"A professor of physics and prolific author, Halpern shows how prediction - as we think of it now - emerged during the birth of modern science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As scientists discovered the workings of the cosmos, their models allowed for predictions of amazing sophistication and accuracy. Belief in the power of Newtonian mechanics to explain and predict all aspects of the physical world led to scientists' conviction that fate was the inevitable outcome of natural laws and principles." "Breakthroughs in the early part of the twentieth century, however - from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to Einstein's concepts of relative time and space - revealed the limits of our ability to comprehend the universe, forcing scientists to employ other methods of forecasting. Drawing on modern theories of complexity, chaos theory, quantum theory, and relativity, Halpern explores the latest methods of scientific, social, and technological prediction. Will we ever be able to understand and predict the stock market, social interaction, or the weather? When are predictions most likely to succeed? Does time even exist?"--Jacket