Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science - Hardcover

Pesic, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262161907 ISBN 13: 9780262161909

Publisher: Mit Pr, 2000

Synopsis

Nature has secrets, and it is the desire to uncover them that motivates the scientific quest. But what makes these "secrets" secret? Is it that they are beyond human ken? that they concern divine matters? And if they are accessible to human seeking, why do they seem so carefully hidden? Such questions are at the heart of Peter Pesic's enlightening effort to uncover the meaning of modern science.

Pesic portrays the struggle between the scientist and nature as the ultimate game of hide-and-seek, in which a childlike wonder propels the exploration of mysteries. Witness the young Albert Einstein, fascinated by a compass and the sense it gave him of "something deeply hidden behind things." In musical terms, the book is a triple fugue, interweaving three themes: the epic struggle between the scientist and nature; the distilling effects of the struggle on the scientist; and the emergence from this struggle of symbolic mathematics, the purified language necessary to decode nature's secrets.

Pesic's quest for the roots of science begins with three key Renaissance figures: William Gilbert, a physician who began the scientific study of magnetism; François Viète, a French codebreaker who played a crucial role in the foundation of symbolic mathematics; and Francis Bacon, a visionary who anticipated the shape of modern science. Pesic then describes the encounters of three modern masters—Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein—with the depths of nature. Throughout, Pesic reads scientific works as works of literature, attending to nuance and tone as much as to surface meaning. He seeks the living center of human concern as it emerges in the ongoing search for nature's secrets.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Pesic is a Tutor and Musician-in-Residence at St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University.

From Kirkus Reviews

Pesic, a tutor and musician in residence at St. John's College in Santa Fe, sees scientists as driven to wrest the secrets of nature in a struggle that takes on emotional, even erotic overtones. His defense of this romantic view is based on studies of three 16th- and 17th-century innovators: William Gilbert (the father of magnetism), Francis Bacon (who espoused inductive approaches to science), and Francois Viete (a French mathematician and cryptographer credited with introducing algebraic notation). Their writings illustrate Pesic's three interrelated themes, which he describes as a triple fugue. First is the scientist's labyrinthine struggle to understand nature; second is the ardent desire, a kind of purified eroticism, that inspires the scientist's pursuit; and third is the role that symbolic mathematics plays in facilitating the pursuit. He then projects these themes onto the lives of Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, regarding their writings as works of literature. Clearly, the scientists Pesic has chosen as exemplars, largely drawn from the dawn of modern science, reflect a time when religion, myth, mysticism, and science co-mingled in their minds so that a secret wrested from nature would indeed be considered a revelation of God--yet a small one in contrast to the vast unknown. Pesic elaborates on Greek myths (Prometheus, Dionysus, Theseus, Oedipus) in building his case, including some questionable references to disability and illness (Oedipus' lameness, for example) as occurring disproportionately among scientists and enabling them to think excruciatingly slowly.Pesic's presentation of the metaphysical, emotional, and pious motivations of major figures in science is a distinct contribution that stands in contrast to the usual just the facts approach. It may also stand in marked contrast, though, to scientists of today, who (while equally zealous in the struggle for nature's truths) are more likely to invoke chance and chaos rather than the workings of a mysterious divine. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0262161907
• ISBN 13: 9780262161909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 194