Gerald Holton uses the life and work of our century’s greatest scientist to warn against today’s gathering Romantic rebellion, one in which science is blamed for all our social ills, and in which reason is being replaced by New Age ”ways of knowing.” Through his rich exploration of Einstein’s thought, the author shows how the best science depends on great intuitive leaps of imagination, and how science is indeed the creatice expression of the traditions of Western civilization. Wide-ranging and forecful, this book is must reading for anyone interested in the place of science in our world.
Not intended for the casual or general reader, this book is a scholarly and erudite examination of the role that science plays in our society. Holton (physics and history of science, Harvard) is the author of nine books about science and the editor of 11 others, including serving on the editorial board and committee for the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. His current work is divided into two parts. The first, "Science in History," is an examination of the interaction of science and society, concentrating on the 20th century. In the second part, "Learning from Einstein," Holton uses the life and science of Albert Einstein as a prism through which we can view science as a creative process. Though the book is generally well written, the two parts don't cohere, and ultimately it does not succeed. Recommended for academic science collections.-James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
Science has taken quite a beating in the last few years. Held responsible for everything from environmental destruction to moral decline, science and technology have fallen a long way from the exalted position they held in the earlier part of this century. Holton, a professor of physics and the history of science at Harvard, makes a strong argument in defense of science. Rejecting the "popular, hostile caricatures" of science as a logical, soulless, incomprehensible wasteland, Holton argues that science can't be adequately understood apart from the greater society and that the dichotomy between the arts and science is a false one. He presents Albert Einstein as a creative, life-affirming person, who was passionate about ideas and understanding life's mysteries. Einstein devoted his life to examining "conventional wisdom" and overturning it when it didn't account for the facts. Holton's Einstein is dynamic and personable, but, unfortunately, the same can't be said about every moment in this book. Holton reiterates several times that the field of science is not restricted to techno-wonks, but some readers are likely to be disheartened plugging through sentences like the following: "Purely as a mnemonic device, let me represent the event E under study as a point in a plane, within orthogonal coordinates, the horizontal of which indicates time." Still, those with a background in science or the sneaking suspicion that recent science-bashing is unfair, will find this book to be an intelligent defense of a great field of human endeavor. (June) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
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