Chaos and Harmony: Prespectives on Scientific Revolutions of the 20th Century

by Trịnh Xuân Thuận

Book Overview

For 300 years, Trinh Xuan Thuan writes, since the time of Isaac Newton, scientists saw reality as a giant clock--a sterile mechanism in which one part acts on another in a deterministic fashion. But the discoveries of the last few decades have changed all that, conjuring up instead a universe brimming with unpredictability, creativity, and chance.
Writing with exceptional grace and clarity, Thuan vividly describes these important scientific discoveries,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195129172
• ISBN13: 9780195129175
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Better than the average science writer?

My first reaction was: ah, gee, just another dumb me down, put me down science popularization? But in cosmologist terms first : he pays attention to modern mathematics in Chaos and Fractals which puts him ahead of several Cambridge elitists whose books I've read! He seems to be aware that there is nonlinearity in ordinary nature. His language of education seems to be French which might explain an astrophysicist who is willing to think about fractals in nature? He has a section: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Thought". The actual quote is: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics" which makes one think he may consider thought and mathematics equivalent? The neat fractal pictures of a space time at the Planck measure of length on pages 182-3, make me realize that he may actually have thought about the question of limiting length in a more than 'ordinary' way? On "Harmony": one has in music Western 12 note scale harmony, Arab 24 note pentatonic harmony, jazz chord progression harmony and Chinese triad harmony. I'm not sure after reading the book what he means by "Harmony"? But I'm willing to let him promote it over many of the others whose books I've read lately on similar subjects! He seems willing to consider new ideas.

A Layman's View of Physics and the Cosmos

In the mid 1600's Sir Isaac Newton developed a set of basic rules for how the universe worked. The power of Newton's logic, how simple he made the world look held sway for more than two centuries. Only towards the end of the 1800's did experiments begin to point to cracks in the basic Newtonnian theory. In 1905 however, the world changed. Einstein published his first paper on relativity. Not long after that came quantuum mechanics. The physics of the twentiety century was to greatly change the view of the world. More complex, true, but also more in tune with the experimental findings. This book is aimed at the layman and explains these fundamental changes in our view of the world. It also points to some of the unanswered questions that remain. Could it be that we are headed to another great change with a new Newton/Einstein in the wings?

Good popular science, but not really philosophy

Just so you get an idea of Dr. Thuan's philosophical viewpoint, he is a neo-Platonist (in the sense that he believes in a self-existing reality where mathematics "resides") and he believes that the universe was designed. He also thinks that determinism is bad. If you agree with any or all of these perspectives, you probably won't find any new reasons to support your viewpoint. If you disagree, you will probably find little here to convince you otherwise. This is not a philosophically original work.But Dr. Thuan does offer an engagingly written (if brief) account of much of the history of modern physics--big bang cosmology, electromagnetism, special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, strong and weak nuclear forces, particle physics--as well as some fun topics like black holes and wormholes, and he teases the reader with short accounts of potential research areas such as superstring theory and supersymmetry. His treatment is nice since we get not only the results of modern physics, but also some sense as to how we got them in the first place, which is often missing in works of popular science.My only complaints (other than the possibly misleading title) are:* I wish he would have been a little more careful to distinguish the behavior of chaotic systems from the operation of "chaos theory" in Chapter 3.* In Chapter 6 I wish he would have given more rigorous reasons than his personal incredulity for doubting that natural selection can account for the diversity of life. At least he could have gotten a biologist's perspective--he quoted quite often from physicists and mathematicians, so presumably it wouldn't have been very hard to get a relevant comment from a biologist.* I found his comments on the "evils" of determinism in Chapter 7 to be distracting and beside the point, but perhaps others will see merit in them.Overall, it's a good read if you want to get a general sense of some of the more important advances in physics, but if it's philosophy you're looking for, you could do better elsewhere.

What an amazing book!

I thoroughly enjoyed Xuan Thuan Trinh's approach to describing a modern view of the Universe. He ties many of the common themes underlying modern physics and science together. He also beautifully inter-weaves them together to give us all a better perspective on the advances that will come in the 21st century.

Vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories ...

A clear, eloquent, and graceful discussion of how recent scientifc discoveries impact our lives in more than just theoretical terms. Thuan begins with a wonderfully vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories about chaos, gravity, strange attractors, fractals, symmetry, superstrings, and the strangeness of atoms, and reveals how these discoveries have shaped our view of the universe. From the subatomic world to the vastness of quasars and galaxies, from the nature of mathematics to the fractal characteristics of the human circulatory system, Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us on a truly awe-inspiring tour of the universe as we know it today. With brilliant analogies that open up the strangest, often counterintuitive theories about all sorts of things most of us don't take the time to consider, what Thuan really shows readers in Chaos and Harmony is how science has actually restored mystery and amazement to the world around us.