Contents
Preface
Introduction
Prologue: Why Your Car Never Seems to Be Ready When
They Promised 1
Section I: Describing the Universe 11
1: The Measure of All Things 13
2: Reality Checks 29
3: All Things Great and Small 41
Section II: The Incomplete Toolbox 65
4 : Impossible Constructions 67
5: The Hope Diamond of Mathematics 81
6: Never the Twain Shall Meet 101
7: Even Logic Has Limits 115
8: Space and Time: Is That All There Is? 133 Section III: Information: The Goldilocks Dilemma 153
9: Murphy’s Law 155
10 : The Disorganized Universe 169
11 : The Raw Materials 185
Section IV: The Unattainable Utopia 203
12 : Cracks in the Foundation 205
13 : The Smoke-Filled Rooms 223
14 : Through a Glass Darkly 237 Index 249
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