The Mysterious Universe

By James Hopwood Jeans

Book Overview

The Mysterious Universe is a popular science book which begins with a full-page citation of the famous passage in Plato's Republic, Book VII, laying out the allegory of the cave. The book made frequent reference to the quantum theory of radiation, begun by Max Planck in 1900, to Albert Einstein's general relativity, and to the new theories of quantum mechanics of Heisenberg and Schr?dinger, of whose philosophical perplexities the author seemed well aware.

This book is based upon the conviction that the teachings and findings of astronomy and physical science are destined to produce an immense change on our outlook on the universe as a whole, and on views about the significance of human life. The author contends that the questions at issue are ultimately one for philosophical discussion, but that before philosophers can speak, science should present ascertained facts and provisional hypotheses. The book is therefore written with these thoughts in mind while broadly presenting the fundamental physical ideas and findings relevant for a wider philosophical inquiry.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1773236989
• ISBN13: 9781773236988
• Release Date: February 2023
• Publisher: Must Have Books
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Mysterious Universe

This text was published in 1931, after the fall of Wall Street, when people were feeling uneasy about world tensions and a faltering economy. Much like today! Jeans was a famous scientist and thinker, which comes through his work like a beam of golden light. I'm usually attracted to the arcane, the esoteric, but this text held my interest and then some. Jeans develops his ideas in the following chapters: --The Dying Sun --The New World of Modern Physics --Matter and Radiation --Relativity and the Ether --Into the Deep Waters Jeans forwards the concept of radiation--all around us, through us--as germane to understanding life itself. Apparently he was inspired to develop this idea from one of his famous friends, Dr. Oscar Brunler, who also hit on radiation theory in his writings. Although we have progressed miles in our understanding of physics, this text if nothing else helps us to understand the dawning of its importance in everyday life. Well written and thought-provoking!