At the edge of uncertainty
Subtitle: 11 discoveries taking science by surprise
By: Michael Brooks
Publisher: Profile Books; Profile Books Ltd
Published: 2014
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9781781251270; 9781847659668; 9781781251287
Subjects: Science; Discoveries in science; Popular works; Miscellanea
Other titles: 11 discoveries taking science by surprise; Eleven discoveries taking science by surprise
Description: "The atom. The Big Bang. DNA. Natural selection. All ideas that have revolutionised science - and that were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped: here, Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of unexpected insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery. Through eleven radical new insights, Brooks takes us to the extreme frontiers of what we understand about the world. He journeys from the observations that might rewrite our history of the universe, through the novel biology behind our will to live, and on to the physiological root of consciousness."--Back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: 1. Triumph of the zombie killers: the science of consciousness; title: 2. The crowded pinnacle: human beings are nothing special; title: 3. The chimera era: we are ready to make a whole new kind of creature; title: 4. The gene genie: there's more to life than DNA; title: 5. Different for girls: men and women ail in very different ways; title: 6. Will to live: your mind has power in your body; title: 7. Correlations in creation: biology is putting quantum weirdness to work; title: 8. The reality machine: our Universe is a computer, and we are the programmers; title: 9. Complicating the cosmos: our story of creation is far from complete; title: 10. Hypercomputing: Alan Turing had another good idea; title: 11. Clocking off: time is an illusion; title: Epilogue.