To Explain the World, Steven Weinberg
To Explain the World, Steven Weinberg
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To Explain the World
The Discovery of Modern Science

Author: Steven Weinberg

Narrator: Tom Perkins

Unabridged: 10 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/10/2015

Categories: Nonfiction, History, Science

Synopsis

In this rich, irreverent, and compelling history, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg takes us across centuries, from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world—they did not understand what there is to understand or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the curious backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of the tides, the modern discipline of science eventually emerged. Along the way, Weinberg examines historic clashes and collaborations between science and the competing spheres of religion, technology, poetry, mathematics, and philosophy.

An illuminating exploration of the way we consider and analyze the world around us, To Explain the World is a sweeping, ambitious account of how difficult it was to discover the goals and methods of modern science, and the impact that this discovery had on human knowledge and development.

About Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 as well as the National Medal of Science and the Lewis Thomas Prize for the Scientist as Poet, among other honors. He was the Josey Regental Professor of Science at the University of Texas in Austin and the author of many books, including Dreams of a Final Theory and To Explain the World.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Always on June 23, 2017

I was pretty excited to read this one and apparently the author is a lecturer on the history of science and put the book together through the notes he uses to prepare for teaching his class. There was a lot of new stuff in this book that I didn't know, especially about the development of math which......more

Goodreads review by Brian on February 15, 2015

There was a time when one approached a popular science book by a 'real' working scientist with trepidation. There was little doubt they would get the science right, but the chances are it would read more like a textbook or dull lecture notes. Thankfully, there are now a number of scientists who make......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on December 28, 2021

Steven Weinberg is a physicist and Nobel Prize winner at the University of Texas, and in To Explain the World he discusses the development of math and physics from the ancient Greeks to Isaac Newton. The Greeks tried to understand the world using logic and deduction; experimentation was not part of......more

Goodreads review by Terry on July 13, 2015

To Explain the World is an uninteresting walk through the development of our understanding of the solar system. The book purports to do other things but really the majority of its bulk centers around this point. Normally, I love history of science, but this book is both slow and lacks insight. Avoid......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on August 11, 2021

I don't think I have the patience or the background in science to understand this book. I had to read this book much slower than I would have liked. In addition, I had to puzzle over parts of it a few times before I got it. In some instances, I didn't get the material. That being said, I think this......more

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