The origin of the world and the nature of the heavens. The will to believe ; Beyond space and time ; To be, or to become? That is the question ; Lessons from Plato's dream ; The transformative power of a new observational tool ; Cracking open the dome of heaven ; Science as nature's Grand Narrative ; The plasticity of space ; The restless universe ; there is no now ; Cosmic blindness ; splitting infinities ; Rolling downhill ; Counting universes ; Interlude : a promenade along the string landscape ; Can we test the multiverse hypothesis?
From alchemy to the quantum : the elusive nature of reality. Everything floats in nothingness ; Admirable force and efficacy of art and nature ; The elusive nature of heat ; Mysterious light ; Learning to let go ; The tale of the intrepid anthropologist ; What waves in the quantum realm? ; Can we know what is real? ; Who is afraid of quantum ghosts? ; From whom the bell tolls ; Consciousness and the quantum world ; Back to the beginning
Mind and meaning. On the laws of humans and the laws of nature ; Incompleteness ; Sinister dreams of transhuman machines, or, The world as information ; Awe and meaning.