'Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism'

Copertina anteriore
Cambridge University Press, 13 ago 1996 - 172 pagine
Table of Contents 'Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism' by Schrödinger, Erwin; Penrose, Roger (Foreword by) Terms of Use Foreword Part I Nature and the Greeks 1 The motives for returning to ancient thought 2 The competition, reason v. senses 3 The pythagoreans 4 The Ionian enlightenment 5 The religion of Xenophanes, Heraclitus of Ephesus 6 The atomists 7 What are the special features? Part II Science and Humanism 1 The spiritual bearing of science on life 2 The practical achievements of science tending to obliterate its true import 3 A radical change in our ideas of matter 4 Form, not substance, the fundamental concept 5 The nature of our 'models' 6 Continuous descriptions and causality 7 The intricacy of the continuum 8 The makeshift of wave mechanics 9 The alleged break-down of the barrier between subject and object 10 Atoms or quanta - the counter-spell of old standing, to escape the intricacy of the continuum 11 Would physical indeterminacy give free will a chance? 12 The bar to prediction, according to Niels Bohr; Literature Descriptive content provided by Syndetics"! a Bowker service. Summary 'Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism' by Schrödinger, Erwin; Penrose, Roger (Foreword by) Terms of use Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger was one of the most distinguished scientists of the twentieth century; his lectures on the history and philosophy of science are legendary. 'Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism' makes available for the first time in many years the text of two of Schrödinger's most famous lecture series. 'Nature and the Greeks' offers a comprehensive historical account of the twentieth-century scientific world picture, tracing modern science back to the earliest stages of Western philosophic thought. 'Science and Humanism' addresses some of the most fundamental questions of the century: what is the value of scientific research? and how do the achievements of modern science affect the relationship between material and spiritual matters? A foreword by Roger Penrose sets the lectures in a contemporary context, and affirms they are as relevant today as when they were first published. Descriptive content provided by Syndetics"! a Bowker service.
 

Sommario

The motives for returning to ancient thought
3
The competition reason v senses
22
The Pythagoreans
34
The Ionian Enlightenment
53
The religion of Xenophanes Heraclitus of Ephesus
69
The Atomists
75
What are the special features?
90
Bibliography
99
Form not substance the fundamental concept
122
The nature of our models
125
Continuous description and causality
130
The intricacy of the continuum
133
The makeshift of wave mechanics
143
The alleged breakdown of the barrier between subject and object
151
Atoms or quanta the counterspell of old standing to escape the intricacy of the continuum
157
Would physical indeterminacy give free will a chance?
162

Preface
103
The spiritual bearing of science on life
105
The practical achievements of science tending to obliterate its true import
113
A radical change in our ideas of matter
115
The bar to prediction according to Niels Bohr
168
Literature
172
Copyright

Altre edizioni - Visualizza tutto

Parole e frasi comuni

Informazioni sull'autore (1996)

Born and educated in Vienna, Erwin Schrodinger received his Ph.D. in 1910 from the University of Vienna. He developed the theory of wave mechanics (1925--26). For this theory, which furnished a solid mathematical explanation of quantum theory, Schrodinger shared the Nobel Prize in 1933 with Paul Dirac. Schrodinger was dissatisfied with Niels Bohr's early quantum theory of the atom, objecting to the many arbitrary quantum rules imposed. Building on Louis-Victor De Broglie's idea that a moving atomic particle has a wave character, Schrodinger developed a famous wave equation that describes the behavior of an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom. When applied to the hydrogen atom, the equation yielded all the results of Bohr and De Broglie, and was also used as a tool to solve a wide range of new problems in which quantization occurs. In 1927 Schrodinger succeeded Max Planck at the University of Berlin but resigned in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. He left then for England, becoming a guest professor at Oxford University. In 1936 he returned to Austria, but then fled in 1938 under the threat of Nazi arrest and was invited to Dublin's newly established Institute for Advanced Studies. He remained there from 1940 until his retirement in 1956, when he returned to his native Austria and to the University of Vienna, where he held his last chair in theoretical physics. In 1944 Schrodinger published What Is Life? The Physical Aspects of a Living Cell, a book that had a tremendous impact on a new generation of scientists. The book directed young physicists who were disillusioned by the Hiroshima bombing to an unexplored discipline free of military applications---molecular biology. Schrodinger proposed the existence of a molecular code as the genetic basis of life, inspiring an entire generation to explore this idea.

Informazioni bibliografiche