Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology - Hardcover

Kragh, Helge

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199599882 ISBN 13: 9780199599882

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Throughout history, people have tried to construct 'theories of everything': highly ambitious attempts to understand nature in its totality. This account presents these theories in their historical contexts, from little known hypotheses from the past to modern developments such as the theory of superstrings, the anthropic principle and ideas of many universes, and uses them to problematize the limits of scientific knowledge. Do claims to theories of everything belong to science at all? Which are the epistemic standards on which an alleged scientific theory of the universe - or the multiverse - is to be judged?

Such questions are currently being discussed by physicists and cosmologists, but rarely within a historical perspective. This book argues that these questions have a history and that knowledge of the historical development of 'higher speculations' may inform and qualify the current debate of the nature and limits of scientific explanation.

About this title

About the Author:

After graduation from the University of Copenhagen in Physics and Chemistry, and a period as teacher in gymnasium schools, Helge Kragh became Associate Professor at Cornell University, Departments of History and Physics. Later, he took positions as Curator at the Steno Museum for Science and Medicine and Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oslo, Norway. Since 1997, he has been Professor of the History of Science and Technology, University of Aarhus, Denmark. He is a Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Science, the International Academy for the History of Science, and of the European Academy of Science. He was President of the European Society for the History of Science (2008-2010).

Review:

"Helge Kragh is one of our best historians of physics, and the author of several outstanding books. The idea of a history of highly speculative theories in physics is excellent. Although there are popular accounts of recent cosmological and grand-unifying theories, no historian has so far
attempted to bring together old and new cases of such theories. The result makes fascinating reading and induces thought-provoking comparisons."

--Olivier Darrigol, CNRS: Sphere/Rehseis

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0199599882
• ISBN 13: 9780199599882
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 411