Einstein once characterized the motives for doing science as fun, utilization, and the quest for a Theory of Everything. In this translated collection of thought-provoking diary entries, short essays and columns published from 1977-2009, and organized by Einstein's motives to which a Dutch physicist adds another motive inspired by Darwin: the survival of science and life on Earth in the Silicon Age. Saris suggests that the distinction between basic and applied science needn't be rigid, and that science and faith can coexist. Distributed in the US by the University of Chicago Press. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Why do humans engage in scientific research? For some, it’s simply a career. Others are drawn to science for its potential financial rewards. And still others do it out of competitiveness—to be the first in their field. But in Darwin Meets Einstein Frans W. Saris argues that in our postmodern times we have lost the meaning of science—that science is not about competition, nor about creating wealth, nor about the joy of discovery. Science is for survival—the survival of humans, the survival of life.
In this accessible collection of essays and columns, Saris brings together in conversation a number of great minds—Charles Darwin, Baruch Spinoza, Niko Tinbergen, Francis Bacon, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Franz Kafka, and Albert Einstein—to answer the question: why science? With selections like “Diary of a Physicist,” “The Scientific Life,” “The Mother of All Knowledge,” and “Science Through the Looking Glass of Literature,” Darwin Meets Einstein will entertain its readers and ultimately encourage them to reconsider the meaning—and the purpose—of science.
Darwin Meets Einstein - 4 Contents - 8 The temple of science - 10 Diary
of a physicist - 14 Dear Zhong-lie - 24 Alchemy - 26 Worthwhile - 28
Scientific nomads - 30 Superheated Ice - 35 Managing a discovery - 38 Spy in
the lab - 44 B. Manfred Ullrich - 47 Diary of a fusionist - 52 Roger - 56
Solar cells - 57 Particle accelerators - 60 The Silicon Age - 63 The
discoverer and the inventor - 71 Jaap was right - 73 Moores law in Bilthoven
- 75 Teller in the Netherlands - 77 The scientific life - 82 Shopping - 92
Fundamental research on matter - 94 A vacuum is not nothing - 96 Father of
the atom - 99 Who influenced Bohr? - 103 Hooray for the electron - 106
Decadence - 109 Physics and faith - 113 Theories of everything - 115 A minds
eye - 122 The mother of all knowledge - 125 A matter of civilization - 128
Why science? - 133 Spinozas God - 139 Science through the looking glass
ofliterature - 145 Sir Charles - 154 Darwin meets Einstein - 156
Frans W. Saris is emeritus professor of physics and Dean of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Leiden. www.FransWSaris.nl
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