Euclid's Window

With advances in technology and theory, mathematicians and physicists may finally have the tools they need to finish the quest begun by the Greeks -- to describe the nature of the space in which we live. In this fascinating book, Leonard Mlodinow looks through the window of geometry to trace the story of space from clever, real-estate conscious Egyptians to new quantum relativistic concepts of the twenty-first century.Along the way we get to know a cast of ingenious characters like the zealot Pythagoras who combined mathematics and religion in his unique ancient cult; the obscure Bishop of Liseux who invented the graph; Rene Descartes, who used his genius to win money at cards and came up with the revolutionary idea of x and y coordinates; Albert Einstein, a high school dropout who literally added a fourth dimension to our concept of space; and Edward Witten at Princeton, a man who today would like to add seven more.

Mlodinow deftly weaves history, philosophy, and mathematics to create a fast-paced narrative of scientific breakthroughs. Full of intellectual surprises and told with authority and humor, Euclid's Window reveals that simple questions of geometry have led to the great revolutions in the history of science.