ones—and the only way we are going to do that is to train highly compe-
tent people, and some brilliant ones, to attack those problems with the
tools of mathematics and science. For centuries, we sought a philoso-
pher’s stone whose touch would transmute base metals into gold. We
failed, but the desire to find the philosopher’s stone led to the atomic
theory and an understanding of chemistry, which allows us to reshape
the material we find in the world to new and better uses. Is that not a
much more desirable result for mankind than transmuting base metals
into gold?
At the very least, learning what we cannot know and cannot do prevents
us from needlessly expending resources in a futile quest—only Harry
Potter would bother to search today for the philosopher’s stone. We have
no way of knowing—yet—if the quest for a TOE is the philosopher’s
stone search of today. However, if history is any guide, we will discover
again that failing to find a wild goose might still lead us to a golden egg.
The Agent, the Editor, and Stephen Hawking’s Publisher
In the introduction to his best seller A Brief History of Time, Stephen
Hawking mentions that his publisher stated that for each equation he in-
cluded, the readership would drop by 50 percent. Nonetheless, Hawking
had sufficient confidence in his readership that he was willing to include
Einstein’s classic equation E mc^2.
I’d like to think that the readers of this book are made of sterner stuff.
After all, it’s a book about mathematics, and equations represent not only
great truths, such as the one in Einstein’s equation, but the connecting
threads that lead to those truths. In addition to Hawking’s publisher, I
have received input from my editor, who feels that mathematics is abso-
lutely necessary in a book about mathematics, and my agent, who is
happy to read about mathematics, but is decidedly unenthusiastic about
reading mathematics.
There is clearly a fine line here, and so I have tried to write the book to
allow those who want to skip a section in which mathematics is done to
do so without losing the gist of what is being said. Those brave souls who
want to follow the mathematics can do so with only a high-school math-
ematics background (no calculus). However, readers interested in pursu-
ing the subject in greater depth can find references in the Notes (and
occasionally a greater depth of treatment). In many instances, there is ac-
cessible material on the Web, and for most people it is easier to type in a
URL than it is to chase something down in the library (especially since
the neighborhood library is usually lacking in books outlining the math-
xvii Introduction