The Common Sense of Science

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Science, Other Sciences, Philosophy & Social Aspects
Cover of the book The Common Sense of Science by Jacob Bronowski, Faber & Faber
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jacob Bronowski ISBN: 9780571286942
Publisher: Faber & Faber Publication: December 15, 2011
Imprint: Faber & Faber Language: English
Author: Jacob Bronowski
ISBN: 9780571286942
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication: December 15, 2011
Imprint: Faber & Faber
Language: English

Jacob Bronowski was, with Kenneth Clarke, the greatest popularizer of serious ideas in Britain between the mid 1950s and the early 1970s. Trained as a mathematician, he was equally at home with painting and physics, and wrote a series of brilliant books that tried to break down the barriers between 'the two cultures'. He denounced 'the destructive modern prejudice that art and science are different and somehow incompatible interests'. He wrote a fine book on William Blake while running the National Coal Board's research establishment.

The Common Sense of Science, first published in 1951, is a vivid attempt to explain in ordinary language how science is done and how scientists think. He isolates three creative ideas that have been central to science: the idea of order, the idea of causes and the idea of chance. For Bronowski, these were common-sense ideas that became immensely powerful and productive when applied to a vision of the world that broke with the medieval notion of a world of things ordered according to their ideal natures. Instead, Galileo, Huyghens and Newton and their contemporaries imagined 'a world of events running in a steady mechanism of before and after'. We are still living with the consequences of this search for order and causality within the facts that the world presents to us.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Jacob Bronowski was, with Kenneth Clarke, the greatest popularizer of serious ideas in Britain between the mid 1950s and the early 1970s. Trained as a mathematician, he was equally at home with painting and physics, and wrote a series of brilliant books that tried to break down the barriers between 'the two cultures'. He denounced 'the destructive modern prejudice that art and science are different and somehow incompatible interests'. He wrote a fine book on William Blake while running the National Coal Board's research establishment.

The Common Sense of Science, first published in 1951, is a vivid attempt to explain in ordinary language how science is done and how scientists think. He isolates three creative ideas that have been central to science: the idea of order, the idea of causes and the idea of chance. For Bronowski, these were common-sense ideas that became immensely powerful and productive when applied to a vision of the world that broke with the medieval notion of a world of things ordered according to their ideal natures. Instead, Galileo, Huyghens and Newton and their contemporaries imagined 'a world of events running in a steady mechanism of before and after'. We are still living with the consequences of this search for order and causality within the facts that the world presents to us.

More books from Faber & Faber

Cover of the book A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Tippoo Sultan's Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Tweeting the Universe by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Yellow Moon by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Crash Land by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book The Box of Delights by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Horse Power and Magic by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Roots, Radicals and Rockers by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book The Bohemian Girl by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Jasper and the Green Marvel by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Three Miles Down by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Cold Hand in Mine by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Under the Rose by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Selected Poems of Mick Imlah by Jacob Bronowski
Cover of the book Blood Royal by Jacob Bronowski
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy