The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

By David Deutsch

Book Overview

The New York Times bestseller A provocative, imaginative exploration of the nature and progress of knowledgeIn this groundbreaking book, award-winning physicist David Deutsch argues that explanations... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143121359
• ISBN13: 9780143121350
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 487 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The book ends too soon.

This is my first David Deutsch book. In it, he explains that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe. At first, I was not sure where he was going with the beginning of the infinity theme. Yet I found his argument fascinating. He looks at clouds from both sides now and can surprise you by telling you what you suspected all along but could not put into words. You need to have a good background in several disciplines or plan on doing a lot of side reading, as I swear David peeked in my library and quoted from every author I ever read. I was floored to find he knew so much about Jacob Bronowski, my hero from the ’70s. Occasionally, he would light on a subject that I see differently, but it did not distract from the point he was trying to make. I had a different view of Persephone, which included pomegranates. When he went into base number systems, he concentrated on zero, not taking the time to see the beauty and simplicity of the base sixty’s term that we use today for time and degrees, and easy conversions in geometry. The book itself is broken up into many textbook-style chapters. Each chapter on a different subject led to the same point: the meaning of infinity. Each chapter has a good summary. I also listened to the voice-recorded book; however, you missed the diagrams. As I dove through each chapter, some of them seemed to be making the point the hard way; I kept thinking, when is he going to go off the deep, like so many people who want physics to look like old Eastern religious clichés? But he never did. His argument kept getting stronger and clearer. He even pointed out bad explanations and why. When you finish the book (and it ends too soon), you will look at the world differently. It is like the mechanic who looks at the car and does not see its glossy finish but the culmination of many tuned systems that came together for a purpose. You, of course, will have to reread this book.