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Curiosity : How Science Became Interested In EverythingStock informationGeneral Fields
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Local Description2012, First edition, first printing. A fine, unread copy in a fine, unclipped d/w. DescriptionThere was a time when curiosity was condemned. To be curious was to delve into matters that didn't concern you - after all, the original sin stemmed from a desire for forbidden knowledge. Through curiosity our innocence was lost. Yet this hasn't deterred us. Today we spend vast sums trying to recreate the first instants of creation in particle accelerators, out of pure desire to know. There seems now to be no question too vast or too trivial to be ruled out of bounds: Why can fleas jump so high? What is gravity? What shape are clouds? Today curiosity is no longer reviled, but celebrated. Examining how our inquisitive impulse first became sanctioned, changing from a vice to a virtue, "Curiosity" begins with the age when modern science began, a time that spans the lives of Galileo and Isaac Newton. It reveals a complex story, in which the liberation - and the taming - of curiosity was linked to magic, religion, literature, travel, trade and empire. Promotion infoA tour through the history of human curiosity - from its original condemnation as sin, blossoming through the lives of Galileo and Newton, to its current role central to modern society. Author descriptionPhilip Ball is a freelance writer and a consultant editor for Nature, where he previously worked as an editor for physical sciences. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media, and his many books on scientific subjects include Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another, which won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. His latest books include The Music Instinct, Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind, and, most recently, Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People. Philip obtained a PhD in physics from the University of Bristol. |