Dreams Of Earth And Sky

Description

Freeman Dyson's new collection of pieces from The New York Review of Books investigates and celebrates what he calls openness to unconventional ideas in science. His subjects range from the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, to the scientific inquiries of the Romantic generation, to important recent works by Daniel Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell. He discusses twentieth-century giants of physics such as Richard Feynman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Paul Dirac, many of whom he knew personally, and explores some of today's most pressing scientific issues, from global warming, to the future of biotechnology, to the flood of information in the digital age. In these essays, Dyson, whom The New York Times Book Review called "one of science's most eloquent interpreters," mixes reminiscences, lucid explanations of scientific concepts, and an engagingly imaginative approach to the triumphs, blunders, mysteries, and dreams of scientific inquiry into the natural world.

Freeman Dyson has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taking time off to advise the U.S. government and write books for the general public. He was born in England and worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force during World War II. He came to Cornell University as a graduate student in 1947 and worked with Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman, producing a user-friendly way to calculate the behavior of atoms and radiation. He also worked on nuclear reactors, solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics, and biology, looking for problems where elegant mathematics could be usefully applied. He is the author of the NYRB title, The Scientist as Rebel.

Praise for Dreams of Earth and Sky "Readers will be delighted by the fascinating insider's view of the scientific community and its intersection with the political establishment." -Kirkus Reviews "[Dyson] writes with detailed, admirable conviction.-The New York Times Book Review To observe a mind uncommonly endowed with dexterity and knowledge hop from subject to subject is exhilarating." -Time "Dreams is just terrific if not staggeringly incandescent. It is human...His plainspokenness is arresting...Yet very little digging reveals the spreading roots of his thought process, its complexity, its great Whitmanesque reach...You could say that he puts his words where his mouth is, and his romantic, humane heart keeps the beat." Peter Lewis, Christian-Science Monitor "Strikingly original ideas and viewpoints expressed in stylish yet always lucid prose...No short summary can do justice to the wealth of imaginative brilliance and contagious enthusiasm of those visions. They are mind-expanding."-Frank Wilczek, Physics Today "Dyson is a rare thinker... The sheer breadth of his thought-and his ability to cohere this breadth into intelligible wisdom-is virtually unmatched. Throughout, Dyson remains eloquent and opinionated."-B. Mitchell, Choice Praise for The Scientist as Rebel "Drawing on [his] instinct for unlikely connections, Dyson has become of one science's most eloquent interpreters.... In a science of unifiers, Dyson prides himself as a diversifier." -The New York Times Book Review "Dyson embodies the ideal of the scientist as iconoclast....Provocative, touching, and always surprising." -Wired "Dyson expresses his precise thinking in prose of crystal clarity, and readers will be absolutely enthralled by his breadth, his almost uncanny ability to tie diverse topics together and his many provocative statements." -Publishers Weekly "Readers will have no difficulty recognizing rebellion of the most valuable kind in this enlightening collection and will eagerly engage with it." -The Philadelphia Inquirer "What really fills this book is wisdom-wisdom that helps us understand how scientists think and work and how science, properly understood, can help us make better sense of our world." -The Christian Science Monitor "Dyson [is], neuron for neuron, one of the most formidably provocative minds in American life...The bedazzled reader emerges feeling like he's been in a metaphysical Maytag on spin cycle-his perspective on man, God, and the cosmos permanently altered." -The Washington Post Book World "To observe a mind uncommonly endowed with dexterity and knowledge hop from subject to subject is exhilarating." -Time Praise for Disturbing the Universe "A passionate testament, one of the most remarkable self-portraits of a scientist that I have ever read...Though this book is meant primarily for non-scientists, to acquaint them with how a scientist looks at the world, one does not have to read far to realize that this is the witness, not of a scientist representing his class, but of a unique kind of scientist, a man endowed with literary skill, with a rare capacity for humor and introspection, with a sensitive understanding of the language of the humanist." -The New Republic Praise for The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolution "A most engaging and important book, as accessible as it is profound." -Oliver Sacks "A thoughtful and thought-provoking glimpse into the twenty-first century...A must-read...Only Dyson could weave together this rich tapestry, blending ethics, ideology, science, and technology into a coherent vision of the future." -Michio Kaku, author of Hyperspace and Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century "Physicist Dyson...demonstrates his intellectual breadth, wit, and iconoclasm in this collection... .his insights, passion, and knowledge make this collection well worth savoring." -Publishers Weekly