Of One Mind: The Collectivization of Science (Masters of Modern Physics, Band 16) - Hardcover

Ziman, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563960656 ISBN 13: 9781563960659

Verlag: American Institute of Physics, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists--Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. Ziman takes readers into the world of the contemporary scientist, showing how discoveries are made and how claims are tested. He then travels into the minds of scientists as they are drawn into competing directions. Here Ziman exposes the path of discovery, which is strewn with complex human needs, governmental restrictions, the desire for profits, and the exercise of technical virtuosity.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Ziman is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol since 1964.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists at work and at play, in which "plaster saints" are turned charmingly and thoughtfully into "living people." You'll find deft sketches of some of the more striking figures in the gallery of modern physics - Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. We then take a journey through the world depicted by contemporary scientists, how physicists make discoveries, and how they test each other's claims. Ziman says that what we know about the physical world - the product of the vast collective effort of scientists everywhere - is no more than a human representation of an accessible reality. The basic lesson of these essays, "that you and I and the rest of us act on the understanding that we are all living in the same world" is a key to a general theory of scientific knowledge. Ziman then travels with us on an even more delicate odyssey, into the personal as well as the professional minds and performances of scientists as they are pulled into competing directions. We discover that the path of discovery is strewn with complex human needs, the demands of the state, the desire for profits, the exercise of technical virtuosity. Today, scientists are no longer lonely seekers after truth, but have emerged with multiple obligations as technical and military experts, entrepreneurs, managers, political advisers, publicists, and educators, as well as ordinary citizens. The personal preferences of scientists are now transformed and often under the control of mammoth institutions - great universities, a tangle of granting agencies, huge defense establishments, and global corporations. Rarely do scientists work alone in isolated laboratories. They are linked together in intricate networks, busy with delicate instruments requiring armies of technicians and collaborators. This is an essential guide for the initiated and the novice over the terrain of modern science and what it means to be a scientist today.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: American Institute of Physics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1563960656
• ISBN 13: 9781563960659
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 424
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH; ProductSafety@springernature.com; ; Europaplatz 3; Heidelberg; 69115; Deutschland