"In the past two centuries, we have witnessed an unparalleled expansion in scientific and technical horizons. But with our longer view of things, the horizon is now interrupted, here and there, by walls. With our newfound knowledge and technical abilities has come an understanding of the limitations of science and technology. Beyond Reason provides a mind-bending exploration not into what is doable and knowable -
but what is undoable and unknowable.""Temporary barriers to understanding are sometimes swept away by knowledge, each advance revealing new vistas. But some barriers appear to be permanent. Author A.K. Dewdney explores these grand limitations that stand like granite walls around our scientific and technological enterprise. These are not the barriers of ignorance, but knowledge. It is perhaps only ignorance that prevents us from traveling through time; certainly no theory yet prohibits the possibility. Yet the presence of chaos in our atmospheric system implies rather strongly that we shall never predict the weather much better than we do now."
"Beyond Reason explores these barriers and the theories that give them form and substance. We shall apparently never travel faster than the speed of light, nor shall we ever build a perpetual motion machine that performs useful work. After laying the foundations of each theory, illuminated by stories of the scientists who discovered them, A.K. Dewdney then goes on to ask "What if?" Is there a way out? Are there no secret passages through these walls?"--Jacket.
Read more... Abstract:
Are some scientific problems insoluble? Are there aspects of the universe, such as the true nature of consciousness, that will forever be beyond the grasp of science? In Beyond Reason, internationally acclaimed maths and science author A.K. Read more...
Author(s): Dewdney A.K.
Publisher: Wiley
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 224
City: Hoboken, N.J
Tags: Science -- Miscellanea.;Mathematics -- Miscellanea.;Mathematics.;Science.;Natuurwetenschappen.;Onzekerheid.;Mathématique.;Sciences (Disciplines scientifiques);Curiosité;Énigme.
Content: Where reason cannot go --
The energy drain : impossible machines --
The cosmic limit : unreachable speeds --
The quantum curtain : unknowable particles --
The edge of chaos : unpredictable systems --
The circular crypt : unconstructable figures --
The chains of reason : unprovable theorems --
The computer treadmill : impossible programs --
The big-O bottleneck : intractable problems.
