| The art of the impossible |
| | 1 | (26) |
| The power of negative thinking |
| | 1 | (2) |
| | 3 | (4) |
| Those for whom all things are possible |
| | 7 | (5) |
| | 12 | (1) |
| | 13 | (6) |
| | 19 | (2) |
| | 21 | (3) |
| | 24 | (2) |
| | 26 | (1) |
| | 27 | (30) |
| | 27 | (4) |
| The voyage to Polynesia via Telegraph Avenue |
| | 31 | (6) |
| | 37 | (4) |
| The big idea of unlimited knowledge |
| | 41 | (4) |
| | 45 | (3) |
| Some nineteenth-century ideas of the impossible |
| | 48 | (7) |
| | 55 | (2) |
| | 57 | (28) |
| What do we mean by the limits of science? |
| | 47 | (11) |
| | 58 | (7) |
| | 65 | (3) |
| Selective and absolute limits |
| | 68 | (2) |
| Will we be builders or surgeons? |
| | 70 | (2) |
| | 72 | (11) |
| How many discoveries are there still to be made? |
| | 83 | (1) |
| | 84 | (1) |
| | 85 | (33) |
| | 85 | (6) |
| | 91 | (4) |
| Modern art and the death of a culture |
| | 95 | (1) |
| Complexity matching: climbing Mount Improbable |
| | 96 | (4) |
| | 100 | (7) |
| | 107 | (2) |
| | 109 | (2) |
| Does science always bring about its own demise? |
| | 111 | (2) |
| Death and the death of science |
| | 113 | (1) |
| | 114 | (2) |
| | 116 | (2) |
| | 118 | (37) |
| Is the Universe economically viable? |
| | 118 | (2) |
| | 120 | (2) |
| Some consequences of size |
| | 122 | (3) |
| | 125 | (3) |
| Manipulating the Universe |
| | 128 | (10) |
| Criticality: the riddle of the sands |
| | 138 | (4) |
| Demons: counting the cost |
| | 142 | (5) |
| | 147 | (3) |
| Is technological progress inevitable (or always desirable)?---a fable |
| | 150 | (3) |
| | 153 | (2) |
| | 155 | (35) |
| | 155 | (9) |
| Inflation---still crazy after all these years |
| | 164 | (5) |
| | 169 | (1) |
| Is the Universe open or closed? |
| | 170 | (1) |
| | 171 | (3) |
| The natural selection of universes |
| | 174 | (2) |
| | 176 | (2) |
| Did the Universe have a beginning? |
| | 178 | (4) |
| Naked singularities: the final frontier |
| | 182 | (2) |
| | 184 | (1) |
| | 185 | (3) |
| | 188 | (2) |
| | 190 | (28) |
| | 190 | (5) |
| | 195 | (2) |
| | 197 | (2) |
| Time travel: is the Universe safe for historians? |
| | 199 | (8) |
| | 207 | (4) |
| | 211 | (4) |
| Metaphorical impossibilities |
| | 215 | (1) |
| | 216 | (2) |
| | 218 | (30) |
| Godel's theorem and physics |
| | 218 | (3) |
| Does Godel stymie physics? |
| | 221 | (9) |
| Godel, logic, and the human mind |
| | 230 | (2) |
| | 232 | (4) |
| | 236 | (2) |
| Mathematics that comes alive |
| | 238 | (1) |
| A stranger sort of impossibility |
| | 239 | (3) |
| The Arrow Impossibility Theorem |
| | 242 | (4) |
| | 246 | (2) |
| Impossibility: taking stock |
| | 248 | (5) |
| Telling what is from what isn't |
| | 248 | (5) |
| Notes | | 253 | (22) |
| Index | | 275 | |
