Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1947151 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 299 pages

Synopsis
The tradition of modern scientific thought and discovery goes back to the days of the Renaissance, and is generally agreed to have put an end to much mystic, hermetic and gnostic writing about the universe and everything in it. In this all-embracing view of the furthest reaches of science, Benjamin Walker argue that only by referring to these 'obsolete' concepts can anyone begin to make sense of things that are spoken of seriously - but which even their adherents agree cannot be proved. Quarks, quanta, neutrinos, antiparticles, statons and tachyons: the complexity of the concepts seems far from ancient Greek philosophers like Archimedes and Plato, let alone giants such as Newton, Darwin, Pasteur and Einstein. What links them all is not the popular view of scientific detachment and precision, but a willingness to reach for the answers and then discover the methodology - more often than not in an imaginative, almost poetic manner. This fascinating compendium of modern scientific thought is also a study of man's ability to move beyond his immediate surroundings.

Customer Reviews

stuff you struggle to understand explained painlessly
This is an impressive tour d'horizon of arcane lines of thought in the sciences. The style is lucid and a hint of dry humour lurks in the prose - as in the title; this is welcome as the subject lends itself either to hyperbole or pomposity and there is none of that here. At times the author admits to struggling to understand a concept - which is a tonic for the poor reader overawed by the writer's erudition or by the intellectual leaps of the practitioners of these dark arts. As a small criticism I would say that I tried to find out a bit more about the earth's core and theories about it but did not; this against the background of a wide scope of subjects and references however. A great book.