the ingredient list would include 10[sup 89] photons, 10[sup 89] electrons, 10[sup 89] positrons, 10[sup 89] neutrinos, 10[sup 89] antineutrinos, 10[sup 79] protons, and 10[sup 79] neutrons. The ingredients should be stirred vigorously to produce a uniform batter, which should then be heated to a temperature of 10[sup 10] kelvins. After heating, the total mass/energy of the mix would be about 10[sup 65] grams, or 10[sup 32] solar masses. This number, by the way, is about 10 billion times larger than the total mass in the visible universe today. So, to produce a universe by the standard big-bang description, one must start with the energy of 10 billion universes! Since a chefs first task is to assemble the ingredients, this recipe looks formidable enough to discourage anybody. The Cosmic Cookbook entry for an inflationary universe, on the other hand, looks as simple as meringue. In this case, the natural starting time would be the onset of inflation -- just a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. In contrast to the standard big bang recipe, the inflationary version calls for only a single ingredient: a region of false vacuum (see "The False Vacuum," page 56). And the region need not be very large. A patch of false vacuum 10-26 centimeter across might be all the recipe demands. While the mass required for the previous recipe was 1032 solar masses, the mass in this case is only an ounce: about the mass of a slice of bread. So, in the inflationary theory the universe evolves from essentially nothing at all, which is why I frequently refer to it as the ultimate free lunch. Does this mean that the laws of physics truly enable us to create a new universe at will? If we tried to carry out this recipe, unfortunately, we would immediately encounter an annoying snag: Because a sphere of false vacuum 10[sup -26] centimeter across has a mass of one ounce, its density is a phenomenal 10[sup 80] grams per cubic centimeter. For comparison, the density of water is 1 gram per cubic centimeter, and even the density of an atomic nucleus is only 10[sup 15] grams per cubic centimeter. If the mass of the entire observed universe were compressed to false-vacuum density, it would fit in a volume smaller than an atom. The mass density of a false vacuum is not only beyond the range of present technology, it is beyond the range of any conceivable technology. As a practical matter, therefore, I would not recommend buying stock in a company that intends to market do-it-yourself universe kits. Nevertheless, I will dismiss the gargantuan mass density of the false vacuum as a mere engineering problem, boldly assuming that some civilization in the distant, unforeseeable future will be capable of creating such densities. Is it possible, given what we know of the laws of physics, that someday our descendants might produce new universes by slicing pieces of false vacuum? On the darker side, does the physics of the false vacuum create the possibility of an ultimate doomsday machine? Is our universe imperiled by the threat that a super-advanced civilization in some remote galaxy might create a cancerous patch of false vacuum that would engulf us all? The first step in trying to fabricate a laboratory universe is to creat

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Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)