Includes bibliographical references and index

Foreword -- Preface -- Part 1: Realm Of The Atom -- Atoms and quarks -- Atoms in motion / Richard P Feynman -- Large and the small / Kenneth W Ford -- Gay tribe of electrons / George Gamow -- Radioactive substances / Pierre Curie -- E=mc² / Albert Einstein -- Man who listened / Robert P Crease and Charles C Mann -- Theory of electrons and positrons / Paul A M Dirac -- Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory / Werner Heisenberg -- Uncertainty and complementarity / Heinz R Pagels -- Schrodinger's cat / Heinz R Pagels -- Unified theory of physics / Timothy Ferris -- Butterflies and super strings / Freeman J Dyson -- Time and space -- Distinction of past and future / Richard P Feynman -- Second law of thermodynamics / Max Planck -- Age of the elements / David N Schramm -- Two masses / Isaac Asimov -- Einstein's law of gravitation / Bertrand Russell -- Black holes / Roger Penrose -- Black holes ain't so black / Stephen W Hawking -- Part 2: Wider Universe -- Sun and beyond -- Total eclipse / Annie Dillard -- Astride the comet / Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan -- Cosmic terrorist / Richard Muller -- I think I see it / Richard Muller -- Classifying the stars / Annie J Cannon -- How a supernova explodes / Hans A Bethe and Gerald Brown -- Measuring the universe / Harlow Shapley -- Milky Way galaxy / Bart J Bok -- Structure of the universe -- Cosmology: the quest to understand the creation and expansion of the universe / Allan Sandage -- Exploration of space / Edwin Hubble -- Spherical space / Arthur Stanley Eddington -- Primeval atom / Georges Lemaitre -- New physics and the universe / James Trefil -- Let there be light: modern cosmogony and biblical creation / Owen Gingerich -- Beginnings and endings -- First three minutes / Steven Weinberg -- Magic furnace / Harald Fritzsch -- Origin of the universe / Alan Lightman -- How will the world end? / John D Barrow and Joseph Silk -- Part 3: Cosmos Of Numbers -- About mathematics -- Mathematician's apology / Godfrey Harold Hardy -- Mathematics and creativity / Alfred Adler -- How long is the coast of Britain? / Benoit B Mandelbrot -- Chaos / James Gleick -- Artificial intelligence and all that -- Computers / Lewis Thomas -- Computer and the brain / John von Neumann -- Can a machine think? / Alan Turing -- Math angst -- Loss of certainty / Morris Kline -- Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences / Eugene P Wigner -- What is mathematics / John D Barrow -- Limits of mathematics / Philip J Davis and Reuben Hersh --

Part 4: Ways Of Science -- Scientists' lives and works -- Albert Einstein / John Archibald Wheeler -- Autobiographical notes / Albert Einstein -- Tribute to Max Planck / Albert Einstein -- Rutherford / C P Snow -- Dirac / Jagdish Mehra -- Hilbert / Paul A M Dirac -- Quest for order / John Tierney -- Legend of John von Neumann / P R Halmos -- On the beach / Andrew Hodges -- Ramanujan and Pi / Jonathan M Borwein and Peter B Borwein -- Paul Erdos: mathematician / Lee Dembart -- Man of science-Abdus Salam / Nigel Calder -- Two shakers of physics: memorial lecture for Sin-itiro Tomonaga / Julian Schwinger -- Robert Wilson and the building of Fermilab / Philip J Hilts -- Los Alamos / Stanislaw M Ulam -- Coming into my own / Luis W Alvarez -- Two cultures / C P Snow -- Women in science / Vivian Gornick -- Iron / Primo Levi -- Poetry of science -- When I heard the learn'd astronomer / Walt Whitman -- I am like a slip of comet / Gerard Manley Hopkins -- Arcturus / Emily Dickinson -- Star-swirls / Robinson Jeffers -- Galaxy / Richard Ryan -- Molecular evolution / James Clerk Maxwell -- Atomic architecture / A M Sullivan -- Seeing things / Howard Nemerov -- Cosmic gall / John Updike -- Nomad / Anthony Piccione -- Little cosmic dust poem / John Haines -- Connoisseur of chaos / Wallace Stevens -- Kings of the world / Rainer Maria Rilke -- Windy planet / Annie Dillard -- Space shuttle / Diane Ackerman -- Epistemology / Richard Wilbur -- What science says to truth / William Watson -- from An essay on man / Alexander Pope -- True enough: to the physicist / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- About Planck time / George Bradley -- Observatory ode / John Frederick Nims -- Philosophy and science -- Nature of science / Isaac Asimov -- Art of discovery / Horace Freeland Judson -- Structure of scientific revolutions / Thomas S Kuhn -- Logic of scientific discovery / Karl Popper -- Causality and complementarity / Niels Bohr -- from Letters to Max Born / Albert Einstein -- Black magic and white magic / Jacob Bronowski -- Positivism, metaphysics, and religion / Werner Heisenberg -- Science and religion / Albert Einstein -- Acknowledgments -- Index

From the Publisher: An astonishing cast of more than ninety renowned writers provides thoughtful and lucid reflections on some of the major scientific topics of our time-from black holes and galaxies to artificial intelligence and chaos theory. Featuring essays, articles, and poems penned by notables in the worlds of both science and literature, this unique book will delight the science enthusiast and the inquisitive general reader alike

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