Authors: Bill Bryson
metaphysics, 79, 94
defining, 95
of Leibniz, 85–86, 90–91, 105
meteorology, 478
Michelino, Domenico, painting by,
65
Milankovitch cycles, 394
Milky Way galaxy,
458–59
Millau Viaduct,
248–49
, 249
millenarian cults, 407
Miller, Stanley, 332–33
Miller-Urey experiment, 332–33,
332
Millikan, Glenn, 261
Milstein, Cesar, 267
Milton, John,
Paradise Lost,
114–15
mind, science of, 77, 79–80
miniaturisation, 353
mining, 302–3
Minkowski, Hermann, 455
Minkowskian void, 74
Mitterrand, Fran÷ois, 270
mobile phones,
477
Modjeski, Ralph, 240–41,
240
Moisseiff, Leon S., 243
Monod, Jacques,
Chance and Necessity,
330, 335
Monsarrat, C. N., 240–41,
240
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 48
Montgolfier brothers, and ballooning, 158, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 179
Monthly Review,
165
moon, creation of, 328
Moore, Keith, 10
morality, 391
Moray, Robert, 25–26, 28
Morgan, George Cadogan, 139, 152–53
Moss, Richard, 438
motion:
laws of, 100–101, 364, 365, 372–73
as mathematical concept, 117, 127
Muhsam, Hans, 471
Muldoon, Paul,
The End of the Poem,
417
multiverse theory, 339
Murakami, Haruki,
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
410
museums:
collections in, 187–92, 196–99, 201
functions of, 187
gardens as, 189, 192–95
information retrieval in, 192–93
for the public good, 191
myoglobin, 265
Nairne, Edward, 136, 137, 138, 145–48, 149, 150, 152
nanotechnology, 319, 479, 483
Napoleon Bonaparte, 6
Nash, David, 393
National Academy of Sciences, 430
Natural History Museum, London, 186, 191, 198, 275
natural selection,
see
evolution
Nature:
balance of, 396
constants of, 374–75
forces of, 365, 367, 374
laws of, 61, 80, 363–64, 366, 372, 373–74, 450
mathematical concepts of, 117–18, 352
medieval study of, 69
patterns in, 363–65
rationality of, 448
navigation:
and ballooning, 172–76
early days of, 356
GPS, 357,
358
, 454
mercury barometer, 173
Neumann, John von, 98
Newton, Isaac,
88
, 111,
112
and alchemy, 91
and Arian heresy, 91n
and cosmology, 62, 67, 74, 75
death mask of, 10–11,
10
death of, 129
early years of, 347–48
on the end of the world, 407
on free will, 93–94
and
Geographia,
24
on gravity, 72, 344,
347
, 348, 363, 373, 450, 463, 470
importance of, 204, 211
and Leibniz, 85, 89–94, 100–102, 105
as Master of the Mint, 84
mathematical laws of, 93, 126–29, 344, 348, 359
and metaphysics, 92
microscope of, 11,
11
on motion, 100–101, 364, 365, 372–73
on optics, 33–34,
34
,
35
, 128–29, 472
Principia,
10, 126–28,
126
, 348
and religion, 62, 72–73, 75
and Royal Society, 12, 13, 32–35, 73, 84
telescope invented by, 30, 32
on time, 446, 449–50, 452, 455
New York World’s Fair (1939), 244
New York World Trade Center, 245
Niagara Gorge Suspension Bridge, 241
Nicolas of Cusa,
On Learned Ignorance,
66
Nightingale, Florence, 263
Norman, Robert, 113
Nuclear Energy: The future climate
(Royal Society), 418
nuclear fusion reactions, 330
nuclear weapons:
and apocalypse, 408,
408
“heroic age” of, 481–82
opponents of, 268, 270
nylon, 311
Obama, Barack, 481,
482
oceans, heat capacity in, 428
Oldenburg, Henry, 5, 32, 34, 35, 119n
Olson, Ken, 476
Oparin, Alexander, 332
Order Out of Chaos
(Linnean Society), 193
Orwell, George, 387
Oster, George, 379
Ouroboros symbol of cyclicality,
448
Ove Arup, 247
Owen, Richard, 186–87, 201
