Bookpedia : Library : Genre : [Global:Letter]

ISBN: 9781560259923

ListPrice: $15.95

Edition: Reprint

Dimensions: 0.90 x 8.10 x 5.50 in

Summary: This vibrant and gripping history ultimately exposes how these twin mathematical giants (Newton, Leibniz) were proud, brilliant, at times mad, and in the end completely human.

ISBN: 1585678317

ListPrice: $27.95

Edition: First Edition

Summary: Seventeenth-century England was racked by civil war, plague and fire; a world ruled by superstition and ignorance. But another tumultuous event was also taking place: the revolution in science. A series of meetings of 'natural philosophers' in Oxford and London saw the beginning of a new method of thinking based on proof and experiment. And at the heart of this Renaissance were the founding fathers of modern western science: The Royal Society. John Gribbin's gripping, colorful account of this unparalleled time of discovery explores the birth of the Society and brings its prime movers to life, including: William Gilbert, the first man to test a theory by scientific methods; Francis Bacon, the extravagant, hedonistic philosopher who created the ideal image of the scientist; William Harvey, who carried out gruesome experiments on the circulation of blood; Christopher Wren, then more famous as astronomer than architect; Robert Mory, a spy for Cardinal Richelieu; the hot-tempered Robert Hooke, who transformed the Royal Society's fortunes yet whose work was written out of history; and his ambitious rival Isaac Newton, who finally established the model of a universe that follows precise mechanical laws, not the whims of gods. When Edmund Halley, polymath, inventor and adventurer, accurately predicted the extraordinary return of a comet in 1759, science finally came of age. This compelling book shows how the triumph of the revolution that changed our world - and still continues 350 years on - was ultimately not the work of one isolated genius, but of a Fellowship.

ISBN: 0226458083

ListPrice: $13.00

Edition: Third Printing

Summary: There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street. Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that ""Structure" has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." "--Mary Ellen Curtin"