The Pursuit of Destiny: A History of Prediction

by Halpern, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780738200958
• ISBN10: 0738200956
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-01
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

InThe Pursuit of Destiny, physicist Paul Halpern brings a scientist's eye to questions of time and fate, tracing the history of forecasting from its roots in ancient mysticism to its development as a modern science. As Halpern explains, the desire to foretell the future is an integral part of what makes us human. Newtonian mechanics offered the tantalizing possibility of describing nature as a clockwork mechanism, but twentieth-century scientific discoveries, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Einstein's flexible concepts of past, present, and future, undermined this rigid notion. Scientists today grapple with formidable barriers to knowledge, hoping to extend prediction's frontiers. Drawing on modern theories of complexity, chaos theory, quantum theory, and relativity, Halpern explores the latest methods of scientific, social, and technological forecasting. How much of the future is inevitable? When are predictions most likely to succeed? Does time even exist? An intriguing look at the potential limits to our ability to forecast, The Pursuit of Destiny is an eloquent testament to our very human need to try.

Author Biography

Paul Halpern is Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction: The Shape of Things to Come	xv
Yearning for the Future	xv
Progress in Prediction	xvii
The Journey Ahead	xix
Ancient Auguries	1	(32)
The Oracle of Delphi	1	(7)
The Wellspring of Science	8	(6)
Dreams, Schemes, and Madness	14	(3)
Divination's Doubter	17	(6)
Cracking God's Code	23	(6)
The Eyes of Nostradamus	29	(4)
The Lathe of Laplace: The Deterministic Future	33	(32)
Season of Change	33	(7)
The Geometry of Perfection	40	(8)
Newton's Obsessions	48	(4)
The Clockwork Demon	52	(2)
The Beats of Different Determinisms	54	(4)
Nature versus Nurture	58	(2)
Freudian Slips	60	(5)
Light Flights: The Einsteinian Future	65	(38)
The Fourth Dimension	65	(5)
Flexible Moments	70	(4)
Tachyonic Antitelephones	74	(2)
The Theater of Spacetime	76	(3)
Into the Vortex of Darkness	79	(9)
Expeditions to Tomorrow	88	(4)
This Heading Is False	92	(4)
The Man Who Never Was	96	(4)
The Chronology Protection Conjecture	100	(3)
Rolls of the Dice: The Quantum Future	103	(22)
Age of Uncertainty	103	(6)
The Mystery of Quantum Collapse	109	(4)
The Roads All Taken	113	(2)
Island Instants	115	(4)
Reality's Lexicon	119	(6)
Change in the Weather: Chaos and Prediction	125	(26)
Back to Earth	125	(3)
Rambling, Gambling, and Equation Scrambling	128	(3)
Wing Flaps and Thunderclaps	131	(3)
Some Strange Attraction	134	(5)
The Limits of Computation	139	(6)
The Path to Chaos	145	(3)
The Way of Santa Fe	148	(3)
The Body Electric: Complexity and Living Systems	151	(32)
Life, but Not as We Know It	151	(5)
The Glass Bead Game	156	(3)
Peak Performance	159	(4)
A Child's View of Learning	163	(6)
The Edge of Chaos	169	(2)
Gene Nets and Artificial Pets	171	(2)
Fractal Prognoses	173	(6)
Candid Chromosomes	179	(4)
The Roar of Tomorrow: Social and Technological Forecasting	183	(20)
The Prediction Industry	183	(2)
War of Anticipation	185	(2)
The Collective Wisdom of Delphi	187	(2)
New York World's Fair	189	(2)
The Year 2000 as It Could Have Been	191	(4)
False Calls and Lock-Ins	195	(2)
The QWERTY Quandary	197	(2)
The Perils of Punditry	199	(4)
Time's Terminus: Visions of the Far Future	203	(18)
Billions and Billions	203	(7)
Measuring Cosmic Destiny	210	(4)
Unveiling the Final Stages	214	(2)
Beyond Time's Edge	216	(5)
Conclusion: Frontiers of Prediction	221	(14)
The Second Fall	221	(2)
The Prediction Revolution: Triumphs and Challenges	223	(2)
Between Certainty and Chance	225	(2)
Minds, Machines, and Mathematics	227	(1)
The Enigma of Free Will	228	(2)
Our Place in the Cosmos	230	(2)
The Essential Mystery	232	(3)
Further Reading	235	(4)
Notes	239	(4)
Index	243