The Demons Of Science

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Bedeviled

Author : Jimena Canales
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691241686
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Bedeviled by : Jimena Canales

Download or read book Bedeviled written by Jimena Canales and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities—demons—to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments—experiments that can only be done in the imagination—and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology. Spanning four centuries of discovery—from René Descartes, whose demon could hijack sensorial reality, to James Clerk Maxwell, whose molecular-sized demon deftly broke the second law of thermodynamics, to Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and beyond—Jimena Canales tells a shadow history of science and the demons that bedevil it. She reveals how the greatest scientific thinkers used demons to explore problems, test the limits of what is possible, and better understand nature. Their imaginary familiars helped unlock the secrets of entropy, heredity, relativity, quantum mechanics, and other scientific wonders—and continue to inspire breakthroughs in the realms of computer science, artificial intelligence, and economics today. The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists' efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.

The Demon in the Machine

Author : Paul Davies
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241309603
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demon in the Machine by : Paul Davies

Download or read book The Demon in the Machine written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

The Demon-Haunted World

Author : Carl Sagan
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0307801047
Total Pages : 474 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demon-Haunted World by : Carl Sagan

Download or read book The Demon-Haunted World written by Carl Sagan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-07-06 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace “A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions. Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms. Praise for The Demon-Haunted World “Powerful . . . A stirring defense of informed rationality. . . Rich in surprising information and beautiful writing.”—The Washington Post Book World “Compelling.”—USA Today “A clear vision of what good science means and why it makes a difference. . . . A testimonial to the power of science and a warning of the dangers of unrestrained credulity.”—The Sciences “Passionate.”—San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle

The Demons of Science

Author : Friedel Weinert
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319317083
Total Pages : 251 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demons of Science by : Friedel Weinert

Download or read book The Demons of Science written by Friedel Weinert and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons in philosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science and philosophy. Part II considers Laplace’s Demon, whose claim is that the world is completely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell’s Demon, who - by contrast - experiences a world that is probabilistic and indeterministic. Part IV explores Nietzsche’s thesis of the cyclic and eternal recurrence of events. In each case a number of philosophical consequences regarding determinism and indeterminism, the arrows of time, the nature of the mind and free will are said to follow from the Demons’s worldviews. The book investigates what these Demons - and others - can and cannot tell us about our world.

The Science of Demons

Author : Jan Machielsen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 135133364X
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis The Science of Demons by : Jan Machielsen

Download or read book The Science of Demons written by Jan Machielsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-18 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians at different times and places answered these questions differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities were constructed out of battles against them – or against those who granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a threatening figure – who made pacts with human allies and appeared bodily – through to the comprehensive but controversial demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of the supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.

Billions & Billions

Author : Carl Sagan
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0345379187
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (453 download)

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Book Synopsis Billions & Billions by : Carl Sagan

Download or read book Billions & Billions written by Carl Sagan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1998-05-12 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan’s thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day. Praise for Billions & Billions “[Sagan’s] writing brims with optimism, clarity and compassion.”—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel “Sagan used the spotlight of his fame to illuminate the abyss into which stupidity, greed, and the lust for power may yet dump us. All of those interests and causes are handsomely represented in Billions & Billions.”—The Washington Post Book World “Astronomer Carl Sagan didn’t live to see the millennium, but he probably has done more than any other popular scientist to prepare us for its arrival.”—Atlanta Journal & Constitution “Billions & Billions can be interpreted as the Silent Spring for the current generation. . . . Human history includes a number of leaders with great minds who gave us theories about our universe and origins that ran contrary to religious dogma. Galileo determined that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. Darwin challenged Creationism with his Evolution of Species. And now, Sagan has given the world its latest challenge: Billions & Billions.”—San Antonio Express-News “[Sagan’s] inspiration and boundless curiosity live on in the gift of his work.”—Seattle Times & Post-Intelligencer “Couldn’t stay awake in your high school science classes? This book can help fill in the holes. Acclaimed scientist Carl Sagan combines his logic and knowledge with wit and humor to make a potentially dry subject enjoyable to read.”—The Dallas Morning News

Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon

Author : Matthew Stanley
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022616487X
Total Pages : 373 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon by : Matthew Stanley

Download or read book Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon written by Matthew Stanley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Victorian period science shifted from being practiced in a theistic context (integrating religious considerations and ideas) to a naturalistic context (explicitly forbidding religious matters). This book examines the foundations of that change. While it is generally thought that the transformation was due to the methodological superiority of naturalistic science, Matthew Stanley shows that most of the methodological values underlying scientific practice were virtually identical between the theists and the naturalists. Each agreed on the importance of the uniformity of natural laws, the use of hypothesis and theory, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. This was despite the claims by both groups that those fundamentals were intrinsic to their worldview, and completely incompatible with that of their opponents. Stanley goes on to argue that the victory of the scientific naturalists came from deliberate strategies executed over a generation to gain control of the institutions of scientific education and to re-imagine the history of their discipline. Rather than a sudden revolution, the similarity between theistic and naturalistic science allowed for a relatively smooth transition in practice from the old guard to the new. "Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon" explores this shift through a parallel study of two major scientific figures: James Clerk Maxwell, a devout Christian physicist, and Thomas Henry Huxley, the iconoclast biologist who coined the word agnostic. Both were deeply engaged in the methodological, institutional, and political issues that were crucial to the theistic-naturalistic transformation. The author s astute examination of the ascendance of scientific naturalism sheds new light on the controversies over science and religion in modern America. "

