The Grand Contraption: The World As Myth, Number, And Chance - Hardcover

Park, David Allen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691121338 ISBN 13: 9780691121338

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

The story of humankind's attempts to make sense of the world, understand its physical nature, and know its real and imagined inhabitants is chronicled in an in-depth study that brings together the fields of history, philosophy, literature, religion, and the physical sciences in an analysis of four thousand years of written history in which humans have imagined the earth they inhabit.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Park is Webster Atwell-Class of 1921 Professor of Physics, Emeritus at Williams College. He is the author of seven previous books, including "The Fire within the Eye", a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year in 1997, and "The How and the Why" (both Princeton).

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"The Grand Contraption is the long-needed antidote to all those top-heavy histories of scientific thought that pass brusquely over the philosophies of the ancient world, eager to find the sure footing of modernity. Park tells us not only what science now knows, but how it got to know it: from an enthralling mix of myth, genius, logic, careful observation, guesswork, invention, and a dash of inspired lunacy."--Philip Ball, author ofLife's Matrix and consultant editor, Nature

"This book literally grabs you. The facts presented, the stories told, the author's reflections on the information he presents, are rendered beautifully-and masterfully. This is a labor of love, and the passion with which David Park has written the book is readily apparent and makes one want to keep on reading. And in doing so one is richly rewarded with keen insights, judicious appraisals, and with questions regarding courses of action and consequences that are not only thought provoking but also relevant."--Silvan S. Schweber, Brandeis University and Harvard University, author of QED and the Men Who Made It (Princeton)

"The Grand Contraption is an impressive feat of scholarship in the history of science, and it is even more impressive if one considers that it is written in clear and unpretentious English. Park offers, in plain language, an attractive way to think about cosmological ideas from a single perspective. No one will put this book down without having their level of consciousness raised by a few notches."--Christian Wildberg, Princeton University

"Physics, astronomy, geology, and poetry all come together here in the grand quest to understand what out universe is and how it works. "Only a handful of authors have both the expertise and the courage to write a book of this sweep and depth. David Park has woven together a vast tapestry of humankind's vision of the cosmos, from ancient myths to our contemporary curiosity about intelligent life on other worlds."--Owen Gingerich. Professor of Astronomy & the History of Science, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

"An exceptional and well-written introduction to the history of ideas, viewed from the perspective of their creators, who were adapting their thinking to new facts and conceptions as they went. We found the book engrossing and illuminating."--Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber, coauthors of When They Severed Earth from Sky

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"The Grand Contraption is the long-needed antidote to all those top-heavy histories of scientific thought that pass brusquely over the philosophies of the ancient world, eager to find the sure footing of modernity. Park tells us not only what science now knows, but how it got to know it: from an enthralling mix of myth, genius, logic, careful observation, guesswork, invention, and a dash of inspired lunacy."--Philip Ball, author of Life's Matrix and consultant editor, Nature

"This book literally grabs you. The facts presented, the stories told, the author's reflections on the information he presents, are rendered beautifully-and masterfully. This is a labor of love, and the passion with which David Park has written the book is readily apparent and makes one want to keep on reading. And in doing so one is richly rewarded with keen insights, judicious appraisals, and with questions regarding courses of action and consequences that are not only thought provoking but also relevant."--Silvan S. Schweber, Brandeis University and Harvard University, author of QED and the Men Who Made It (Princeton)

"The Grand Contraption is an impressive feat of scholarship in the history of science, and it is even more impressive if one considers that it is written in clear and unpretentious English. Park offers, in plain language, an attractive way to think about cosmological ideas from a single perspective. No one will put this book down without having their level of consciousness raised by a few notches."--Christian Wildberg, Princeton University

Physics, astronomy, geology, and poetry all come together here in the grand quest to understand what out universe is and how it works. "Only a handful of authors have both the expertise and the courage to write a book of this sweep and depth. David Park has woven together a vast tapestry of humankind's vision of the cosmos, from ancient myths to our contemporary curiosity about intelligent life on other worlds."--Owen Gingerich. Professor of Astronomy & the History of Science, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

"An exceptional and well-written introduction to the history of ideas, viewed from the perspective of their creators, who were adapting their thinking to new facts and conceptions as they went. We found the book engrossing and illuminating."--Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber, coauthors of When They Severed Earth from Sky

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691121338
• ISBN 13: 9780691121338
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 331
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar