The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud and the Search for Hidden Universes - Softcover

Panek, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841152781 ISBN 13: 9781841152783

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2009

Synopsis

A book which offers fresh perspectives on the scientific developments of the past hundred years through the complementary work of two of the centurys greatest thinkers, Einstein and Freud.At the turn of the century there was a widespread assumption in scientific circles that the pursuit of knowledge was nearing its end and that all available evidence had been exhausted. However, by 1916 both Einstein and Freud had exploded the myth by leading exploration into the science of the invisible and the unconscious. These men were more than just contemporaries their separate pursuits were in fact complementary. Freuds science of psychoanalysis found its cosmological counterpart in the Astronomy of Invisible Light pioneered by Einstein. Together they questioned the little inconsistencies of Newtons ordered cosmos to reveal a different reality, a natural order that was anything but ordered, a cosmos that was volatile and vast an organism alive in time. These men inspired a fundamental shift in the history of human thought. They began a revolution that is still in progress and provided one of the past centurys greatest contributions to the history of science.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Panek regularly writes about science for The New York Times and Natural History, where he has served as a monthly astronomy columnist. He has also written about astronomy and cosmology for Esquire, Outside, Discover, World Book Encyclopedia, and National Public Radio. His previous book is Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens.

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran science writer Panek's pairing of the dual icons Einstein and Freud, whose labors were in widely disparate fields, is both natural and inspired. He uses his formidable writing skills to illuminate two of the 20th century's most notable accomplishments, the theory of general relativity and the discovery of the unconscious, weaving them into an informative and interesting history of the scientific method. Panek's explanation of Einstein's theory of relativity is excellent, and readers will with pleasure understand this counterintuitive concept. He is equally good at describing how Freud developed his theory of the unconscious. Panek also describes how the two rejected the 19th-century scientific paradigm, which held that the more accurate measurement of physical aspects of the universe would unravel its secrets. As Panek (Seeing and Believing) states, "...Einstein and Freud wound up venturing where their contemporaries did not because at a certain point, they didn't investigate. They thought. They reconceived the problem." Besides providing valuable biographical detail about both Freud and Einstein, Panek demonstrates a wide-ranging knowledge of the development of scientific thought and philosophy, as well as the major developments in both cosmology and the study of human anatomy. There is a remarkable amount of information in this short book, and Panek's valuable thesis—that the triumph of 20th-century science was the discovery of the invisible workings of the universe and ourselves—is well made.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1841152781
• ISBN 13: 9781841152783
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288