Doubt and certainty
Subtitle: the celebrated academy : debates on science, mysticism, reality, in general on the knowable and unknowable, with particular forays into such esoteric matters as the mind fluid, the behavior of the stock market, and the disposition of a quantum mechanical sphinx, to name a few
By: Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan ; with illustrations by Shannon K. Comins.
Contributors: Sudarshan, E. C. G.
Series: Helix books
Publisher: Perseus Books; Helix Books/Perseus Books
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Reading, Mass
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780738201696
Subjects: Science -- Philosophy; Physics -- Philosophy; Philosophy, Asian
Description: When scientists and philosophers construct models to explain the phenomena and laws of nature, do those models simulate what's really out there in the world, or do they only represent the languages we use to describe the world?

Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan, along with an eclectic assortment of students and academics, delve deep into modern physics and Eastern philosophy, and come up with startling insights on the structure of the physical world. To gain these insights, the Academy members must tackle questions such as, How much of the millennium synthesis of science and philosophy is meaningful and how much is pure nonsense? Which New Age trends are compatible with physics?

Can we learn anything from parallels between physics and Eastern philosophy?
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-312) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface : Knowledge and wisdom; title: Prologue : The question; title: Is the universe describable? Laws, principles, theories and models; title: Is nature unreasonably mathematical? Mathematics, theories and reality; title: Is the world symmetrical? Friezes, particles and groups; title: Why do things happen? Causality, synchronicity and all that; title: Does time go forward? Past and future; title: Why is there left and right? Chirality, complexity and emergent properties; title: Is the universe weird? Quantum mechanics; title: Is there an answer? Theories of everything; title: How did we get here? Cosmology; title: What do you mean? Metaphors, analogies, culture wars; title: Can we make any money off this? Applied quantum mechanics; title: Commentaries on the debates