To AMITY AND MIRA:
“In vain does the God of War growl, snarl, roar, and try to interrupt
with bombards, trumpets, and his whole tarantaran. . . . Let us despise
the barbaric neighings which echo through these noble lands and awaken
our understanding and longing for the harmonies.” — Johannes Kepler
(1571 – 1630)
Introduction xi
Acknowledgments xv
i. Uniformity of Parts
Prelude i: Reply to Keats (on the Rainbow) 3
1. The Nature of Color: We Are All Color-blind 6
2. Spectra: Music of the Spheres 12
3. Earth-stuff and Star-stuff 16
Rhapsody on N (The World Between) 20
ii. Uniformity of Structure
Prelude ii: Radical Conservatism 25
4. The Cosmic Order of Galaxies 29
Doppler Shift 34
5. Expansion and Uniformity 38
6. Inferno and Afterglow 41
Three Ages 49
iii. Transformations
Prelude iii: Treiman’s Theorem 55
7. New Star 58
8. The Weak Interaction 62
Ego and Survival 71
iv. lnevitability
Prelude iv: Levels of Equilibrium 55
9. Universal Chemistry 58
10. Cooking with Gobar 62
11. Explosions and Fluorescence 71
v. Quantal Reality
Prelude v: In the First Circle 99
12. Light as Waves 102
13. Light as Lumps 109
14. Laves 113
15. Branching Worlds 119
Frustration and Uncertainty 130
A Quantum Lottery 133
vi. Radical Uniformity in Microcosm
Prelude vi: Back to Pythagoras 137
16. The Indistinguishable 143
17. Fields 155
Maxwell Redux 165
Virtual Particles 170
vii. Transforming Principles
Prelude vii: The Search for Depth 173
18. Antimatter 177
19. Quarks: A Peculiar Chemistry 189
20. Colour 196
21. Gluons 200
How Asymptotic Freedom Discovered Me 207
22. Asymptotic Freedom 218
In Praise of QCD 226
viii. Symmetry Lost and Symmetry Found
Prelude viii: Relative and Absolute 231
23. Interchangeable Worlds 235
24. More Perfect Worlds 240
25. A Suggested Unity 247
Coda: About the Table 259
26. Salt Mine 261
27. A Little Matter 265
ix. Radical Uniformity in Macrocosm
Prelude ix: Genesis Machines 279
28. Horizons 285
29. Inflation 290
x. Quest
Prelude x: No Firm Foundation 303
30. Families 306
31. Dark Matter 315
32. Hidden Harmonies 335
Notes 343
Index 349