The Crisis in Physics

The Crisis in Physics PDF Author: Christopher Caudwell
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786634627
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Christopher Caudwell’s The Crisis in Physics is a stylish and readable analysis of the lines of connection between scientific theories and economic realities. Caudwell provides a trenchant critique of mechanism and positivism. In the words of J.B.S. Haldane, The Crisis in Physics offers a “quarry of ideas” for future philosophers: a wealth of insights and arguments that demands continuing critical reflection.

The Crisis in Physics

The Crisis in Physics PDF Author: Christopher Caudwell
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786634627
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christopher Caudwell’s The Crisis in Physics is a stylish and readable analysis of the lines of connection between scientific theories and economic realities. Caudwell provides a trenchant critique of mechanism and positivism. In the words of J.B.S. Haldane, The Crisis in Physics offers a “quarry of ideas” for future philosophers: a wealth of insights and arguments that demands continuing critical reflection.

The Trouble with Physics

The Trouble with Physics PDF Author: Lee Smolin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618551057
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
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Lost in Math

Lost in Math PDF Author: Sabine Hossenfelder
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094260
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
In this "provocative" book (New York Times), a contrarian physicist argues that her field's modern obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science. Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.

The Physics of Wall Street

The Physics of Wall Street PDF Author: James Owen Weatherall
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547317271
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A young scholar tells the story of the physicists and mathematicians who created the models that have become the basis of modern finance and argues that these models are the "solution" to--not the source of--our current economic woes.

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science PDF Author: Alberto Perez-Gomez
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0262660555
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This important book, which won the 1984 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, traces the process by which the mystical and numerological grounds for the use of number and geometry in building gave way to the more functional and technical ones that prevail in architectural theory and practice today. Between the late Renaissance and the early nineteenth century, the ancient arts of architecture were being profoundly transformed by the scientific revolution. This important book, which won the 1984 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, traces the process by which the mystical and numerological grounds for the use of number and geometry in building gave way to the more functional and technical ones that prevail in architectural theory and practice today. Throughout, it relates the major architectural treatises of successive generations to the larger culture and the writings of philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. The book leads the reader through the controversy that was generated by Claude Perrault in the seventeenth century. His writings began to cast doubt on the absolute aesthetic value of the classical orders and the "perfect" proportions that were architecture's legacy from Pythagorean times. Thus the once immutable "invisible" system lost its special status forever. The book focuses in particular on eighteenth-century developments in the science of mechanics and emerging techniques in structural analysis which slowly entered the architectural treatises and found their way into practice, often by way of civil and military engineers. And by the nineteenth century, the book notes, even architectural rendering and drawing were radically changed through the introduction of new descriptive and projective geometries. Tracing these fundamental changes in architectural intentions, Pérez-Gómez challenges many popular misconceptions about the theory and history of modern architecture. At the same time, he suggests an intangible loss, that of a culture's power to express through a building its total mathematical, mystical, and magical world-view.

The Crisis in Physics

The Crisis in Physics PDF Author: Christopher Caudwell
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786634600
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Christopher Caudwell’s The Crisis in Physics is a stylish and readable analysis of the lines of connection between scientific theories and economic realities. Caudwell provides a trenchant critique of mechanism and positivism. In the words of J.B.S. Haldane, The Crisis in Physics offers a “quarry of ideas” for future philosophers: a wealth of insights and arguments that demands continuing critical reflection.

Not Even Wrong

Not Even Wrong PDF Author: Peter Woit
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 046500363X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
At what point does theory depart the realm of testable hypothesis and come to resemble something like aesthetic speculation, or even theology? The legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli had a phrase for such ideas: He would describe them as "not even wrong," meaning that they were so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not. In Peter Woit's view, superstring theory is just such an idea. In Not Even Wrong , he shows that what many physicists call superstring "theory" is not a theory at all. It makes no predictions, even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish. Not Even Wrong explains why the mathematical conditions for progress in physics are entirely absent from superstring theory today and shows that judgments about scientific statements, which should be based on the logical consistency of argument and experimental evidence, are instead based on the eminence of those claiming to know the truth. In the face of many books from enthusiasts for string theory, this book presents the other side of the story.

The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of

The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of PDF Author: Stephen Hawking
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 076244374X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1090

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Book Description
"God does not play dice with the universe." So said Albert Einstein in response to the first discoveries that launched quantum physics, as they suggested a random universe that seemed to violate the laws of common sense. This 20th-century scientific revolution completely shattered Newtonian laws, inciting a crisis of thought that challenged scientists to think differently about matter and subatomic particles.The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of compiles the essential works from the scientists who sparked the paradigm shift that changed the face of physics forever, pushing our understanding of the universe on to an entirely new level of comprehension. Gathered in this anthology is the scholarship that shocked and befuddled the scientific world, including works by Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Erwin Schrodinger, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, as well as an introduction by today's most celebrated scientist, Stephen Hawking.

General Relativity from A to B

General Relativity from A to B PDF Author: Robert Geroch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226288642
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
"This beautiful little book is certainly suitable for anyone who has had an introductory course in physics and even for some who have not."—Joshua N. Goldberg, Physics Today "An imaginative and convincing new presentation of Einstein's theory of general relativity. . . . The treatment is masterful, continual emphasis being placed on careful discussion and motivation, with the aim of showing how physicists think and develop their ideas."—Choice

Foundations of Modern Physics

Foundations of Modern Physics PDF Author: Steven Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108841767
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg explains the foundations of modern physics in historical context for undergraduates and beyond.