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8+ oeuvres 230 utilisateurs 5 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Dana Mackenzie is a frequent contributor to Science, Discover, and New Scientist, and writes the biennial series What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences for the American Mathematical Society. In 2012, he received the prestigious Communications Award from the Joint Policy Board for afficher plus Mathematics. He has a PhD in mathematics from Princeton and was a mathematics professor for thirteen years before becoming a full-time writer. afficher moins

Œuvres de Dana Mackenzie

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Sexe
male
Nationalité
USA
Études
Princeton University
Professions
writer
editor
Prix et distinctions
George Pólya Award (1993)

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Critiques

This is an informative and compelling book about the origins of our moon, yet it can stand on its own as a work on science. Its ability to offer the big picture as well as technical questions is probably what makes it so interesting to laymen like myself. But it has a distinctive stamp when compared to a great work that has become the gold standard in popular astronomy, Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." Overall, the two books probably have more in common than not. And "The Big Splat" does share Sagan's great theme of science as a self-correcting project with a long history, one characterized both by truth and errors. But science is painted a little differently here. In Carl Sagan's works, unmanned exploration of space comes across as the chief scientific success of the space program, and Sagan himself was a critic of manned space flights. In "The Big Splat," it is the Apollo landing on the moon that shines as the pinnacle of scientific gain. The moon rocks returned to Earth, culled on the lunar surface by astronauts trained in what to look for, told scientists that old theories about the moon's formation were untenable, and provided the key to the new and widely accepted theory. The rocks did something very similar for theories about the origin of craters.

Moreover, the sheer size and visibility of the Apollo program revived lunar science when it had fallen out of favor with the scientific mainstream and was ebbing.

If the philosophy behind "Cosmos" has become the new, mainstream view of science, "The Big Splat" differs from it in at least one more important way. It does not rely greatly on the common theme of science-versus-religion (though that theme does appear). Science is presented as having its own fashions and dogmas, such as the onetime disinclination to take lunar science seriously, and the widespread prejudice against theories proposing large-scale impacts. The chief prejudice is one against lifeless planets: in the author's words, scientists as well as laymen had always proposed that there was life on the moon because "it was just too hard for the human intellect to grasp a place that was utterly devoid of life."

In Carl Sagan's works, the greatest challenge to the human mind, and the largest opportunity to extend human knowledge, is said to be the possible discovery, by science, of extraterrestrial life. In this book, what is hardest for the human intellect to comprehend is not extraterrestrial life but instead lifelessness: the discovery by Apollo that the moon was and always had been a lifeless body.
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Signalé
krosero | 1 autre critique | Jul 10, 2021 |
If you like the history math and science and find certain equations beautiful then you will enjoy this as much as I did. Otherwise I am sure you would never even consider picking it up!
 
Signalé
ndpmcIntosh | 2 autres critiques | Mar 21, 2016 |
Given that important examples of real equations are displayed, this book makes for fairly easy and quick reading. Handsomely produced and illustrated. One thing it has in common with Ian Stewart's titularly similar but arguably meatier book is the appearance of the financial field's Black-Scholes equation as the last example.
 
Signalé
fpagan | 2 autres critiques | Feb 9, 2013 |
For general readers, a beautifully illustrated history of mathematics and science told through 24 major equations. The history spans 4,000 years and is organized by time periods. The author also won the JPBM (Joint Policy Board of Mathematics) announced in January 2012 which is awarded for a body of writing.
 
Signalé
zenosbooks | 2 autres critiques | Sep 9, 2012 |

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Œuvres
8
Aussi par
2
Membres
230
Popularité
#97,994
Évaluation
3.8
Critiques
5
ISBN
20
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