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Reviews: "This is an excellent, erudite and interesting book. It portrays science as an extremely productive method and underlines the fact that the prosperity of our world is the fruit of our scientific endeavour. Newton makes you proud to be a scientist. Read this, and pat yourself on the back."
-David Huges, New Scientist
"Newton offers us fascinating non-technical accounts of many physical theories and an obviously sincere and passionate defence of standing of his discipline. As he rightly points out, much that is written in the name of social constructivism shows ignorance of and even hostility to science."
-James W. McAllister, Times Literary Supplement
"For those who want to pursue a better understanding and appreciation of the world of science, its methods and results, there is no better place to start than this eminently readable work by the distinguished physicist R.G. Newton."
-Lucy Horwitz, Boston Book Review
Description: A distinguished physicist with a rare gift for making the most complicated scientific ideas comprehensible, Roger Newton gives us a guided tour of the intellectual structure of physical science. From there he conducts us through the understanding of reality engendered by modern physics, the most theoretically advanced of the sciences. With its firsthand look at models, facts, and theories, intuition and imagination, the use of analogies and metaphors, the importance of mathematics (and now, computers), and the "virtual" reality of the physics of micro-particles, The Truth of Science truly is a practicing scientist"s account of the foundations, processes, and value of science.
Contents: Introduction • Conventions • Science as a Social Construct? • The Aim of Science Is Understanding • Explanatory Devices • The Role of Facts • The Birth and Death of Theories • The Power of Mathematics • Causality, Determinism, and Probability • Reality on Two Scales • Reality at the Submicroscopic Level • Truth and Objectivity • Notes • Further Reading • Bibliography • IndexISBN - 9788130913810
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Pages : 272
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