Angels & Demons

Author : Dan Brown
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 074349346X
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (434 download)

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Book Synopsis Angels & Demons by : Dan Brown

Download or read book Angels & Demons written by Dan Brown and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-05-23 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The murder of a world-famous physicist raises fears that the Illuminati are operating again after centuries of silence, and religion professor Robert Langdon is called in to assist with the case.

Maxwell's Demon

Author : Hans Christian Von Baeyer
Publisher : Random House (NY)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Maxwell's Demon by : Hans Christian Von Baeyer

Download or read book Maxwell's Demon written by Hans Christian Von Baeyer and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1998 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You arrive at your office and unpack your breakfast from the local deli. The piping-hot coffee and chilly orange juice you purchased just minutes ago are now both disappointingly lukewarm. Why can't the coffee "steal" heat from the juice to stay hot? Why does even the most state-of-the-art car operate at a mere 30 percent efficiency--and why can't Detroit ever better the odds, no matter what space age materials we invent? Why can't some genius make a perpetual motion machine? The answers lie in the field of thermodynamics, the study of heat, which turns out to be the key to an astonishing number of scientific puzzles. If you want to know what's happening in the physical world, you've got to follow the heat. In Maxwell's Demon: Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes, physics professor Hans Christian von Baeyer tells the story of heat through the lives of the scientists who discovered it, most notably James Clerk Maxwell, whose demonic invention has bedeviled generations of physics students with its light-fingered attempts to flout the laws of thermodynamics. An intelligent, submicroscopic gremlin who could sort atoms as they flew at him, Maxwell's Demon would effectively make an impossible task--forcing heat to flow backward--possible. Explaining why the Demon can't have his day has been an intellectual gauntlet taken up by a century and a half of the world's most brilliant scientists, whose discoveries Professor von Baeyer vividly etches. The centuries-old discipline of thermodynamics informs today's most cutting-edge research in chaos, complexity, and the grand unified theory of everything--physics' Holy Grail. Even more amazing, the study of heat turns out to explainsomething seemingly unrelated--time, and why it can run in only one direction. With his trademark elegant prose, eye for lively detail, and gift for lucid explanation, Professor von Baeyer turns the contemplation of a cooling teacup into a beguiling portrait of the birth of a science with relevance to almost every aspect of our lives. Readers will find themselves rooting for Maxwell's ever-mischievous Demon even as they come to appreciate that he is doomed to failure.

The Demon in the Freezer

Author : Richard Preston
Publisher : Fawcett
ISBN 13 : 0345466632
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (454 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demon in the Freezer by : Richard Preston

Download or read book The Demon in the Freezer written by Richard Preston and published by Fawcett. This book was released on 2003-08-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The bard of biological weapons captures the drama of the front lines.”—Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with “hot” agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense. Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines. Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government’ s response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill. Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.

General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues

Author :
Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 9780080548548
Total Pages : 708 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (485 download)

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Book Synopsis General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues by :

Download or read book General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2007-07-18 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies). The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler). Comprehensive coverage of the philosophy of science written by leading philosophers in this field Clear style of writing for an interdisciplinary audience No specific pre-knowledge required

Mother of Demons

Author : Eric Flint
Publisher : Baen Books
ISBN 13 : 1625797338
Total Pages : 165 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (257 download)

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Book Synopsis Mother of Demons by : Eric Flint

Download or read book Mother of Demons written by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 1997-09-02 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mercenary outcast with a perversion no one cared to think about. A holy leader, who knows her people are on the verge of great upheaval—and who wants to know more about this new tribe of demons. A battle-mother, possibly the greatest battle-mother who ever lived—if the rules of her tribe don't force her into a battle even she can't win. A keeper of the secrets of history who would control the tides of fate—if only she could. A paleobiologist with a terrible sense of humor. They are all revolutionaries, but none of them expected anything like what they're about to experience. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine

Author : Christopher C. H. Cook
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429750943
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (297 download)

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Book Synopsis Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine by : Christopher C. H. Cook

Download or read book Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine written by Christopher C. H. Cook and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781472453983, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of "hearing voices" than ever before. The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.

