Holt J. When Einstein walked with Gödel: excursions to the edge of thought

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. — 392 p.Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection of essays, Jim Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who have tried to encompass the latter with the former.
With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot.
'When Einstein Walked with Gödel' offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Finsteinian relativity to string theory. It also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction—and to wonder whether the universe truly has a future.
JIM HOLT writes about math, science, and philosophy for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Review of Books. His book Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story was an international bestseller.Preface
The Moving Image of Eternity
When Einstein Walked with Gödel
Time—the Grand Illusion?
Numbers in the Brain, in Platonic Heaven, and in Society
Numbers Guy: The Neuroscience of Math
The Riemann Zeta Conjecture and the Laughter of the Primes
Sir Francis Galton, the Father of Statistics... and Eugenics
Mathematics, Pure and Impure
A Mathematical Romance
The Avatars of Higher Mathematics
Benoit Mandelbrot and the Discovery of Fractals
Higher Dimensions, Abstract Maps
Geometrical Creatures
A Comedy of Colors
Infinity, Large and Small
Infinite Visions: Georg Cantor v. David Foster Wallace
Worshipping Infinity: Why the Russians Do and the French Don't
The Dangerous Idea of the Infinitesimal
Heroism, Tragedy, and the Computer Age
The Ada Perplex: Was Byron's Daughter the First Coder?
Alan Turing in Life, Logic, and Death
Dr. Strangelove Makes a Thinking Machine
Smarter, Happier, More Productive
The Cosmos Reconsidered
The String Theory Wars: Is Beauty Truth?
Einstein, "Spooky Action," and the Reality of Space
How Will the Universe End?
Quick Studies: A Selection of Shorter Essays
Little Big Man
Doom Soon
Death: Bad?
The Looking-Glass War
Astrology and the Demarcation Problem
Gödel Takes On the U.S. Constitution
The Law of Least Action
Emmy Noether's Beautiful Theorem
Is Logic Coercive?
Newcomb's Problem and the Paradox of Choice
The Right Not to Exist
Can't Anyone Get Heisenberg Right?
Overconfidence and the Monty Hall Problem
The Cruel Law of Eponymy
The Mind of a Rock
God, Sainthood, Truth, and Bullshit
Dawkins and the Deity
On Moral Sainthood
Truth and Reference: A Philosophical Feud
Say Anything
Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Index