The Ascent of Science by Silver, Brian L. -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Please read before opening bottle Preface Introduction

The Objectives Matter Change Fields A Note on the Observer

1: Newton Gets It Completely Wrong

Molecules The Invisible Sea

2: I Believe

Descartes (1596–1650) Francis Bacon (1561–1626) Karl Popper: The Certainty of Uncertainty On Having One’s Feet on the Ground Truth in Practice Deduction: A Surer Path? The Fragility and Strength of Science Faith

3: Thomas Aquinas versus Neil Armstrong

Force The First Law Principia, Book II The Straight and Narrow Path The Real World

4: The Second Law

The Stubbornness of Matter The Third Law The Limits of Newton’s Laws

5: Predicting Catastrophe

Newton’s Revelation The Strangeness of Gravity, Part I The Strangeness of Gravity, Part II Black Holes and Dirty Harry Jumping on the Bandwagon, Part II

6: From Newton to De Sade: The Partial Triumph of Reason

The Enlightenment The Diminution of God Newton’s Legacy The Ascent of Science The Scientist as Man-about-Town

7: From Rousseau to Blake: The Revolt against Reason

Goethe versus Newton The Infection Spreads The Enlightenment: A Different Perspective Nevertheless…

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8: Lodestone, Amber, and Lightning

How Many More Forces Are There? Immobile Charge Mobile Charge Magnetic Personalities Unification Working-class Hero The Power of Space Dafty Sees the Light The Microscopic Origins of Electromagnetism Electro-magneto-gravitational Force?

9: Belief and Action

Oersted, Ampère, Faraday, and Maxwell

10: The Demise of Alchemy

The Father of Chemistry? Another Father of Chemistry

11: The Nineteenth Century

Science Brings Home the Bacon The Magic Fluid The Wireless The Manipulation of Matter The Science of Life “Scientific Tests Have Shown That…” Science Comes Out of the Lab The Birth of the Professional Scientist The Backlash The Achievements Humanitarianism

12: The Material Trinity: The Atom

The Greek Guess The Electron Revealed The Nucleus Revealed What Are Nuclei Made Of? The Material Trinity Is Completed Unstable Nuclei A Question of Priorities “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby”

13: The Stuff of Existence

The Chemical Elements: Roll Call Molecules The Behavior of Atoms The Creation of Materials The Infinite Variety of Carbon Theory Pays Off

14: Scipio’s Dream

The Godfather Pythagoras and the Ancient World Newton and the Ancients The Poets Abandon Pythagoras The Atomist’s Reply

15: Making Waves

The Messenger of the Gods Waves: Periodicity The Electromagnetic Palette Interference The Redshift Polarization Movers and Shakers More about Waves: Wave Packets The Problems Start The Problems Continue

16: The Ubiquity of Motion

The Ubiquity of Motion What Molecular Motion Can Do The Newtonian Picture Becomes Blurred Perpetual Motion Molecular Motion, Violent Encounters, and Chemical Change

17: Energy

The Return of the Fat Sumo Heat and Motion The Conservation of Energy

18: Entropy: Intimations of Mortality

The Second Law Entropy The Big Bang Life versus the Second Law The Spontaneous Creation of Order Dynamic Equilibrium Entropy for Beginners What Use Is Entropy?

19: Chaos

The Inexorable Gears The Impossibility of Prediction Is Determinism Dead? Ecological Chaos Practical Chaos The Significance of Chaos

20: The Slow Birth of Biology

Of Apes and Pigs and Amateur Surgery The Spectrum of Life Buffon Macroscopic to Microscopic

21: In a Monastery Garden 22: Evolution

The Evolution of Evolution The Darwinian Evolutionist’s “I Believe” The Bare Bones of Evolution How Is Evolution Studied? Cherchez la Femme

23: The Descent of Man

Darwin’s Fan Club The Wrong Theory The Perversion of Evolution

24: The Gene Machine

The Building Blocks of DNA The General Structure of DNA How Does DNA Work? Building Proteins Mutations The Enemy Within The Constant Codon Why Don’t Your Eyes Grow Nails? Why Sex? The Wandering Gene

25: The Lords of Nature?

Is Genetic Engineering Dangerous? Genes and Society I: Time for the Emperor to Get Dressed? Genes and Society II: Genetic Screening The Human Genome Patenting Animals The Future

26: Life: The Molecular Battle

What Is Life? What Is a Cell? The Cell as a Black Box Cell Components Problems Life or Death The Day of the Golem A Designing Hand?

27: The Origin of Life? Take Your Choice

The Violent Childhood of the Earth The “They-Came-from-Outer-Space” Hypothesis Terrestrial Abiogenesis Which Came First? Glimmers of Hope The Birth of the Cell? Back to Miracles? Self-Organization How Long Can We Keep the Fire Alive? Life versus Entropy Postscript An Apology

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28: The Inexplicable Quantum

The Grainy Texture of Nature A New View of Nature The Atom The Greenhouse Effect

29: New Ways of Thinking

The Magic Formula Nothing Is Certain The Sameness of Matter

30: The Land of Paradox

Paradox One: Oh! A Life on the Ocean Wave Paradox Two: Measurement Paradox Three: The Phantom Pussycat Paradox Four: Uncertainty Paradox Five: Nothing Up My Sleeves Paradox Six: They Seek Him Here… Paradox Seven: Do We Really Understand What’s Going On? Familiarity Breeds Consent Quantum Sociology

31: The Elementary Particles

Cosmic Bombardment The Accelerators The Particles and Their Antiparticles Back to the Trinity The Leptons Theory and Experiment The Final Force? Rashomon Relevance The Croatian Visionary Is Science for Real?

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32: Relativity

Absolute Space and Time? The Problem of Light The Image of the Undead The Special Theory of Relativity Is Born Fact, Not Fiction Mass The Defect and the Remedy General Relativity Space-time Flexible Space-time Comment on the General Theory Science for Pleasure

33: Cosmology

The Earth The Sun The Planets

34: The Cosmos and Peeping Tom

Measuring the Immeasurable The Dynamic Universe The Galactic Host Black Holes

35: The Impossibility of Creation

The Big Bang Eternal Expansion Dark Matter Awkward Questions Was the Universe Made for You and Me? Cosmology Comes of Age

36: The Tree of Death

Is Science Safe? The Mad Scientist Syndrome The Tree of Knowledge Controlling Technology Down with Science? The Obscurity of Science? Know Your Enemy

37: “What the Devil Does It All Mean?”

HMS Looks at Science The Humanities Look at the Sciences Science in the Mirror Big Fleas Have Little Fleas… Science and Philosophy Weigh Each Other Up Is Philosophy Relevant to Science?

38: The Future

Annotated Bibliography Index

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