eka-silicon (germanium), 135
elasticity of a substance, 47
elections
Arrow’s theorem, see Arrow’s theorem
as foundation of democracy, 205
vote tabulation methods, see vote
tabulation methods
Electoral College, 205–7, 235
electromagnetism, 137, 139, 145, 148
Coulomb’s law, 34
Maxwell’s equations, 139, 146, 147
electroweak force, 36
electroweak theory, 146, 148–49
Elegant Universe, The (Greene), x
Elements (Euclid), 75
Elk Cloner virus, 126
ellipse, 106
“End of History, The?”, 242
energy, 186
laws of thermodynamics, 187–88, 189
parallels between money and, 188–89
engineering, solution of equations as
central to, 97
entanglement, 58–63
entropy, 187–88
black holes and, 196, 197
calculating, 189–90
decreases in, 190–91
information and, 194–95
statistical mechanics and, 191–92
understanding why it increases,
189–90
epidemics
in Athens, 68–69
chaotic behavior of spread of, 182
Epimenides, 115–16
EPR experiment, 61
equilibrium points, 181, 182
Eratosthenes (nickname Beta), 69,
70 –71, 75
Erdos, Paul, 129–30
Euclidean geometry, 24, 25, 145
axioms of, 33–34, 75, 102
noncontroversial, 102
parallel postulate, 25–25, 26, 75,
102–3, 107–11, 240
tools of ancient Greeks and solu-
tions to difficult problems, 68, 69,
71– 72
the universe as Euclidean or
non-Euclidean, 112–13
Euclides ab Omni Naevo Vindicatus
(Saccheri), 104
Euler, Leonhard, 90
exponential functions, 97
extreme sensitivity to initial conditions,
see butterf ly effectF
Fabric of the Cosmos, The (Greene), x, 189
factorization problem, 165
Fermat, Pierre de, 73, 238
Fermat primes, 73, 74
Fermat’s last theorem, 106, 238
fermions, 137, 146
Ferrari, Ludovico, 87, 88–89
Feynman, Richard, 186
Fields Medal, 1, 24, 122, 238
field theories, 146
finite set(s), 15
cardinal number of a, 15–16
Fior, Antonio, 84, 86
“first cause” argument, 244–45
fixed-point theory, 35
f lip, 127
f lipping a coin, 171–72, 173
Fontana, Niccolo (nickname Tartaglia),
84–88
Foundation trilogy, Asimov’s, 243Index 253