Table of Contents
Preface Playing with the Universe 1
Part I Magnet
Chapter 1 The Beginnings of Things 11
Chapter 2 The Unpaired Spinning Electron 17
Chapter 3 Parking in the Shadow of Magnetism's Forgotten Man 27
Chapter 4 Into Whose Embrace Iron Leaps 35
Chapter 5 Revolutions on Paper 47
Chapter 6 The Earth's Magnetic Soul 53
Chapter 7 Voyage into the Underworld 63
Chapter 8 The Greatest Scientific Undertaking the World Had Ever Seen 71
Chapter 9 The Rock That Turned the World Upside Down 85
Part II Current
Chapter 10 Experiment in Copenhagen 95
Chapter 11 A Very Intimate Relationship 101
Chapter 12 Jars Full of Lightning 107
Chapter 13 The Apothecary's Son 117
Chapter 14 The Bookbinder's Apprentice 133
Chapter 15 Magnets Making Currents 139
Chapter 16 The Lines That Pill the Air 147
Part III Core
Chapter 17 The Contorting Gyre 155
Chapter 18 Shocks Inside the Earth 165
Chapter 19 Pharaohs, Fairies, and a Tar-Paper Shack 175
Chapter 20 Zebra Skins Under the Sea 185
Chapter 21 At the Outer Edge of the Dynamo 195
Chapter 22 Anomaly to the South 203
Chapter 23 The Worst Physics Movie Ever 213
Chapter 24 The Great Hazardous Spinning Sphere of Sodium 221
Part IV Switch
Chapter 25 Looking Up 231
Chapter 26 Horrors the Lights Foretold 239
Chapter 27 Lethal Patches 249
Chapter 28 The Cost of Catastrophe 257
Chapter 29 Trout Noses and Pigeon Beaks 263
Chapter 30 A Suit of Stiff Black Crayon 269
Notes 279
Selected Bibliography 301
Acknowledgments 307
Index 311