The Creative Moment by Joseph Schwartz
Joe Schwartz makes plain that great moments of individual creativity - the work of Galileo and Newton, Einstein figuring out relativity - must in fact be viewed as part of a social context. Yet in the last 100 years science has progressively alienated itself from the rest of culture, to the point where it is not only a mystery to most, but actually operating in an increasingly dangerous void. Choosing a number of significant "moments" from 17th-century Florence (Galileo) to Cold Spring Harbour, USA in 1946 (molecular biology), Schwartz ventures to act as a sort of critic of science, showing famous advances in a new light. Galileo invents a mathematical language for physical description, thus protecting himself from the Church; Einstein's relativity theory arises from the Industrial Revolution; the bomb-making physicists of Los Alamos, vulnerable from their background in inter-war Europe, are manipulated by the American military; AIDS researchers, caught up in the traditions of molecular biology, are locked into a pattern of investigation that may well be perilously misguided; physicists enchanted with numbers lose the capacity to understand why the numbers work and as a result have come up with no new ideas since the 1920s. The author is a physicist who has also written "Einstein For Beginners".
Joseph Schwartz is a physicist and writer, author of Einstein for Beginners (with Michael McGuiness) and Partial Progress: The Politics of Science and Technology (with David Albury). He lives in London with his partner Susie Orbach and their two children.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780224035408 |
| ISBN 10 | 0224035401 |
| Title | The Creative Moment |
| Author | Joseph Schwartz |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 1992-06-18 |
| Number of pages | 252 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |