Andrew Steane reconfigures the public understanding of science, by drawing on a deep knowledge of physics and by bringing in mainstream philosophy of science. Science is a beautiful, multi-lingual network of ideas; it is not a ladder in which ideas at one level make those at another level redundant. In view of this, we can judge that the natural world is not so much a machine as a meeting-place. In particular, people can only be correctly understood by meeting with them at the level of their entire personhood, in a reciprocal, respectful engagement as one person to another. Steane shows that Darwinian evolution does not overturn this but rather is the process whereby such truths came to be discovered and expressed in the world. From here the argument moves towards other aspects of human life. Our sense of value requires from us a response which is not altogether the same as following logical argument. This points us towards what religion in its good forms can express. A reply to a major argument of David Hume, and a related one of Richard Dawkins, is given. The book finishes with some brief chapters setting religion in the context of all human capacities, and showing, in fresh language, what theistic religious response is, or can be, in the modern world.
Liberating Science: The Early Universe, Evolution and the Public Voice of Science is a presentation of science for the general reader, with an emphasis on correcting widely held misconceptions, and a call to liberate science from 'private ownership' in cultural terms. Quantum fields and the physics of the early universe are described in non-technical language, showing what science can and cannot say about origins. Darwinian evolution is then discussed, giving due weight both to variation and to the constraints which shape the possible outcomes.The text provides a liberating view of what science is telling us about the natural world and offers the next generation a balanced and liberating view of their own moral stature.
Science and religious faith are two of the most important and influential forces in human life, yet there is widespread confusion about how, or indeed whether, they link together. This book describes this combination from the perspective of one who finds that they link together productively and creatively. The situation is not one of conflict or uneasy tension, or even a respectful dialogue. Rather, a lively and well-founded faith in God embraces and includes science, and scientific ways of thinking, in their proper role. Science is an activity right in the bloodstream of a reasonable faith. The book interprets theism broadly, and engages carefully with atheism, while coming from a Christian perspective. The aim is to show what science is, and what it is not, and at the same time give some pointers to what theism is or can be. Philosophy, evolution and the nature of science and human life are discussed in the first part of the book, questions of origins in the second. It is the very mind-set of scientific thinking that is widely supposed to be antagonistic to religious faith. But such suspicions are too sweeping. They misunderstand both faith and science. Faith can be creative and intellectually courageous; science is not the all-embracing story that it is sometimes made out to be. It is not that science fails to explain some things, but rather, it does not explain anything at all, on its own. It is part of a larger explanation. And even explanation has to take a humble place; it is not the purpose of life.
This book provides a lively and visual introduction to Einstein's theory of relativity. It brings to life the excitement of this fascinating subject, for an audience including young people at school (post-16) and the general public with an interest in modern physics. It is different from existing books in that is uses many diagrams and simple equations (the reader is carefully guided through them), and richly rewards the reader with beautiful mathematical and physical insights. It begins by introducing spacetime, in the familiar context of low velocities. It then shows how Einstein's theory forces us to understand time in a new way. Paradoxes and puzzles are introduced and resolved, and the book culminates in a thorough unfolding of the relation between mass and energy. The book draws on the author's many years of experience in writing articles and reviews for a non-expert readership, and presenting physics to school pupils.
Following on from a previous volume on Special Relativity, Andrew Steane's second volume on General Relativity and Cosmology is aimed at advanced undergraduate or graduate students undertaking a physics course, and encourages them to expand their knowledge of Special Relativity. Beginning with a survey of the main ideas, the textbook goes on to give the methodological foundations to enable a working understanding of astronomy and gravitational waves (linearized approximation, differential geometry, covariant differentiation, physics in curved spacetime). It covers the generic properties of horizons and black holes, including Hawking radiation, introduces the key concepts in cosmology and gives a grounding in classical field theory, including spinors and the Dirac equation, and a Lagrangian approach to General Relativity. The textbook is designed for self-study and is aimed throughout at clarity, physical insight, and simplicity, presenting explanations and derivations in full, and providing many explicit examples.
This book unfolds the subject of Relativity for undergraduate students of physics. It is intended to allow an undergraduate physics course to extend somewhat further and wider in this area than has traditionally been the case, while ensuring that the mainstream of students can handle the material. Introducing Lorentz invariants and four-vectors early on, but postponing tensor notation till it is needed, the aim is to make manageable what would otherwise beregarded as hard; to make derivations as simple as possible and physical ideas as transparent as possible.
