
The Shortest History of Reality
Description
Making sense of our reality has burdened humanity since the very beginning. In their search for answers, scientists, astrophysicists, and cosmologists have revealed incredible insight into our perception of the world around us-but they have also cracked open a Pandora's box of discoveries that challenge our understanding of what's really out there.
In The Shortest History of Reality, the idea of "what's real" is traced from its everyday, commonsense beginnings to the mind-bending discoveries of modern physics. Along the way, we encounter the great shifts in thought that reshaped our view of existence-from ancient philosophy to the rise of science, from Newton's universe to the strange probabilities of the quantum world and beyond.
Blending science, history, and philosophy, Lewis leads a brisk and lucid tour through humanity's changing grasp of reality, writing the compelling story of how we have tried to make sense of it all. This is no encyclopedia of everything that exists, but it's an accessible, witty romp through space, time, and some of life's most complex questions.
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Content
Foreword by Derek Muller (Veritasium)
Timeline of Human Understanding of Reality
Introduction
Part 1: Early Ideas of Reality
- What Was Reality?
- The Nature of Reality
Part 2: Reality in the Scientific Revolution
- The Rules of Reality
- Light, Color, and the Illusion of Reality
- The Stuff of Nature
Part 3: Reality in the Twentieth Century
- What Is Reality Made Of?
- The Second Theory of Relativity
- The Biological Revolution
- The Quantum Revolution
- The Particle Zoo
Part 4: Exploring the Quantum World
- What Is a Quantum Wave Really?
- The March of Unification
- Symmetry and Antimatter
Part 5: The Future of Reality
- Where Is My Mind?
- The Unfinished Symphony
- Where and When Is Everything?
- Closing Thoughts
Further Reading
Acknowledgments