The former publisher of "Scientific American "undertakes a summary
of the state of knowledge as a new century gets underway. After a
brief introduction describing the genesis of the modern "Scientific
American "in the years after WWII as a science magazine for the
general reader, Piel points out that, to the scientist, the
relevance of a discovery or theory to the world at large never
really comes up. Science is, to a scientist, its own justification.
But everyone has at one time or another wondered how the universe
began, how life originated, and how it will all end. These
questions have fascinated the best minds in our era as in earlier
ones, but only now can our answers satisfy strict scientific
criteria: above all, the primacy of observation, the rejection of
the metaphysical, and the need to present one's results for
verification. Modern science began with the extension of the range
of human senses by means of such instruments as the telescope, the
microscope, and various electronic detection devices. In the 20th
century, as the power and scope of those instruments dramatically
increased, the universe became both clearer and stranger.
Relativity and quantum theory brought elements of the paradoxical
into the seemingly hard surface of reality. The astronomers' gaze
into deep space, in wavelengths invisible to the eye, revealed vast
energies at play and huge vistas of time. And the light shed by the
new physics on the processes of chemistry gave birth to molecular
biology, above all the discovery of the DNA molecule's role in the
nature of life on our planet. True to the mission he mapped out for
his magazine, Piel is always aware of the general reader's needs,
and takes care to outline basic principles as well as the broader
implications of the discoveries he describes. Clear, comprehensive,
and up-to-date. (Kirkus Reviews)
When historians of the future come to examine western civilization
in the twentieth century, one area of intellectual accomplishment
will stand out above all others: more than any other era before it,
the twentieth century was an age of science. Not only were the
practical details of daily life radically transformed by the
application of scientific discoveries, but our very sense of who we
are, how our minds work, how our world came to be, how it works and
our proper role in it, our ultimate origins, and our ultimate fate
were all influenced by scientific thinking as never before in human
history. In The Age of Science, the former editor and publisher of
Scientific American gives us a sweeping overview of the scientific
achievements of the twentieth century, with chapters on the
fundamental forces of nature, the subatomic world, cosmology, the
cell and molecular biology, earth history and the evolution of
life, and human evolution. Beautifully written and illustrated,
this is a book for the connoisseur: an elegant, informative,
magisterial summation of one of the twentieth century's greatest
cultural achievements.
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