The Demon Under the Microscope

Author : Thomas Hager
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307352285
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demon Under the Microscope by : Thomas Hager

Download or read book The Demon Under the Microscope written by Thomas Hager and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-09-19 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of sulfa, the first antibiotic and the drug that shaped modern medicine. The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. Sulfa saved millions of lives—among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.—but its real effects are even more far reaching. Sulfa changed the way new drugs were developed, approved, and sold; transformed the way doctors treated patients; and ushered in the era of modern medicine. The very concept that chemicals created in a lab could cure disease revolutionized medicine, taking it from the treatment of symptoms and discomfort to the eradication of the root cause of illness. A strange and colorful story, The Demon Under the Microscope illuminates the vivid characters, corporate strategy, individual idealism, careful planning, lucky breaks, cynicism, heroism, greed, hard work, and the central (though mistaken) idea that brought sulfa to the world. This is a fascinating scientific tale with all the excitement and intrigue of a great suspense novel.

The End Of Science

Author : John Horgan
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465050859
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The End Of Science by : John Horgan

Download or read book The End Of Science written by John Horgan and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As staff writer for Scientific American, John Horgan has a window on contemporary science unsurpassed in all the world. Who else routinely interviews the likes of Lynn Margulis, Roger Penrose, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Kuhn, Chris Langton, Karl Popper, Stephen Weinberg, and E.O. Wilson, with the freedom to probe their innermost thoughts? In The End Of Science, Horgan displays his genius for getting these larger-than-life figures to be simply human, and scientists, he writes, "are rarely so human . . . so at there mercy of their fears and desires, as when they are confronting the limits of knowledge."This is the secret fear that Horgan pursues throughout this remarkable book: Have the big questions all been answered? Has all the knowledge worth pursuing become known? Will there be a final "theory of everything" that signals the end? Is the age of great discoverers behind us? Is science today reduced to mere puzzle solving and adding detains to existing theories? Horgan extracts surprisingly candid answers to there and other delicate questions as he discusses God, Star Trek, superstrings, quarks, plectics, consciousness, Neural Darwinism, Marx's view of progress, Kuhn's view of revolutions, cellular automata, robots, and the Omega Point, with Fred Hoyle, Noam Chomsky, John Wheeler, Clifford Geertz, and dozens of other eminent scholars. The resulting narrative will both infuriate and delight as it mindless Horgan's smart, contrarian argument for "endism" with a witty, thoughtful, even profound overview of the entire scientific enterprise. Scientists have always set themselves apart from other scholars in the belief that they do not construct the truth, they discover it. Their work is not interpretation but simple revelation of what exists in the empirical universe. But science itself keeps imposing limits on its own power. Special relativity prohibits the transmission of matter or information as speeds faster than that of light; quantum mechanics dictates uncertainty; and chaos theory confirms the impossibility of complete prediction. Meanwhile, the very idea of scientific rationality is under fire from Neo-Luddites, animal-rights activists, religious fundamentalists, and New Agers alike. As Horgan makes clear, perhaps the greatest threat to science may come from losing its special place in the hierarchy of disciplines, being reduced to something more akin to literaty criticism as more and more theoreticians engage in the theory twiddling he calls "ironic science." Still, while Horgan offers his critique, grounded in the thinking of the world's leading researchers, he offers homage too. If science is ending, he maintains, it is only because it has done its work so well.

Einstein, History, and Other Passions

Author : Gerald James Holton
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674004337
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Einstein, History, and Other Passions by : Gerald James Holton

Download or read book Einstein, History, and Other Passions written by Gerald James Holton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[The] book makes a wonderfully cohesive whole. It is rich in ideas, elegantly expressed. I highly recommend it to any serious student of science and culture."--Lucy Horwitz, Boston Book Review "An important and lasting contribution to a more profound understanding of the place of science in our culture."--Hans C. von Baeyer, Boston Sunday Globe "[Holton's] themes are central to an understanding of the nature of science, and Holton does an excellent job of identifying and explaining key features of the scientific enterprise, both in the historical sense and in modern science...I know of no better informed scientist who has studied the nature of science for half a century."--Ron Good, Science and Education Through his rich exploration of Einstein's thought, Gerald Holton shows how the best science depends on great intuitive leaps of imagination, and how science is indeed the creative expression of the traditions of Western civilization.

Maxwell's Demon

Author : Harvey S. Leff
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400861527
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Maxwell's Demon by : Harvey S. Leff

Download or read book Maxwell's Demon written by Harvey S. Leff and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About 120 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell introduced his now legendary hypothetical "demon" as a challenge to the integrity of the second law of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon persisted throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, information theory, and computer science--and linkages have been established between Maxwell's demon and each of these disciplines. The demon's seductive quality makes it appealing to physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, psychologists, and historians and philosophers of science. Until now its important source material has been scattered throughout diverse journals. This book brings under one cover twenty-five reprints, including seminal works by Maxwell and William Thomson; historical reviews by Martin Klein, Edward Daub, and Peter Heimann; information theoretic contributions by Leo Szilard, Leon Brillouin, Dennis Gabor, and Jerome Rothstein; and innovations by Rolf Landauer and Charles Bennett illustrating linkages with the limits of computation. An introductory chapter summarizes the demon's life, from Maxwell's illustration of the second law's statistical nature to the most recent "exorcism" of the demon based on a need periodically to erase its memory. An annotated chronological bibliography is included. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.