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| Preface | |
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| Prologue | |
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| Route map | |
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| Waves versus particles | |
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| Science and experiment | |
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| Light and quantum mechanics | |
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| The double-slit experiment | |
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| Heisenberg and uncertainty | |
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| Watching electrons | |
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| Heisenberg's uncertainty principle | |
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| Uncertainty and photography | |
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| Feynman's quantum paths | |
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| Fractals: a mathematical curiosity | |
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| Schrodinger and matter waves | |
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| De Broglie's matter waves | |
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| Schrodinger's equation | |
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| Electron and neutron optics | |
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| Atoms and nuclei | |
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| Rutherford's nuclear atom | |
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| Quantized energy levels | |
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| The hydrogen atom | |
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| Wavefunctions and quantum numbers | |
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| Atom traps and light | |
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| Quantum tunnelling | |
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| Barrier penetration | |
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| Wave tunnelling | |
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| Applications of quantum tunnelling | |
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| Nuclear physics and alpha decay | |
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| Nuclear reactions and Einstein's mass-energy relation | |
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| Radioactivity, nuclear fission and the atom bomb | |
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| Pauli and the elements | |
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| Electron spin and Pauli's exclusion principle | |
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| The elements | |
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| Metals, insulators and semiconductors | |
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| Transistors and microelectronics | |
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| Quantum co-operation and superfluids | |
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| Laser light | |
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| Bose condensation and superfluid helium | |
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| Cold atoms | |
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| Superconductivity | |
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| The quantum Hall effect | |
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| Quantum jumps | |
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| Max Born and quantum probabilities | |
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| Photons and polarized light | |
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| John Bell and the EPR Paradox | |
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| Schrodinger's cat | |
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| The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics | |
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| Decoherence | |
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| Quantum engineering | |
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| Richard Feynman and nanotechnology | |
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| From Moore's Law to quantum dots | |
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| Quantum information | |
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| Quantum computers | |
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| Quantum teleportation and all that | |
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| Death of a star | |
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| A failed star | |
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| Hydrogen burning | |
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| Red giants and white dwarfs | |
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| Neutron stars and black holes | |
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| Feynman rules | |
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| Dirac and antiparticles | |
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| Feynman diagrams and virtual particles | |
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| Zero-point motion and vacuum fluctuations | |
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| Hawking radiation and black holes | |
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| Weak photons and strong glue | |
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| The double-slit experiment revisited | |
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| The birth of particle physics | |
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| Weak photons and the Higgs vacuum | |
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| Quarks and gluons | |
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| Superconductors, magnetic monopoles and quark confinement | |
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| Beyond the Standard Model | |
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| Afterword--quantum physics and science fiction | |
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| Prelude: the atom and the nucleus | |
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| Nuclear energy and the 'Golden Age' of science fiction | |
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| Jonbar Points, multiple universes and Schrodinger's Cat | |
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| Nanotechnology and quantum computers | |
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| A final word | |
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| Epilogue | |
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| The size of things | |
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| Solving the Schrodinger equation | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Quotations and sources | |
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| Suggestions for further reading | |
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| Photo-credits | |
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| Name index | |
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| Subject index | |