A Different Universe

Not since Feynman has a Nobel physicist written with as much panache as Laughlin. He proposes a new way of understanding fundamental laws of science. In an age of superstring theories & Big-Bang cosmology, we think of the unknown as being impossibly distant from everyday life. The edges of science lie in the 1st nanofraction of a second of existence or in realms so small that they can't be glimpsed by the most sophisticated experimental techniques. But we haven't reached the end of science-only the end of reductionist thinking. Considering the world of emergent properties instead, suddenly the deepest mysteries are as close as the nearest ice cube or salt grain. He goes farther: the most fundamental laws of physics-such as Newton's laws of motion & quantum mechanics-are in fact emergent. They're properties of large assemblages of matter. When their exactness is examined too closely, it vanishes into nothing. A Different Universe goes into a cosmos where space vacuum has to be considered a kind of solid matter, where sound has quantized particles just like light, where there are many phases of matter, not just three, & where metal resembles a liquid while superfluid helium is more like a solid. It's a cosmos teeming with natural phenomena still to be discovered. This mind-altering book shows a surprising, beautifully mysterious new world.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Frontier law

Living with uncertainty

Mount Newton

Water, ice, and vapor

Schrödinger's cat

The quantum computer

Vin Klitzing

I solved it at dinner

The nuclear family

The fabric of space-time

Carnival of the baubles

The dark side of protection

Principles of life

Star warriors

Picnic table in the sun

The emergent age

Notes

Index