From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of PhysicsScience is about 6000 years old while physics emerged as a distinct branch some 2500 years ago. As scientists discovered virtually countless facts about the world during this great span of time, the manner in which they explained the underlying structure of that world underwent a philosophical evolution. From Clockwork to Crapshoot provides the perspective needed to understand contemporary developments in physics in relation to philosophical traditions as far back as ancient Greece. |
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... mathematics, and chemistry, from the beginnings of science to the present. I pay particular attention to the change from a deterministic view of nature to one dominated by probabilities, from viewing the universe as running like ...
... mathematics , and chemistry , from the begin- nings of science to the present . I pay particular attention to the change from a deterministic view of nature to one dominated by probabilities , from viewing the universe as running like ...
... mathematics was the language of nature, some physicists now go even further, believing that the laws of nature should be mathematical theorems. The course of this development will be outlined in this book. one Beginnings When and where ...
... mathematics , determinism found its apex of expression at the end of the eighteenth century in Laplace , who foresaw ... mathematical tools . Before long , the pervading de- terminism was further eroded : the second half of the ...
... mathematics was the language of nature , some physicists now go even further , be- lieving that the laws of nature should be mathematical theorems . The course of this development will be outlined in this book . Beginnings one When and ...
Contents
1 | |
4 | |
11 | |
Science in the Middle Ages | 41 |
The First Revolution | 67 |
Newtons Legacy | 100 |
New Physics | 121 |
Relativity | 154 |
The Quantum Revolution | 210 |
Fields Nuclei and Stars | 248 |
The Properties of Matter | 279 |
The Constituents of the Universe | 290 |
Epilogue | 308 |
Notes | 313 |
Sources and Further Reading | 316 |
Index | 322 |