HIGHER SPECULATIONS by Helge Kragh ( 9780199599882 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

HIGHER SPECULATIONS
GRAND THEORIES AND FAILED REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY

By:

Helge Kragh

Format:

Hardback

List price:

£67.00

Our price:

£58.63

Discount:

12.5% off

You save:

£8.37

ISBN 10:

0199599882

ISBN 13:

9780199599882

Availability:

Usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks.

Delivery rates

Stock:

Currently 0 available

Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

6 January, 2011

Pages:

416

Description:

A historical account of highly ambitious attempts to understand all of nature in terms of fundamental physics. Presenting old and new 'theories of everything' in their historical contexts, the book discusses the nature and limits of scientific explanation in connection with concrete case studies.

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.

Illustrations:

17 b/w line and halftone illustrations

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SCIENCE (PB)

BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE HEAVENS: HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES (HB)

CONCEPTIONS OF COSMOS (HB)

CONCEPTIONS OF COSMOS (PB)