God and the Multiverse by Stenger, Victor J. -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Contents Acknowledgments Prologue Preface 1. From Myth to Science

The Word Creation Ex Nihilo Other Cultures Greek Physical Cosmology

Thales Anaximander Anaximenes The Atomists Pythagoras and Philolaus Empedocles Plato Aristotle Aristarchus Hipparchus Ptolemy

2. Toward the New Cosmos

Cosmology in Christendom Cosmology in the Arabic Empire Copernicus and the Sun-Centered Universe Initial Reaction Kepler and the Laws of Planetary Motion

Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

Turning the Telescope on the Heavens Galilean Relativity

Principle of Galilean Relativity

The Mechanical Universe

Newton's Second Law of Motion

Opticks Newton and God

3. Beyond Unaided Human Vision

Eighteenth-Century Astronomy Kant's Cosmos Herschel's Heavens Olbers's Paradox Sufficient Reason The Center of the Universe

4. Glimpses of the Unimagined

The Advance of Celestial Mechanics Laplace's Demon Nineteenth-Century Astronomy

5. Heat, Light, and the Atom

Thermodynamics

First Law of Thermodynamics Second Law of Thermodynamics

Electromagnetism Atoms and Statistical Mechanics Violating the Second Law The Arrow of Time The End of Classical Physics Anomalies

6. The Second Physics Revolution

Everything Explained? Not Quite Special Relativity The Relativity of Time and Space Time and Space Defined The Relativity of Energy and Momentum General Relativity Black Holes Noether's Theorem Quantum Mechanics The Planck Scale Atoms and Nuclei

7. Island Universes

The Cepheid Scale Off Center High-Speed Astronomy A Spiraling Debate The Realm of Hubble

8. A Dynamic Cosmos

Relativistic Cosmology Friedmann's Universe Lemaître's Universe Hubble's Law Lemaître is Noticed Lemaître's Primeval Atom “Therefore, God Exists!” Tired Light Variable Constants Milne's Cosmology Missing Mass Radio Astronomy

9. Nuclear Cosmology

Filling in More Details A Hot, Dense Past Ylem The Steady-State Challenge Stellar Nucleosynthesis The Steady State and God Active Galaxies

Seyfert Galaxies Radio Galaxies Quasars

Pulsars

10. Relics of the Big Bang

Static from the Sky The Spectrum Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis Reborn David Schramm: The Gentle Giant of Cosmology Temperature in the Expanding Universe The Light Nuclei On to Atoms

11. Particles and the Cosmos

The Visible Universe The Structure Problem Gravitational Lensing The Invisible Universe The Rise of Particle Physics Symmetry and Invariance Symmetries and the “Laws of Physics” Particles or Fields? The Birth of Particle Astrophysics Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry The Search for Proton Decay The GUT Phase Transition Supersymmetry (SUSY) M-Theory

12. Inflation

Big-Bang Bugs

The Flatness Problem The Horizon Problem The Structure Problem The Monopole Problem

Inflation, Old and New

The Flatness Problem Solved The Horizon Problem Solved The Monopole Problem Solved

Chaotic Inflation Large-Scale Structure Structure and Inflation Looking Back to the Beginning

13. Falling Up

Wrinkles in Time New Windows on the Universe Very High-Energy Astrophysics Neutrino Mass Dark Matter WIMPS and SUSY Dark Energy The Cosmological-Constant Problem Back to the Source Jumping on the Bandwagon

14. Modeling the Universe

Surveying the Sky Hearing the Bang ΛCDM The First Stars The Planck Satellite Gravitational Waves Searching for Dark Matter Recent Hints of Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Highest-Energy Neutrinos Ever A Word of Caution

15. The Eternal Multiverse

From the Big Bang to Now The Future Did the Universe have a Beginning? At the Planck Time Quantum Gravity The Biverse The Multiverse Eternal Inflation Solving the Entropy Problem Discovering other Universes The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics Timeless Reality Are Many Worlds Real? What is Real? The Mormon Multiverse The Multiverse in Philosophy and Literature

16. Life and God

Planets and Life The Fine-Tuning Question Trivial Parameters Parameters Needed for any Form of Life

The Ratio of Electrons to Protons in the Universe The Ratio of Electromagnetic Force to Gravity The Expansion Rate and Mass Density of the Universe The Cosmological Constant

Other Parameters

The Hoyle Prediction Relative Masses of the Elementary Particles Relative Strengths of the Forces and other Physics Parameters Cosmic Parameters Simulating Universes

Summary of the Case against Fine-Tuning Something Rather than Nothing

1. How can Something Come from Nothing? 2. Where do the Laws of Physics Come from? 3. Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?

The Grand Accident The God Hypothesis A Summary

1. We are Alone 2. We are not Alone

Notes Bibliography About the Author Index Back Cover

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