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Scientific Sublime

By Gross, Alan G.

Scientific Sublime

By Gross, Alan G.

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Description
The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?
Product details
Edition:
illustrated
Number of Pages:
328
Release Date:
2018-07-02
Publication Date:
2018-07-02
Publisher:
OXFORD UNIV PR
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0190637773
ISBN13:
9780190637774
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
658 g
Height:
161 cm
Width:
240 cm
Thickness:
22 cm
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