oxygen:
discovery of, 304,
305
and steel production, 306
Paine, Clifford E., 243
palaeontologists, 450, 461
Paley, Rev William, 205, 219
paper, and plastic, 313–14
parabola, 455
paradox of the plankton, 291, 293
Parkinson, Sydney, 190
Pascal, Blaise, 97
Pauli exclusion principle, 98
Pauling, Linus, 256, 260
Paxton, Joseph, 237
Peierls, Rudolf, 482,
483
penicillin, structure of, 252, 262
pepsin, 261
Pepys, Samuel, 29
Perutz, Max, 255, 263–66,
264
, 267–68, 271
Petty, William, 300, 301
pharmaceuticals, 315–16
phenomenology, 104
phenotypes, 227
Phillips, David, 266, 268–69
Phillips, Thomas, portrait by,
168
Philosophical Transactions
(Royal Society), 3, 5, 24, 30, 34, 176, 363, 468
philosophy:
in medieval world, 66–67
natural, 348, 349–59
“new,” 301
photography:
of bridge designs, tests, and disasters, 235, 238–41,
245
digital, 353–56,
354
JPEG standard, 354–56
seeing via, 388–89
physics, 69, 338, 448
Planck, Max, 193
planets:
extra-solar, 327–28
formation of, 326–27
life on, 328–31, 334
orbits of, 326–27, 403
plastics, 309–13
plate tectonics, 394
Plato, 85, 119, 298
Platonism, 104, 111, 119
Pleiades star cluster, 62,
63
Plot, Robert, 197
polymer materials, 209–13
Pope, Alexander, 55
population growth, 480, 485
Porter, George F., 240–41,
240
, 469
possible-world theory, 102–3
Powers, Richard, 319
Priestley, Joseph, 10, 160, 179, 305, 396
primum mobile,
64
probabilities, inverse, 2
probability, theory of, 353
Project Habbakuk, 264
Promethian Science
(World Bank), 154
protein structure analysis, 261
Proxima Centauri, 456
psychoanalysis, 77, 79
pterodactyls, 185
Ptolemaic model, 66
Ptolemy, 109
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, 270, 482
PVC (polyvinylchloride), 311, 312
Pythagoras, 69–70,
70
, 72
quantum effects, 74
quantum information technology, 319
quantum mechanics, 98, 99, 101, 129, 338
many-worlds interpretation of, 102–3
quantum theory, 470
quantum universe-nucleation process, 339
Quebec Bridge, 239–41,
240
quintessence, 65
radioactivity:
dating artifacts via, 452
discovery of, 451
railway bridges, 230–49
railway gauges, 237
Ramakrishnan, Venkatramen, 267
Ramanujan, Srinivasa, 476
Randall, Lisa, 368n
random chance vs. design, 205–6, 289–93
Raphael, 71
rationalism, empiricism vs., 111, 113–21, 122–23, 129
Ray, John, 193
rayon, 311
realism:
actualist, 102
modal, 102, 104
Reed-Solomon codes, 346, 351
Rees, Martin, 339, 415
Our Final Century,
406–7
relativism, 124
relativity, 74, 99, 129, 337, 373, 453–54, 456, 470,
471
Renaissance, 71, 72, 303
Restoration, 301
Riemann, Georg, 471
risk assessment:
in climate change, 435–41, 442–43
as consequence x probability, 436–37
Roberts, Paul,
The End of Food,
409
Roberts brothers, 173
Robespierre, Maximilien, 143
Robinson, Heath, 171
robotic intelligence, 477–78, 479
rocks, dating of, 451–52,
452
Roddenberry, Gene, 60
Roebling, John, 238, 241, 246
Rotblat, Joseph, 482,
483
Rothwell, Richard, portrait by,
49
Royal Academy of Engineering, 418
Royal Albert Bridge (Saltash Bridge), 238
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, 191–92
Royal Geographic Society, 274
Royal Society:
aims of, 469
Cowley’s ode to, 301
founding of, 3, 18,
19
,
20
, 47, 108–9, 111, 113, 122, 301
influence of, 15, 274
international aspect of, 5
longevity of, 11–12
meetings of,
136
membership in, 7–9, 12–13, 123, 137, 257
