casimir, Henrik, 250

Casimir effect, 250

Causality, 234–235

Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, 94, 226

Chew, Geoffrey, 324

Clifford, William, 337n.6

Closed time-like curve (CTC), 240, 248

Coleman, Sidney, 266–268

Compactified dimension, 105, 158–159

Compte, Auguste, 186

Conrad, Joseph, 22

Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
, 199–202

Cosmic rays, 184–185

Cosmological constant, 267–268

Cosmological proof of God, 192–194

Crookes, William, 50, 339n.l3

Curvature, 40

Dali, Salvadore, 70

Dark matter, 304

Darwin, Charles, 28, 131, 302

Davies, Paul, 273

DeWitt, Bryce, 144, 262

Dirac, P. A. M., 112, 147, 189, 327

Dirkson, Everett, 182

Dixon, L., 347n.3

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 22, 65–67

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 167

Drake, Frank, 283–284