The two-volume book Relativity Made Relatively Easy provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the physics of Relativity. Volume 1, which was published in 2012, is devoted to covering the basics of the theory of Special Relativity, assuming almost no prior knowledge, making it suitable for undergraduates studying the subject. Volume 2 encourages students to take their learning further by providing a working understanding of astronomy and gravitational waves, as well as introducing the reader to the key concepts in cosmology and classical field theory. Beginning with a survey of the main ideas, the text goes on to give the methodological foundations (linearized approximation, differential geometry, covariant differentiation, physics in curved spacetime). It covers the generic properties of horizons and black holes, including Hawking radiation, introduces the key concepts in cosmology and gives a grounding in classical field theory, including spinors and the Dirac equation, and a Lagrangian approach to General Relativity. The book is suitable for self-study and is aimed throughout at clarity, physical insight, and simplicity, presenting explanations and derivations in full, and providing many explicit examples.
Here is a fresh look at how science contributes to the bigger picture of human flourishing, through a collage of science and philosophy, richly illustrated by the authors' own experience and personal reflection. They survey the territory of fundamental physics, machine learning, philosophy of human identity, evolutionary biology, miracles, arguments from design, naturalism, the history of ideas, and more. The natural world can be appreciated not only for itself, but also as an eloquent gesture, a narrative and a pointer beyond itself. Our human journey is not to a theorem or a treatise, but to a meeting which encompasses all our capacities. In this meeting, science is the means to find out about the structure of the physical world of which we are a part, not a means to reduce ourselves and our fellow human beings to mere objects of scrutiny, and still less a means to attempt the utterly futile exercise of trying to do that to God. We have intellectual permission to be open to the notion that God can be trusted and known. The material world encourages an open-hearted reaching out to something more, with a freedom to seek and to be received by what lies beyond the scope of purely impersonal descriptions and attitudes.
Andrew Steane reconfigures the public understanding of science, by drawing on a deep knowledge of physics and by bringing in mainstream philosophy of science. Science is a beautiful, multi-lingual network of ideas; it is not a ladder in which ideas at one level make those at another level redundant. In view of this, we can judge that the natural world is not so much a machine as a meeting-place. In particular, people can only be correctly understood by meeting with them at the level of their entire personhood, in a reciprocal, respectful engagement as one person to another. Steane shows that Darwinian evolution does not overturn this but rather is the process whereby such truths came to be discovered and expressed in the world. From here the argument moves towards other aspects of human life. Our sense of value requires from us a response which is not altogether the same as following logical argument. This points us towards what religion in its good forms can express. A reply to a major argument of David Hume, and a related one of Richard Dawkins, is given. The book finishes with some brief chapters setting religion in the context of all human capacities, and showing, in fresh language, what theistic religious response is, or can be, in the modern world.
Aimed at advanced undergraduate or graduate physics students, the book aims to give a working understanding of astronomy and gravitational waves, as well as introducing the reader to the key concepts in cosmology and classical field theory.
Historians of modern German culture and church history refer to "the Awakening movement" (die Erweckungsbewegung) to describe a period in the history of German Protestantism between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the Revolution of 1848. "The Awakening" was the last major nationwide Protestant reform and revival movement to occur in Germany. This book analyzes numerous primary sources from the era of the Awakening and synthesizes the current state of German scholarship for an English-speaking audience. It examines the Awakening as a product of the larger social changes that were re-shaping German society during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Theologically, Awakened Protestants were traditionalists. They affirmed religious doctrines that orthodox Protestants had professed since the confessional statements of the Reformation-era. Awakened Protestants rejected the changes that Enlightenment thought had introduced into Protestant theology and preaching since the mid-eighteenth century. However, Awakened Protestants were also themselves distinctly modern. Their efforts to spread their religious beliefs were successful because of the new political freedoms and economic opportunities that the Enlightenment had introduced. These social conditions gave German Protestants new means and abilities to pursue their religious goals. Awakened Protestants were leaders in the German churches and in the universities. They used their influence to found many voluntary organizations for evangelism, in Germany and abroad. They also established many institutions to ameliorate the living conditions of those in poverty. Adapting Protestantism to modern society in these ways was the most original and innovative aspect of the Awakening movement.
