Define Books Concering To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science
| ISBN: | 0141980877 (ISBN13: 9780141980874) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction (2016) |
Steven Weinberg
Paperback | Pages: 432 pages Rating: 3.76 | 1585 Users | 147 Reviews
Interpretation As Books To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science
In To Explain the World, pre-eminent theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg offers a rich and irreverent history of science from a unique perspective - that of a scientist. Moving from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad to Oxford, and from the Museum of Alexandria to the Royal Society of London, he shows that the scientists of the past not only did not understand what we understand about the world - they did not understand what there is to understand. Yet eventually, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of tides, the modern discipline of science emerged.
Identify Containing Books To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science
| Title | : | To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science |
| Author | : | Steven Weinberg |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 432 pages |
| Published | : | February 1st 2016 by Penguin Books Ltd (first published February 10th 2015) |
| Categories | : | Science. History. Nonfiction. Physics. History Of Science. Philosophy |
Rating Containing Books To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science
Ratings: 3.76 From 1585 Users | 147 ReviewsArticle Containing Books To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science
Confession time: I studied history at university and one of the first thing I learned - you cant judge the past by the present for a whole lot of reasons not least of which is that they didnt have the same access as us to, well, history. Which brings me to the recent book by Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, To Explain the World. Weinberg isnt an historian and feels no need to follow this rule. In fact, he rejects it out of hand which meant at least to me once I got over(view spoiler)[Bettie's BooksThe rating, any status updates, and those bookshelves, indicate my feelings for this book. (hide spoiler)]
I shouldn't write a review of this book because, honestly, I gave it only perfunctory attention as I read. I was disappointed with the content and could not imagine I was reading anything new or useful. I did not get a sense of the wonder and excitement he generated in his earlier books especially Dreams of Final Theory. To Explain the World seems to be nothing more than an author selected incomplete history of only some subjects, most noticeably math and astronomy and his dislike or
Weinberg is a Nobel laureate and winner of a gazillion awards, which I had not known when I bought the book. It kinda became clear that he was a real physicist when he actually provided clear and detailed information on various theories (his discussion of Newton's theories was, um, a bit over my head, but I got the general idea). Anyhow, this is an interesting bit of research into how we came to think scientifically about the things we think we know about the world. (Or something that makes more
A decent book tracing the progress from geometry-inspired philosophy in Ancient Greece to the 'discovery' of modern science based on experiment and observation in the 17th century. I read this book with a fair amount of prior knowledge, so I wasn't exactly blown away. To be honest, , I am a bit disappointed, since I expected some new, clever insights by a Nobel prize-winning author. Two of the strongest points of this book are: (1) the way it is written makes it easy to follow, even for the
Weinberg wants to recover the moment when philosophy turned into the scientific method. He locates this moment sometime between Galileo and Newton which isn't surprising, as that is where the role of experimentation is traditionally thought to play a part in the synthesis.He contrasts this with the "pure reason" method of Descartes and Plato. This "discovery" as espoused by Weinberg is in contrast to philosophers of science like Paul Feyerabend and Irme Lakatos who demonstrate in detail that
I was pretty excited to read this one and apparently the author is a lecturer on the history of science and put the book together through the notes he uses to prepare for teaching his class. There was a lot of new stuff in this book that I didn't know, especially about the development of math which really helped make sense of why we use calculus and such. I learned a lot. That said I wish the author had focused on more than just math and physics, I understand that as a physicist that it's
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