The Natures of Science

Couverture
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1989 - 264 pages
A too swift examination, for the benefit evidently of fairly naive readers, of broad philosophical and historical themes in the development of science. The ten chapters are grouped by pairs under five topical heads, which treat respectively the philosophical, aesthetic, cultural, methodological, scientific nature of science. Mathematical material encountered in the final chapter ("Classical duality in modern physics") is likely to be considered off-putting by many of the intended readers. Rather awkwardly composed, though attractively printed and bound. The author is chairman of the Physics Department at the University of the West Indies. (NW) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

À l'intérieur du livre

Table des matières

Science as Scientia
21
Classical Duality and the Nature of Light
43
Aesthetics in the History of Scientific Theories
63
Formal and Connotative Aesthetic Elements in Physical Theories
82
Science as Method
107
Time and Reality in Eliot and Einstein
130
The Categorical Questions in Science
153
Pulsar Research as Normal Science
173
From Scientia to Science
199
Classical Duality in Modern Physics
218
Notes
230
Bibliography
251
Index
261
Droits d'auteur

Autres éditions - Tout afficher

Expressions et termes fréquents

Fréquemment cités

Page 149 - I can only say, there we have been : but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
Page 6 - But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages...
Page 141 - Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
Page 116 - Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge ; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred. It is at the same time the root and blossom of all other systems of thought; it is that from which all spring, and that which adorns all...
Page 205 - For when I speak of Forms, I mean nothing more than those laws and determinations of absolute actuality, which govern and constitute any simple nature, as heat, light, weight, in every kind of matter and subject that is susceptible of them. Thus the Form of Heat or the Form of Light is the same thing as the Law of Heat or the Law of Light.
Page 116 - The cultivation of those sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the external world, has, for want of the poetical faculty, proportionally circumscribed those of the internal world; and man, having enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave.
Page 117 - Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.
Page 141 - A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are infolded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

Informations bibliographiques