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The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos
by Leonard Mlodinow
In this fascinating and illuminating work, Leonard Mlodinow guides us through the critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, he demonstrates, were propelled forward by humankind's collective struggle to know. From the birth of reasoning and culture to the formation of the studies of physics, chemistry, biology, and modern-day quantum physics, we come to see that much of our progress can be attributed to simple questions - why? how? - bravely asked.
Mlodinow profiles some of the great philosophers, scientists, and thinkers who explored these questions - Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and Lavoisier among them - and makes clear that just as science has played a key role in shaping the patterns of human thought, human subjectivity has played a key role in the evolution of science. At once authoritative and accessible, and infused with the author's trademark wit, this deeply insightful book is a stunning tribute to humanity's intellectual curiosity.
"Starred Review. Endlessly fascinating... consistently thought-provoking... A breathtaking survey." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Mlodinow's point has been made before, but rarely so well: the quality that best distinguishes - and honors - humankind is not an ability to answer questions, but that 'after millennia of effort,' nothing stops us from asking them." - Publishers Weekly
"[A] bracing work of scientific history... Don't worry if quantum physics and the theory of relativity leave you quaking... Mlodinow knows how to talk to the science-challenged." - Library Journal
"Follow Mlodinow on an astonishing tour of our species' journey; with each new stop, you'll discover how our unceasing progress is driven by something very special about human brains: our unslakable thirst for knowledge." - David Eagleman, PhD, Neuroscientist, New York Times bestselling author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
"Mlodinow takes us on a tour of some of the high points of scientific discovery from Egyptian and Mesopotamian mathematics, to Pythagoras and Aristotle, to the classical era of Galileo and Newton, and finally to the strange worlds of Einsteinian relativity and the uncertainty principle, which taught us how to study worlds beyond the reach of our everyday senses." - David Christian, co-author of Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, and professor, Macquarie University, Sydney
This information about The Upright Thinkers was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Leonard Mlodinow received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and has taught at the California Institute of Technology. His previous books include War of the Worldviews (with Deepak Chopra), The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), and The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (a New York Times Notable Book), as well as Feynman's Rainbow, Euclid's Window, and Subliminal. He also wrote for the television series MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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Harvard is the storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the graduates take so little out.
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