The Seven Mysteries of Life

Author: Guy Murchie
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395957912
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 708

Book Description
"All life in all worlds" -this was the object of the author's seventeen-year quest for knowledge and discovery, culminating in this book. In a manner unmistakably his own, Murchie delves into the interconnectedness of all life on the planet and of such fields as biology, geology, sociology, mathematics, and physics. He offers us what the poet May Sarton has called "a good book to take to a desert island as sole companion, so rich is it in knowledge and insight."

The Seven Mysteries of Life

Author: Guy Murchie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cosmology
Languages : en
Pages : 690

Book Description

Song of the Sky

Author: Guy Murchie
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787201759
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Book Description
Originally published in 1954, this is a magnificent book about the greatest adventure of our age: humanity’s exploration of the skies and space. One of the classics of aviation and scientific literature, written by wartime flier Guy Murchie, this book will fascinate even non-pilots and non-science oriented readers.

The Island of Knowledge

Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0465031714
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of allHow much can we know about the world? In this book, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Gleiser shows that by aband.

Paradigms Regained

Author: J. L. Casti
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0380731711
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
John L. Casti's Paradigms Lost framed each Big Question as a mock jury trial with prosecution, defense, and verdict rendered. Now Paradigms Regained reexamines each of these questions as an appellate brief and decides whether or not the previous verdict still holds based on a decade's worth of new evidence from the scientific world's top minds. In Paradigms Regained, noted mathematician and researcher John Casti boldly tackles the Big Questions of science and sets our sights on a thrilling new millennium of discovery. Exploring the extraordinary "what ifs" of the natural world -- the origins of Life, the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, our genetic destiny, the roots of Language and Learning, the limits of knowtedge -- he debates, with penetrating insight, the diverse and competing theories that exist today. Brilliant, accessible, and totally engrossing, Paradigms Regained offers important new insight into contemporary scientific thought.

The Emergence of Life on Earth

Author: Iris Fry
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813527406
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
How did life emerge on Earth? Is there life on other worlds? These questions, until recently confined to the pages of speculative essays and tabloid headlines, are now the subject of legitimate scientific research. This book presents a unique perspective--a combined historical, scientific, and philosophical analysis, which does justice to the complex nature of the subject. The book's first part offers an overview of the main ideas on the origin of life as they developed from antiquity until the twentieth century. The second, more detailed part of the book examines contemporary theories and major debates within the origin-of-life scientific community. Topics include: Aristotle and the Greek atomists' conceptions of the organism Alexander Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane's 1920s breakthrough papers Possible life on Mars?

Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering

Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640711X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

The Things That Nobody Knows

Author: William Hartston
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 0857897160
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
A playful and diverting, yet always scientifically rigorous look at those simple mysteries that are yet to be solved Why are so many giraffes gay? Has human evolution stopped? Where did our alphabet come from? Can robots become self-aware? Can lobsters recognize other lobsters by sight? What goes on inside a black hole? Are cell phones bad for us? Why can't we remember anything from our earliest years? Full of the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything, this is a fascinating and unputdownable exploration of the limits of human knowledge of our planet, its history and culture, and the universe beyond.

Science and the Spiritual Quest

Author: W. Mark Richardson
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415257671
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Addressing fundamental questions about life, this unique volume examines the way in which distinguished scientists of different faiths explore the connections between science, ethics, spirituality and the divine.

From Science to God

Author: Peter Russell
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1577319915
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Book Description
From Science to God offers a crash course in the nature of reality. It is the story of Peter Russell's lifelong exploration into the nature of consciousness — how he went from being a strict atheist, studying mathematics and physics at Cambridge University, to realizing a profound personal synthesis of the mystical and scientific. Using his own tale of curiosity and exploration as the book’s backbone, Russell blends physics, psychology, and philosophy to reach a new worldview in which consciousness is a fundamental quality of creation. He shows how all the ingredients for this worldview are in place; nothing new needs to be discovered. We have only to put the pieces together and explore the new picture of reality that emerges. From Science to God is as much a personal story of an open-minded skeptic as it is a tour de force of scientific and religious paradigm shifts. Russell takes us from Galileo’s den to the lecture halls of Cambridge where he studied with Stephen Hawking. “If you had asked me then if there was a God,” says the best-selling author of his scientific beginnings, “I would have pointed to mathematics.” But no matter what empirical truths science offered Russell, one thorny question remained: How can something as immaterial as consciousness, ever arise from something as unconscious as matter?