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The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology:
Celebrating Stephen Hawking's 60th Birthday
by G. W. Gibbons (Editor), E. P. S. Shellard (Editor), S. J. Rankin (Editor)


Future of theoretical physics and cosmology

Table of Contents:

  • Preface;
  • List of contributors;
    • 1. Introduction;
  • Part I. Popular Symposium:
    • 2. Our complex cosmos and its future. Martin J. Rees;
    • 3. Theories of everything and Hawking's wave function of the Universe. James B. Hartle;
    • 4. The problem of space-time singularities: implications for quantum gravity? Roger Penrose;
    • 5. Warping spacetime. Kip Thorne;
    • 6. 60 years in a nutshell. Stephen W. Hawking;
  • Part II. Spacetime Singularities:
    • 7. Cosmological perturbations and singularities. George F. R. Ellis;
    • 8. The quantum physics of chronology protection. Matt Visser;
    • 9. Energy dominance and the Hawking-Ellis vacuum conservation theorem. Brandon Carter;
    • 10. On the instability of extra space dimensions. Roger Penrose;
  • Part III. Black Holes:
    • 11. Black hole uniqueness and the inner horizon stability problem. Werner Israel;
    • 12. Black holes in the real universe and their prospects as probes of relativistic gravity. Martin J. Rees;
    • 13. Primordial black holes. Bernard Carr;
    • 14. Black hole pair creation. Simon F. Ross;
    • 15. Black holes as accelerators. Steven Giddings;
  • Part IV. Hawking Radiation:
    • 16. Black holes and string theory. Malcolm Perry;
    • 17. M theory and black hole quantum mechanics. Joe Polchinski;
    • 18. Playing with black strings. Gary Horowitz;
    • 19. Twenty years of debate with Stephen. Leonard Susskind;
  • Part V. Quantum Gravity:
    • 20. Euclidean quantum gravity: the view from 2002. Gary Gibbons;
    • 21. Zeta functions, anomalies and stable branes. Ian Moss;
    • 22. Some reflections on the status of conventional quantum theory when applied to quantum gravity. Chris Isham;
    • 23. Quantum geometry and its ramifications. Abhay Ashtekar;
    • 24. Topology change in quantum gravity. Fay Dowker;
  • Part VI. M Theory and Beyond:
    • 25. The past and future of string theory. Edward Witten;
    • 26. String theory. David Gross;
    • 27. A brief description of string theory. Michael Green;
    • 28. The story of M. Paul Townsend;
    • 29. Gauged supergravity and holographic field theory. Nick Warner;
    • 30. 57 varieties in a NUTshell. Chris Pope;
  • Part VII. de Sitter Space:
    • 31. Adventures in de Sitter space. Raphael Bousso;
    • 32. de Sitter space in non-critical string theory. Andrew Strominger;
    • 33. Supergravity, M theory and cosmology. Renata Kallosh;
  • Part VIII. Quantum Cosmology:
    • 34. The state of the universe. James B. Hartle;
    • 35. Quantum cosmology. Don Page;
    • 36. Quantum cosmology and eternal inflation. A. Vilenkin;
    • 37. Probability in the deterministic theory known as quantum mechanics Bryce de Witt;
    • 38. The interpretation of quantum cosmology and the problem of time. J. Halliwell;
    • 39. What local supersymmetry can do for quantum cosmology. Peter D'Eath;
  • Part IX. Cosmology:
    • 40. Inflation and cosmological perturbations. Alan Guth;
    • 41. The future of cosmology: observational and computational prospects. Paul Shellard;
    • 42. The ekpyrotic universe and its cyclic extension. Neil Turok;
    • 43. Inflationary theory versus the ekpyrotic/cyclic scenario. Andrei Linde;
    • 44. Brane (new) worlds. Pierre Binetruy;
  • Appendix:
    • 45. Publications of Stephen Hawking.


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Last updated 28 February 2003