To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science

In To Explain the World, pre-eminent theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg offers a rich and irreverent history of science from a unique perspective - that of a scientist. Moving from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad to Oxford, and from the Museum of Alexandria to the Royal Society of London, he shows that the scientists of the past not only did not understand what we understand about the world - they did not understand what there is to understand. Yet eventually, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of tides, the modern discipline of science emerged.

About the Author :
Steven Weinberg has won the Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, the Lewis Thomas Prize for the Scientist as Poet and numerous honorary degrees. He is a member of the National Academy of Science, the Royal Society of London and the American Philosophical Society. A long-time contributor to the New York Review of Books, he is the author of The First Three Minutes and Dreams of a Final Theory, among other books.

Review :
Steven Weinberg, the world's preeminent physicist, provides a masterful journey through humankind's scientific coming of age. This is a story that not only traces our deep insights into nature's workings but reveals how we came to grasp the very meaning of scientific insight. With its refreshing candor and lyrical prose, To Explain the World is a delightful celebration of our passionate drive for understanding It would be putting it mildly to say that Weinberg triumphantly lives up to what it says on the Nobel tin: a true intellectual as well as a brilliant theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg is one of the most highly accomplished and respected scientists in the world. But even among this elite group he holds a unique position as a scientist-scholar and a writer of unparalleled clarity. Weinberg has become a role model for the rest of us who attempt to communicate to the broader public. No one writing on matters of science or of science and society has more wisdom to impart, nor can they impart it better than Weinberg Weinberg has reached the pinnacle of scientific success - the Nobel Prize - he writes clearly and with confidence, imbuing the reader with an irresistible sense that one is in the hands of a master physicist at play Of all top-class theoretical physicists no one, apart from Freeman Dyson, writes with the same combination of authority and grace An absolute delight. A refreshing contrast to other tomes on the topic... Weinberg reminds us to be humble not only about what we know, but how we know it. In this masterful, entertainingly 'irreverent' book, [Weinberg] explains the rise of science from ancient Greeks to modern geeks in terms that his students and the rest of us will understand. An enlightening read that does not demand specialist knowledge to enjoy.