The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion

We cannot do it in this way for two reasons. First, we do not yet know all the basic laws: there is an expanding frontier of ignorance. Second, the correct statement of the laws of physics involves some very unfamiliar ideas which require advanced mathematics for their description.

Physics basically says we’ll understand the universe because we’re going to extremize a function. That’s what physics does—optimization, some least-action principles. So, we’re going to minimize the time, we’ll minimize the energy, we’ll minimize the distance. We’re looking for those functions that we’re trying to extremize and we’re going to repre

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we will explain Feynman’s approach in detail, and employ it to explore the idea that the universe itself has no single history, nor even an independent existence. That seems like a radical idea, even to many physicists. Indeed, like many notions in today’s science, it appears to violate common sense. But common sense is based upon everyday experien

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