Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series)
Winner of the Morris D. Forkosch Prize of theJournal of the History of Ideasfor Best Book on Intellectual History, 1999"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists;Quantum Dialogueshows us how often science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, a culture that fuels scientific creativity. Using original correspondence, notebooks, and drafts of talks and published papers, Beller reveals how world-famous scientists promoted their views by dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not-always-coherent positions as "inevitable."Quantum Dialogueprovides a revision of the accepted history of the quantum revolution, proposes a new approach to the history and philosophy of science, and will surely fascinate anyone interested in how "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" is achieved.