Scientific Sublime

Popular Science Unravels the Mysteries of the Universe
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-063777-4
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 658 g

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom.

In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science.

In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gross, Alan G.

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Populärwissenschaftliche Werke

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Chapter 1: Isn't Science Sublime?

- Part I: The Physicists

- Chapter 2: Richard Feynman: The Consensual Sublime

- Chapter 3: Steven Weinberg: The Conjectural Sublime

- Chapter 4. Lisa Randall: The Technological Sublime

- Chapter 5. Brian Greene: The Speculative Sublime

- Chapter 6. Stephen Hawking: The Scientific Sublime Embodied

- Part II: The Biologists

- Chapter 7. Rachel Carson: The Ethical Sublime

- Chapter 8. Stephen Jay Gould's Books: The Balanced Sublime

- Chapter 9. Stephen Jay Gould's Essays: Experiencing the Sublime

- Chapter 10. Steven Pinker: The Polymath Sublime

- Chapter 11. Richard Dawkins: The Mathematical Sublime

- Chapter 12. E. O. Wilson: The Biophilic Sublime

- Part III

- Chapter 13. Move Over, God

Über Autor(innen)

Alan G. Gross is a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar. His specialty is scientific communication. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Science and co-author of Communicating Science, The Scientific Literature, The Craft of Scientific Communication, Science from Sight to Insight, and The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities.