Contents
Not everything has surfaced. Not yet.
01 — The Constant
α = 1⁄137
The fine-structure constant, and the century of measurement it took to pin it down.
02 — The Angle
137.5°
The angle plants use between one leaf and the next, and the physics behind why.
03 — The Sequence
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…
A rule simple enough for a child, reached independently by poets, kings, and insects.
04 — The Prime
2, 3, 5, 7, 11…
The numbers nothing else is built from, and where the world hides its secrets inside them.
05 — The Soul
137
A physicist and a psychiatrist, a decade of letters, and a number neither could quite explain away.
06 — The Disagreement
5.5σ
The two best measurements of α ever made, and why they still don't agree with each other.
07 — Kronos and Kairos
Kronos, Kairos
Two Greek words for time, a statue with a bald spot, and what a clock can and can't tell you about why.
08 — Deep Time
Two Billion Years
A nuclear reactor no one built, light older than the Sun, and a number that hasn't moved.
09 — The Wager
A Case of Wine
A neuroscientist, a philosopher, a bar in Bremen, and a bet about consciousness that took twenty-five years to lose.