This book presents an account of all aspects of Einstein’s achievements in quantum theory, his own views, and the progress his work has stimulated since his death. While some chapters use mathematics at an undergraduate physics level, a path is provided for the reader more concerned with ideas than equations, and the book will benefit to anybody interested in Einstein and his approach to the quantum.
How did English dramatists portray the neighboring domain of France and its history in their plays? The study examines a selection of Shakespearean and other history plays, the French tragedies of George Chapman, Christopher Marlowe's revealing historical tragedy The Massacre at Paris, and several literary and nonliterary historical texts. The result is a unique and timely contribution to our understanding of how cultural differences influenced the historical perspectives of English dramatists as well as how Renaissance plays shaped, and were shaped by, their historical material. Drawing on the insights of cultural studies, historiography, and ethnography, this study re-examines the historical representation of a neglected yet influential part of early modern Europe and the paradoxical relationship between English writers and their French subject matter. Although information about France and French history was becoming increasingly available in England at the end of the sixteenth century, for English writers France remained a distant land, its history and people misunderstood and misrepresented.
In this sustained full length study of Marlowe's plays, Andrew Duxfield argues that Marlovian drama exhibits a marked interest in unity and unification, and that in doing so it engages with a discourse of anxiety over social discord that was prominent in the 1580s and 1590s. In combination with the ambiguity of the plays, he suggests, this focus produces a tension that both heightens dramatic effect and facilitates a cynical response to contemporary evocations of and pleas for unity. This book has three main aims. Firstly, it establishes that Marlowe’s tragedies exhibit a profound interest in the process of reduction and the ideal of unity. Duxfield shows this interest to manifest itself in different ways in each of the plays. Secondly, it identifies this interest in unity and unification as an engagement in a cultural discourse that was particularly prevalent in England during Marlowe’s writing career; during the late 1580s and early 1590s heightened inter-confessional tension, the threat and reality of foreign invasion and public puritan dissent in the form of the Marprelate controversy provoked considerable public anxiety about social discord. Thirdly, the book considers the plays’ focus on unity in relation to their marked ambiguity; throughout all of the plays, unifying ideals and reductive processes are consistently subject to renegotiation with, or undercut entirely by, the complexity and ambiguity of the dramas in which they feature. Duxfield’s focus on unity as a theme throughout the plays provides a new lens through which to examine the place of Marlowe’s work in its cultural moment.
A careful and thoughtful provocation' (Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury) Ambitiously placed at the intersection of scientific insights and spiritual wisdom, Human Flourishing prompts us to reflect on what constitutes a good life and the choices that can help achieve it. For thousands of years, humans have asked 'Why we are here?' and 'What makes for a good life?' At different times, different answers have held sway. Nowadays, there are more answers proposed than ever. Much of humanity still finds the ultimate answers to such questions in religion. But in countries across the globe, secular views are widely held. In any event, whether religious or secular, individuals, communities and governments still have to make decisions about what people get from life. This book therefore examines what is meant by human flourishing and see what it has to offer for those seeking after truth, meaning and purpose. This is a book written for anyone who wants a future for themselves, their children, and their fellow humans - a future that enables flourishing, pays due consideration to issues of truth and helps us find meaning and purpose in our lives. At a time when most of us are bombarded with messages about what we should or should not do to live healthily, attain a work-life balance and find meaning, a careful consideration of the contributions of both scientific insight and spiritual wisdom provides a new angle. This is therefore a book that not only helps readers clarify their views and see things afresh but also help them improve their own well-being in an age of AI and other new technologies.
John Stewart Bell (1928-1990) was one of the most important figures in twentieth-century physics, famous for his work on the fundamental aspects of the century's most important theory, quantum mechanics. While the debate over quantum theory between the supremely famous physicists, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, appeared to have become sterile in the 1930s, Bell was able to revive it and to make crucial advances - Bell's Theorem or Bell's Inequalities. He was able to demonstrate a contradiction between quantum theory and essential elements of pre-quantum theory - locality and causality. The book gives a non-mathematical account of Bell's relatively impoverished upbringing in Belfast and his education. It describes his major contributions to quantum theory, but also his important work in the physics of accelerators, and nuclear and elementary particle physics.
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