Third Thoughts: The Universe We Still Don’t Know

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Harvard University Press, Aug 6, 2018 - Science - 240 pages

“The phrase ‘public intellectual’ is much bandied about. Just a few real heavyweights in the world merit the title, and Steven Weinberg is preeminent among them.”
—Richard Dawkins

“Weinberg has a knack for capturing a complex concept in a succinct, unforgettable image... One of the smartest and most diligent scientists around.”
—Nature

In this wise and wide-ranging meditation, one of the most captivating science communicators of our time challenges us to reconsider the entanglement of science and society. From the cosmological to the personal, from astronomy and quantum physics to the folly of manned spaceflight and the rewards of getting things wrong, Steven Weinberg shares his views on the workings of the universe and our aspirations and limitations. Third Thoughts aims to provoke and inform and never loses sight of the human dimension of scientific discovery.

“One of the 20th century’s greatest physicists...shares his strongly-held opinions on everything from the Higgs boson to the state of theoretical physics and the problems of science and society.”
—Forbes

“This book should be read not only for its insightful and illuminating explanations of a wide range of physical phenomena but also for the opportunity it affords to follow the wanderings of a brilliant mind through topics ranging from high-energy physics and the makeup of the cosmos to poetry, and from the history and philosophy of science to the dangers of economic inequality... [A] captivating book.”
—Mario Livio, Science

 

Contents

Preface
SCIENCE HISTORY
The Uses of Astronomy
The Art of Discovery
From Rutherford to the
Educators and Academics Underground in Texas
The Rise of the Standard Models
Long Times and Short Times
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics
PUBLIC MATTERS
Obama Gets Space Funding Right
The Crisis of Big Science
Liberal Disappointment
Keep Loopholes Open
Against Manned Space Flight
Skeptics and Scientists

Keeping an Eye on the PresentWhig History of Science
An Exchange
PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY
What Is an Elementary Particle?
The Universe We Still Dont Know
Varieties of Symmetry
The Higgs and Beyond
Why the Higgs?
Change Course
Writing about Science
On Being Wrong
The Craft of Science and the Craft of
New York to Austin and Return
Sources
Index
Copyright

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Third Thoughts: The Universe We Still Don’t Know
Steven Weinberg
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Bibliographic information

TitleThird Thoughts: The Universe We Still Don’t Know
AuthorSteven Weinberg
PublisherHarvard University Press, 2018
ISBN0674989724, 9780674989726
Length240 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Political Science / Public Policy / Science & Technology Policy
Science / Essays
Science / History
Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects
Science / Physics / Atomic & Molecular
  
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