The Upright Thinkers

From the bestselling author of The Drunkard's Walk and Subliminal, and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking): an account of scientific discovery from the invention of stone tools to theories of quantum physics--a history at once inspiring and entertaining.

Zusatztext 77528468 Informationen zum Autor Leonard Mlodinow Klappentext How did a near-extinct species, eking out a meager existence with stone axes, become the dominant power on earth, able to harness a knowledge of nature ranging from tiny atoms to the vast structures of the universe? Leonard Mlodinow takes us on an enthralling tour of the history of human progress, from our time on the African savannah through the invention of written language, all the way to modern quantum physics. Along the way, he explores the colorful personalities of the great philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, and traces the cultural conditions-and the elements of chance-that influenced scientific discovery. Deeply informed, accessible, and infused with the author's trademark humor and insight, The Upright Thinkers is a stunning tribute to humanity's intellectual curiosity and an important book for any reader with an interest in the scientific issues of our day. 1 Our Drive to Know My father once told me of an emaciated fellow inmate in the Buchenwald concentration camp who had been educated in mathematics. You can tell something about people from what comes to mind when they hear the term pi. To the mathematician it was the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Had I asked my father, who had but a seventh-grade education, he would have said it was a circle of crust filled with apples. One day, despite that gulf between them, the mathematician inmate gave my father a math puzzle to solve. My father thought about it for a few days but could not master it. When he saw the inmate again, he asked him for the solution. The man wouldn't say, telling my father he must discover it for himself. Sometime later, my father again spoke to the man, but the man held on to his secret as if it were a hunk of gold. My father tried to ignore his curiosity, but he couldn't. Amid the stench and death around him, he became obsessed with knowing the answer. Eventually the other inmate offered my father a dealhe would reveal the puzzle's solution if my father would hand over his crust of bread. I don't know what my father weighed at the time, but when the American forces liberated him, he weighed eighty-five pounds. Still, my father's need to know was so powerful that he parted with his bread in exchange for the answer. I was in my late teens when my father recounted that episode, and it made a huge impact on me. My father's family was gone, his possessions confiscated, his body starved, withered, and beaten. The Nazis had stripped him of everything palpable, yet his drive to think and reason and know survived. He was imprisoned, but his mind was free to roam, and it did. I realized then that the search for knowledge is the most human of all our desires, and that, different as our circumstances were, my own passion for understanding the world was driven by the same instinct as my father's. As I went on to study science in college and after, my father would question me not so much about the technicalities of what I was learning, but about the underlying meaningwhere the theories came from, why I felt they were beautiful, and what they said about us as human beings. This book, written decades later, is my attempt, finally, to answer those questions. * A few million years ago, we humans began to stand upright, altering our muscles and skeletons so that we could walk in an erect posture, which freed our hands to probe and manipulate the objects around us and extended the range of our gaze so that we could explore the far distance. But as we raised our stance, so too did our minds rise above those of other animals, allowing us to explore the world not just through eyesight but with our thoughts. We stand upright, but above all, we are thinkers. The nobility of the human race lies in our drive to know, and ou...

ldquo;Mlodinow never fails to make science both accessible and entertaining.” —Stephen Hawking, author of *A Brief History of Time

“An entrancing tale of scientific history. . . . Mlodinow provides many cultural touchstones and tells personal stories, both poignant and amusing, about his experiences as a theoretical physicist to draw us even closer to the history.” —*The Washington Post
 
“Mlodinow is an engaging narrator who leavens the proceedings with a mischievous wit.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“An inspiring, exciting exploration of how our very inquisitive species has attempted to comprehend the cosmos.” —The American Scholar
 
“An audacious encapsulation of our species’ trek from savannah to city.” —Nature
 
“The Upright Thinkers playfully tracks the evolution of man’s understanding of the world over millions of years. . . . An accessible and engaging read that brings science’s brilliant minds to life.” —Financial Times (London)

“Mlodinow’s thesis on the virtues of tenacity is paired with fascinating anecdotes to trot out at the next dinner party. Upright Thinkers synthesizes evolution, archeology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, a spot of poetry, and several character sketches, deftly capturing a handful of the oddballs who changed the course of human events to create a breezy overview of the history of the human brain—specifically, how its propensity to ask bold questions first got us to bang rocks together into tools and then sent us on a quest to suss out the nature of reality itself.” —LA Weekly

“Powerful. . . . Breath[es] new life into science history. [Mlodinow] frames narratives of great thinkers with serial scenes of his father’s great courage and curiosity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Endlessly fascinating . . . consistently thought-provoking. . . . A selective, guided tour of the human accumulation of knowledge . . . [and] the striking characters who pioneered scientific discoveries. . . . A breathtaking survey.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[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 

“[An] amazingly compact yet satisfying history. . . . [Mlodinow] is a whiz of a popular-science writer. . . . Amateur science mavens couldn’t ask for a better brief, introductory text.” —*Booklist

“How did we move so rapidly from caves to cars, from the Savannah to skyscrapers, from walking on two legs to bounding on the Moon?  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 vividly traces the revolutions in thought and culture that define our civilization and, as a bonus, presents a stimulating overview of the history and majestic sweep of modern science.” —V. S. Ramachandran, author of The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human
 
“An enjoyable and readable introduction to the history of western science, beginning with the first stone tools and ending in the era of quantum physics.&#160…