name of, 5–6
range of interests of, 3, 5, 13–15, 21–22, 24–29, 135–36, 418, 468
on the side of reason, 73
Summer Science Exhibition, 13
treasures in storeroom of, 10–11
Royal Society of Literature, 418–19
Royal Society Year Book,
13
Rozier, Pilâtre de, 159, 166
Rudwick, Martin,
Bursting the Limits of Time,
196
Russell, Bertrand, 90, 92, 95–96,
96
History of Western Philosophy,
96
Rutherford, Ernest, 13, 196, 476
Sadler, James, 181
Sagan, Carl, 80
Saint-Fond, Barthé lemy Faujas de, 166, 168, 170
Salisbury, Bishop of, 33
Saltash Bridge (Royal Albert Bridge), 238
salvation, 74
San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, 243–44
Sanger, Fred, 267
Sargasso Sea, 285
Scheele, Carl Wilhelm, 304
Schneider, C. C., 240
Schönbein, Christian, 310
Schrödinger, Erwin, 471, 474
Schwarz, John, 366
science:
age of, 73
English as language of, 3
ethics in, 479
experimental, 298
full disclosure in, 430
humanitarian goals of, 122
and mathematics, 359, 363
museum specimens in, 188, 196, 201
for peace, 268
Promethian, 132, 142–43, 148–54
public acceptance of, 73
public applications of, 144
pure vs. applied, 297–98, 301–2, 316, 318–19, 469, 475–78
and religion, 76–77
responsibility of, 482–83
routine in, 190
and social change, 346
and technology, 298, 475–78
unending quest of, 469
self, and space, 76–77
self-adaptive systems, 383
self-organising criticality, 381–82
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), 335–36
Shanghai,
480
Sheldon, John, 174
Sheldrake, Rupert, 79
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft,
49
, 410, 423
Frankenstein,
49–51,
50
, 154
Shelton Regulator clock, 10
silicon, 313
silicon chip, 475, 477
silk, 313
simplicity, quest for, 363–68
Simpson, George Gaylord, 336
Sloane, Sir Hans, 198–99,
199
smallpox epidemic, 47–48
Smeathman, Henry, 159
Smith, William, 196, 450
Smolin, Lee,
The Trouble with Physics,
99
Snoblen, Stephen D., 407
Snow, C. P., 297–98, 301, 302
Socié té Philomathique, Paris, 6
soil, biodiversity in, 285, 291
Solander, Daniel, 190, 191, 199
solar eclipse, 11
solar system:
age of, 330
Copernicus on, 116,
116
, 322,
323
extent of, 326
heliocentric model of, 116
Kepler on, 375, 376,
376
location of, 325
Solé, Richard, 383
Solnhofen fossils, 184–86,
185
Somerset House,
136
, 137, 158
soul:
crossing over, 79
idea of, 76–77, 80
space:
concepts of, 61–62
Earth seen from, 386–88,
387
, 389, 396, 398, 402–3,
402
Euclidian view of, 71–72, 74
and heaven, 72–73
hyperspace, 74–76
and mathematics, 343, 344–48, 349, 351–52
post-Newtonian, 74–76
reality of, 75
and religion, 72–73
and self, 76–77
short history of, 62–72
three-dimensional, 367–68
and time, 64, 74, 92, 449–50, 454–55
space-time, 74, 454, 455–56, 460, 463
spatial monism, 79–80
species:
arrangement of, 195–96
diversity of, 196, 284–85;
see also
biodiversity
new, formation of, 218, 315–17
Spenser, Edmund,
The Faerie Queen,
412
spin, 371
Spinoza, Baruch, 117, 118–19
Spix’s macaw, 283
Sprat, Thomas, 27, 30, 301
Sprengel, Hermann, 9
Starkey, George, 301
stars:
carbon in, 329
distribution in the universe, 325
lifetimes of, 329, 330, 462
Milky Way galaxy,
458–59
Pleiades, 62,
63
Proxima Centauri, 456
supernovae, 329, 397
Star Trek
(film), 60, 61
state space theory, 102
steel:
alloys, 307
Bessemer process for, 303–4, 306
stem-cell technology, 317