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by
Marcelo
Gleiser Viking Pen; ISBN: 0525941126 Hardcover (October 1997); 352 pp Ships: immediately. |
Expert Commentary:
From
Publisher's Weekly:
Gleiser,
a young physicist on the faculty at Dartmouth and one of only 15 Presidential
Faculty Fellows, explores the relationship of science and religion in
the area where they intersect most dramatically, the origin of the universe.
Describing the cosmological quest as "The Question," he examines religious
answers on one hand and scientific theories on the other, noting that
both can be classified in equivalent taxonomies. At the first taxonomic
level, scientific theories and religious models of cosmic origins can
be divided into those with beginnings and those without. Those with beginnings
can be classified as creation from something, creation from nothing and
order out of chaos. Those without beginnings posit either eternal existence
or a rhythmic universe. Gleiser reviews 25 centuries of cultural, religious
and scientific history, fitting the prevailing religious ideas and scientific
theories into the appropriate boxes on his charts. Some readers may find
that organization fascinating. Others, trying to follow the book's second
important threadthat scientists are human beings with all the good and
ill that designation impliesare likely to be bogged down in excessive
detail in the discussions of optics, thermodynamics, relativity and quantum
mechanics. That is unfortunate, because in this challenging, sometimes
brilliant book, Gleiser frequently displays his own humanity, interjecting
descriptions of his personal struggle to merge reason and emotion, knowledge
and belief. (Nov.)
From
Kirkus:
An
attempt to bridge the gap between spiritual and scientific inquiries into
the nature and origins of the universe, from a physics professor at Dartmouth.
Actually, Gleiser believes that the studies of cosmologists such as himself
are spiritual; it's just that scientists seek to prove their intuitions,
rather than to rely on faith. He finds the notion that scientists are
cold and objective, rather than passionate, to be ludicrous and even offensive,
and his accounts of the work of Einstein, Copernicus, and Newton wonderfully
personalize the essentially spiritual quests these men made on their paths
to discoveries with reproducible results. Einstein spoke of a ``cosmic
religious feeling,'' for instance. To go back a long way indeed, the Pythagoreans
were a monastic order of sorts, their mathematical discoveries a way of
proving order in the universe and, to their minds, a divine intelligence.
Sometimes, Gleiser is hard pressed to find much spirituality at work--in
the endeavors of Niels Bohr, for instance. Nonetheless, the spirituality
that is evident in the groundbreaking work of many great scientists is
convincingly illuminated by Gleiser in this rather unique overview. He
begins with a survey of various creation myths, from Hopi to Zoroastrian
to Christian, and shows their links to the early astronomy of the Babylonians
and Greeks. He devotes a great deal of attention to the Greeks, then moves
on to the ideas of the ``pious heretic,'' Galileo; the origins and intent
of Newton's laws of motion; the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics;
and the turbulent discoveries of the modern age, beginning with Einstein
and progressing through quantum physics and on to the ramifications of
the uncertainty principle. Even if one cares little for Gleiser's spiritual
asides, this is an exceptionally clear summary of 2,500 years of science
and a fascinating account of the ways in which it often does intersect
with spiritual beliefs.
From
The Publisher:
The
Dancing Universe traces mystical, philosophical,and scientific ideas about
the cosmos through the past twenty-five centuries. Taking us back to the
dawn of history, the author explores the legends and myths of such traditional
cultures as the Hopi and the Hindu, as well as the enduring contributions
of the Greeks. From the universal creation myths of ancient societies
to contemporary notions of an ever-expanding universe, Marcelo Gleiser
gives us a new understanding of how mysticism, religion, and science have
interacted throughout the millennia. He illuminates the life and work
of some of our greatest scientists, including Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler,
Newton, and Einstein - men as renowned for their spirituality as for their
scientific brilliance. By probing the ways in which scientists have unlocked
the secrets of such world-changing concepts as gravity, electromagnetism,
time, and space, Gleiser offers fresh perspectives on the eternal debate
between science and faith. And he brings this epic drama of our origins
full circle by taking us through such dazzling modern breakthroughs as
relativity, quantum mechanics, and particle physics - in a provocative
depiction of cosmic creation mysteries that harkens back to our earliest
forebears.
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