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Preface
- Dartmouth College Press
- Chapter
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PREFACE This book surveys the quest for understanding our origins and our place in this vast, mysterious Universe. For as long as history has been recorded humankind has asked the most fundamental question that can be asked, that of the origin of all things. As far as we know, every culture, past and present, has addressed this issue, arriving at various answers. From creation myths of prescientific cultures to modern cosmological theories, the question as to why there is something rather than nothing has inspired mythmakers and scientists , the religious and the atheist. As we retrace the steps of this vast undertaking, we marvel at the manifold ways by which the human imagination has explained the mystery of creation. Beautiful metaphors and rich symbolism cross the boundaries between science and religion, expressing a true universality of human thought. This same universality, however , points to certain limitations of our imagination. The problem is that the sensorial perceptions and thought processes that we use to make sense of the world are bound by a polarized view of reality based on opposites such as day-night, cold-hot, female-male, matter -spirit, etc.; thus they can offer only a few logical ways to deal with what transcends this polarization, the Absolute from which all comes, be it conceived as God, a mythic “cosmic egg,” or the laws of physics. Although scientific and religious approaches to the question of the origin of the Universe have very little in common, certain ideas are bound to reappear, even if draped in completely different clothes. Thus, I begin with an analysis of creation myths of various cultures and close with a parallel discussion of modern scientific ideas concerning the origin of the Universe. By classifying creation myths and cosmological theories according to how they answer this question, I hope to make clear both their overlapping points and their marked differences. In between, we will examine how our understanding of nature and the Universe as a whole evolved hand-in-hand with the development of physics, from its origins with the pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece, all the way to the discovery of quantum mechanics and relativity during the first three decades of the twentieth century , the cornerstones of modern cosmological theories. This book also looks at the people responsible for shaping our changing view of the Universe. Apart from explaining their science, I also explore the motivations, successes, and struggles of the many individuals that played a part in this long drama. As we will see, religion in many guises played (and plays!) a crucial role in the creative process of many scientists. Copernicus, the reclusive canon responsible for putting the Sun back at the center of the cosmos, was a reluctant revolutionary . Kepler, the man who told us that planets circle the Sun in elliptical orbits, was a rational mystic. Galileo, the man who first pointed the telescope at the stars, was a pious (but very ambitious) man, who believed he could single-handedly lead the Catholic Church into the new era of natural philosophy. Newton’s universe was infinite, an embodiment of the infinite power of God. Einstein wrote that the devotion to science is the only truly religious activity in modern times. By getting to know these scientists, we will not only better understand their science, but scientists in general. For this book is also about the way scientists think and feel about their work. There is no greater misconception of science than the widespread belief that scientists are cold and insensitive, a group of eccentrics pondering arcane questions no one else can understand. Science is often regarded as a purely rational activity in which objectivity reigns supreme as the sole avenue of knowledge. As a result, scientists are sometimes viewed as insensitive and narrow-minded, prone to strip away all the beauty of nature by approaching it mathematically. This labeling of scientists in general and physicists in particular has always bothered me. It misses the most important motivation for doing science, which is precisely our fascination with nature and its mysteries. Behind the scientist’s complicated formulas, the tables of data obtained from experiments, and the technical jargon, you will find a person eagerly trying to transcend the immediate boundaries xii PREFACE [54.84.65.73] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:44 GMT) of life, driven by an unstoppable desire to reach some deeper truth. Seen this way, science is not so different from art, a...