Higher Speculations Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology

A comprehensive account of highly ambitious attempts to understand nature in its totality, this book covers little known 'theories of everything' from the past as well as modern developments such as the theory of superstrings, the anthropic principle and ideas of many universes. These theories are presented in their historical contexts and used to problematize the limits of scientific knowledge. Do claims of theories of everything belong to science at all? Whichare the epistemic standards on which an alleged scientific theory of the universe - or the multiverse - is to be judged? Such questions are currently being discussed by physicists and cosmologists, butrarely within a historical perspective.