From the award-winning author of Revolutionizing the Sciences, a monumental historical account of how we came to see the world through the lens of scienceScience is the basis of our assumptions about ourselves and our world, from ideas about our evolutionary past to our conceptions of the vast expanses of space and the smallest particles of matter. In this panoramic book, acclaimed historian of science Peter Dear uncovers the roots of such beliefs, reveali...

Scientific Practices in European History, 1200–1800 presents and situates a collection of extracts from both widely known texts by such figures as Copernicus, Newton, and Lavoisier, and lesser known but significant items, all chosen to provide a perspective on topics in social, cultural and intellectual history and to illuminate the concerns of the early modern period.The selection of extracts highlights the emerging technical preoccupations of this period, while the accom...

This heavily revised third edition of an award-winning text offers a keen insight into the development of scientific thought in early modern Europe. Including coverage of the central scientific figures of the time, including Copernicus, Kelper, Galileo, Newton and Bacon, this book provides a comprehensive overview of how the Scientific Revolution happened and why. Highlighting Europe's colonial and trade expansion in the sixteenth and 17th centuries, Peter Dear traces the revolution in sci...

Science is the basis of our assumptions about ourselves and our world, from ideas about our evolutionary past to our conceptions of the vast expanses of space and the smallest particles of matter. In this panoramic book, acclaimed historian of science Peter Dear uncovers the roots of such beliefs, revealing how they constitute a natural philosophy that has been developed and refined over the course of centuries—and how the world as we have come to know it was by no means inevitable.

"One of the most influential books of the 20th century," the landmark study in the history of science with a new introduction by philosopher Ian Hacking ( Guardian, UK).First published in 1962, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions "reshaped our understanding of the scientific enterprise and human inquiry in general." In it, he challenged long-standing assumptions about scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't ar...

The New York Times bestselling author of Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen Meyer,presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology.Beginning in the late 19th century, many intellectuals influenced by scientific materialism began to insist that scientific knowledge conflicts with traditional theistic belief—that science and belief in God are "at war." Philosopher of science Stephen ...

Drawing on the lives of five great scientists, this “scholarly, insightful, and beautifully written book” (Martin Rees, author of From Here to Infinity) illuminates the path to scientific discovery.Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein all made groundbreaking contributions to their fields—but each also stumbled badly. Darwin’s theory of natural selection shouldn’t have worked, according to the prevail...

"A thorough, illuminating exploration of the most consequential controversy raging in modern science." --New York Times Book ReviewAn Editor's Choice, New York Times Book ReviewLonglisted for PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science WritingLonglisted for Goodreads Choice AwardEvery physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, ...

Long-listed for the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardDelightfully readable, Spooky Action at a Distance is a mind-bending voyage to the frontiers of modern physics that will change the way we think about reality.What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Physics of Wall Street " deftly explains all you wanted to know about nothingness—a.k.a. the quantum vacuum" (Priyamvada Natarajan, author of Mapping the Heavens ).James Owen Weatherall's bestselling book, The Physics of Wall Street, was named one of Physics Today's five most intriguing books of 2013. In this work, he takes on...

An eloquent and accessible journey through our evolving notions of the cosmos from "the best science writer of his generation" ( Washington Post).From the second-century celestial models of Ptolemy to modern-day research institutes and quantum theory, our perception of the universe—and out place in it—has changed drastically. This classic book offers a breathtaking tour of astronomy and the brilliant, eccentric personalities who have shaped it through the a...

Quantum Theory is the most revolutionary discovery in physics since Newton. This book gives a lucid, exciting, and accessible account of the surprising and counterintuitive ideas that shape our understanding of the sub-atomic world. It does not disguise the problems of interpretation that still remain unsettled 75 years after the initial discoveries. The main text makes no use of equations, but there is a Mathematical Appendix for those desiring stronger fare. Uncertainty, probabilistic ph...