The Quest for Unity

"We can only rejoice in this glorious account of mankind's striving over the centuries to unravel the whole grand story of existence, from Plato, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Aristotle through Copernicus , Kepler and Newton to Einstein and Bhr, recounted here with French enlightenment and passion for the telling point."--John Archibald Wheeler, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Princeton University "Probably the best way to describe [this book] is to say that it is a popular history of the various attempts to find unified accounts of the physical world, ranging all the way from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the modern search for a 'Theory of Everything'. As such, it is more a book about the philosophy of physics than about physics itself, putting heavy emphasis on the contrast between the human desire for unity and the (apparent?) complex multiplicity of the world in which we live. . . . there's a lot about mathematics and mathematicians here too. In fact, our current dreams of unity are really about a mathematical description of the world in which the bewildering variety of things lies over a fundamental and simple mathematical unity. The authors are quite skeptical of such a view, and their account, at times fascinating and at times pretentious, will get people thinking."--The Mathematical Association of America "The Quest for Unity is a refreshing look at [the] tension between unity and diversity in physics, and places it in a useful historical perspective. The book touches on many issues of interest in the philosophy of science, for example the relation between the eternally valid laws of universal application and the passage of time in changing physical systems possessing a unique identity; also, the way in which the abstract mathematical reasoning that underlies physics can form a foundation for venturing beyond the tested facts to new ways of understanding nature, which seems to be patterned ina mathematical way at a fundamental level."--Nature "This book surveys a number of issues in physics, the history of physics and the philosophy of science for the reader without a sophisticated background in any of these fields. The material is organized around the overall theme of science as engaged in a pursuit of a unified understanding of the nature of the world. Chapter 1 surveys a number of attempts among the ancient Greek philosophers to discover unity in the diversity of nature . . . Chapter 2 takes up early modern physics . . . Chapter 3 surveys some of the history of physics . . . Chapter 4 discusses quantum mechanics . . . Chapter 5 discusses how science . . . tends to subdivide into distinct disciplinary sub-specialties . . . Finally, in Chapter 6, the dream of unification is discussed as a scientific ideal. . . . It is . . . suggested that one ought to find the true unity in science, more, perhaps, in a unity of method than in some ultimate ontological unity."--Mathematical Reviews