Twentieth-century physics was a long, strange trip indeed. Stranger still is what might lie ahead. In this startling book, science writer Tom Siegfried takes us into a weird world of quark nuggets, selectrons, quintessence, and quantum cosmology and introduces us to some of the most imaginative ideas being batted about by scientists today, from funny energy to mirror matter to two-timing universes. In addition, he reviews theories of the past both proven and unproven-offering us a grounding in our scientific history as well as an informed and intriguing look at the possibilities of tomorrow.
Strange Matters
Preface
Introduction
PART ONE: STRANGE MATTERS
1. Strange Matter
From Gell-Mann and Quarks to the Search for Quark Nuggets
2. Mirror Matter
From Dirac and Antimatter to the "Mirror World"
3. Super Matter
From Noether's Symmetry Theorem to Superparticles
4. Dark Matter
From Pauli and the Neutrino to the Universe's Missing Mass
PART TWO: STRANGE FRONTIERS
5. The Best of All Possible Bubbles
From Friedmann and Cosmic Expansion to the Multiverse
6. The Essence of Quintessence
From Einstein's Greatest Mistake to the Universe's Accelerating Expansion
7. Superstrings
From Maxwell and Electromagnetic Waves to a World Made of Strings
PART THREE: STRANGE IDEAS
8. Stretching Your Brane
From Schwarzschild and Black Holes to New Dimensions of Space
9. Ghosts
From Riemann and the Geometry of Space to the Shape of the Universe
10. The Two-Timing Universe
From Einstein and Slow Clocks to a Second Dimension of Time
Epilogue
Notes
Further Reading
Index
"Very readable."—Library Journal
"One of the most stimulating popular science works published in the last few years."
—Salon.com
"An intellectual summer read...an extraordinary journey." —Newsday
