The Birth of a New Physics

by I. Bernard Cohen

Book Overview

These are notions so basic to our view of life that we take them for granted. But in the seventeenth century they were revolutionary, heretical, even dangerous to the men who formed them. Culture, religion, and science had intertwined over the centuries to create a world view based on a stationary earth. Indeed, if the earth moved, would not birds be blown off the trees and would not an object thrown straight up come down far away?

Then came...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393300455
• ISBN13: 9780393300451
• Release Date: August 1985
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction

This book is a well-written introduction to the lives and discoveries of the three giants at the base of modern science. It doesn't ascribe to the nonsense that most modern philosophers of science spout as defining science as simply a mathematical description of appearances. The book avoids these philosophic aberrations and instead presents the discoveries of Newton, Kepler, and Galileo in a way that properly emphasizes the enormity of their genius, the scope of their inductions and the central importance of their contributions to the scientific method.

Enjoyable little book

I found this to be a very enjoyable book written in a kind of history book style. There is enough information included to explain the discoveries of Newton and others without getting too technical. I read this book for a college paper on Newton's life.