Convergence
The Deepest Idea in the Universe
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Convergence is a history of modern science with an original and significant twist. Various scientific disciplines, despite their very different beginnings, and disparate areas of interest have been coming together over the past 150 years, converging and coalescing, to identify one extraordinary master narrative, one overwhelming interlocking coherent story: the history of the universe.
Intimate connections between physics and chemistry have been revealed as have the links between quantum chemistry and molecular biology. Astronomy has been augmented by particle physics, psychology has been increasingly aligned with physics, with chemistry and even with economics. Genetics has been harmonised with linguistics, botany with archaeology, climatology with myth. This is a simple insight but one with profound consequences. Convergence is, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has put it, ‘The deepest thing about the universe.’
This book does not, however, tell the story by beginning at the beginning and ending at the end. It is much more revealing, more convincing, and altogether more thrilling to tell the story as it emerged, as it began to fall into place, piece by piece, converging tentatively at first, but then with increasing speed, vigour and confidence. The overlaps and interdependence of the sciences, the emerging order that they are gradually uncovering, is without question the most enthralling aspect of twenty-first-century science.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this massive tour de force, British intellectual historian Watson (The Age of Atheists) traces the rise of modern science from 1850 to the 21st century. He aims to demonstrate that what began as disparate studies started to converge on "one overwhelming interlocking coherent story: the history of the universe." Watson asserts that this "deep coherence" is "at the very root of reality" and calls the unity it reflects the "final mystery." While demonstrating the power of scientific reductionism, Watson is careful to recognize that "emergence," the natural ordering of a complex system that yields patterns not present in its constituent parts, also plays an important role in how the universe is structured. Watson begins his journey by looking at the physicists of the 19th century who tied mathematics and physics together to create the idea of thermodynamics. He then explores the paradigm-breaking work of Charles Darwin. Watson does this well, though he doesn't offer much new information. Then he delves into quantum mechanics and molecular biology, explaining their antecedents and demonstrating how advances in one field yielded breakthroughs in another. Bringing in ideas from geology, mythology, psychology, economics, and more to investigate the origins of civilization, Watson persuasively presents a deep and challenging idea.