Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Part I. An overview of the contributions of John Archibald Wheeler -- John Archibald Wheeler and the clash of ides / Paul C.W. Davies -- Part II. An historian's tribute to John Archibald Wheeler and scientific speculation throughout the ages -- The heritage of Heraclitus : John Archibald Wheeler and the itch to speculate / Jaroslav Pelikan -- Part III. Quantum reality : theory -- Why is nature described by quantum theory? / Lucien Hardy -- Thought-experiments in honor of John Archibald Wheeler / Freeman J. Dyson -- It from qubit / David Deutsch -- The wave function : it or bit? / H. Dieter Zeh -- Quantum Darwinism and envariance / Wojciech H. Zurek -- Using qubits to learn about "it" / Juan Pablo Paz -- Quantum gravity as an ordinary gauge theory / Juan M. Maldacena -- The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics / Bryce S. DeWitt -- Part IV. Quantum reality : experiment -- Why the quantum? "It" from "bit"? A participatory universe? : three far-reaching challenges from John Archibald Wheeler and their relation to experiment / Anton Zeilinger -- Speakable and unspeakable, past and future / Aephraim M. Steinberg -- Conceptual tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity : are there experimental consequences? / Raymond Y. Chiao -- Breeding nonlocal Schrödinger cats : a thought-experiment to explore the quantum-classical boundary / Serge Haroche -- Quantum erasing the nature of reality : or, perhaps, the reality of nature? / Paul G. Kwiat, Berthold-Georg Englert -- Quantum erasing the nature of reality : or, perhaps, the reality of nature? / Paul G. Kwiat, Berthold-Georg Englert -- Quantum feedback and the quantum-classical transition / Hideo Mabuchi -- What quantum computers may tell us about quantum mechanics / Christopher R. Monroe -- Part V. Big questions in cosmology -- Cosmic inflation and the arrow of time / Andreas Albrecht -- Cosmology and immutability / John D. Barrow -- Inflation, quantum cosmology, and the anthropic principle / Andrei Linde -- Parallel universes / Max Tegmark -- Quantum theories of gravity : results and prospects / Lee Smolin -- A genuinely evolving universe / João Magueijo -- Planck-scale models of the universe / Fotini Markopoulou -- Implications of additional spatial dimensions for questions in cosmology / Lisa Randall -- Part VI. Emergence, life, and related topics -- Emergence : us from it / Philip D. Clayton -- True complexity and its associated ontology / George F.R. Ellis -- The three origins : cosmos, life, and mind / Marcelo Gleiser -- Autonomous agents / Stuart Kauffman -- To see a world in a grain of sand / Shou-Cheng Zhang -- Appendix A : Science and ultimate reality program committees -- Appendix B : Young researchers competition in honor of John Archibald Wheeler for physics graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty.

This volume provides a fascinating snapshot of the future of physics, covering fundamental physics, at the frontiers of research. It comprises a wide variety of contributions from leading thinkers in the field, inspired by the pioneering work of John A. Wheeler. Quantum theory represents a unifying theme within the book, along with topics such as the nature of physical reality, the arrow of time, models of the universe, superstrings, gravitational radiation, quantum gravity and cosmic inflation. Attempts to formulate a final unification of physics are discussed, along with the existence of hidden dimensions of space, space-time singularities, hidden cosmic matter, and the strange world of quantum technology.