Science and ultimate reality
Subtitle: quantum theory, cosmology, and complexity
By: edited by John D. Barrow, Paul C.W. Davies, and Charles L. Harper, Jr.
Contributors: Barrow, John D., 1952-; Davies, P. C. W.; Harper, Charles L., 1958-
Publisher: Cambridge
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 721
Subjects: Wheeler, John Archibald, -- 1911-; Quantum theory; Cosmology
Notes: "part of a special program, Science and Ultimate Reality, developed in honor of ... John Archibald Wheeler."

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: PART I. AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER; title: John Archibald Wheeler and the clash of ides -- Paul C.W. Davies -- PART II. AN HISTORIAN'S TRIBUTE TO JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER AND SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION THROUGHT THE AGES; title: The heritage of Heraclitus: John Archiblad Wheeler and the itch to speculate -- Jaroslav Pelikan -- PART III. QUANTUM REALITY: THEORY; title: Why is nature described by quantum theory? -- Lucien Hardy; title: Thought-experiments in honor of John Archibald Wheeler -- Freeman J. Dyson; title: It from qubit -- David Deutsch; title: The wave function: it or bit? -- H. Dieter Zeh; title: Quantum Darwinism and envariance -- Wojciech H. Zurek; title: Using qubits to learn about "it" -- Juan Pablo Paz; title: Quantum gravity as an ordinary gauge theory -- Juan M. Maldacena; title: The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics -- Bryce S. DeWitt -- PART IV. QUANTUM REALITY: EXPERIMENT; title: Why the quantum? "It" from "bit"? A participatory universe? Three far-reaching challenges from John Archibald Wheeler and their relation to experiment -- Anton Zeilinger; title: Speakable and unspeakable, past and future -- Aephraim M. Steinberg; title: Conceptual tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity: are there experimental consequences? -- Raymond Y. Chiao; title: Breeding nonlocal Schrödinger cats: a thought-experiment to explore the quantum-classical boundary -- Serge Haroche; title: Quantum erasing the nature of reality: or, perhaps, the reality of nature? -- Paul G. Kwiat, -- Berthold-Georg Englert; title: Quantum feedback and the quantum-classical transition -- Hideo Mabuchi; title: What quantum computers may tell us about quantum mechanics -- Christopher R. Monroe -- PART V. BIG QUESTIONS IN COSMOLOGY; title: Cosmic inflation and the arrow of time -- Andreas Albrecht; title: Cosmology and immutability -- John D. Barrow; title: Inflation, quantum cosmology, and the anthropic principle -- Andrei Linde; title: Parallel universes -- Max Tegmark; title: Quantum theories of gravity: results and prospects -- Lee Smolin; title: A genuinely evolving universe -- João Magueijo; title: Planck-scale models of the universe -- Fotini Markopoulou; title: Implications of additional spatial dimensions for questions in cosmology -- Lisa Randall -- PART VI. EMERGENCE, LIFE, AND RELATED TOPICS; title: Emergence: us from it -- Philip D. Clayton; title: True complexity and its associated ontology -- George F.R. Ellis; title: The three origins: cosmos, life, and mind -- Marcelo Gleiser; title: Autonomous agents -- Stuart Kauffman; title: To see a world in a grain of sand -- Shou-Cheng Zhang -- Appendix A:; title: Science and ultimate reality program committees -- -- Appendix B:; title: Young researchers competition in honor of John Archibald Wheeler for physics graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty.