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Elegance in Science: The beauty of simplicity
The idea of elegance in science is not necessarily a familiar one, but it is an important one. The use of the term is perhaps most clear-cut in mathematics - the elegant proof - and this is where Ian Glynn begins his exploration. Scientists often share a sense of admiration and excitement on hearing of an elegant solution to a problem, an elegant theory, or an elegant experiment. The idea of elegance may seem strange in a field of endeavour that prides itself in its objectivity, but only if science is regarded as a dull, dry activity of counting and measuring. It is, of course, far more than that, and elegance is a fundamental aspect of the beauty and imagination involved in scientific activity. Ian Glynn, a distinguished scientist, selects historical examples from a range of sciences to draw out the principles of science, including Kepler's Laws, the experiments that demonstrated the nature of heat, and the action of nerves, and of course the several extraordinary episodes that led to Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA. With a highly readable selection of inspiring episodes highlighting the role of beauty and simplicity in the sciences, the book also relates to important philosophical issues of inference, and Glynn ends by warning us not to rely on beauty and simplicity alone - even the most elegant explanation can be wrong.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published April 22, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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July 20, 2024DNF. Starts off being about elegance in science, contrasting elegant and inelegant solutions, but turns out to me more of a collection of moments in the history of science.
August 23, 2016
The book starts off with a discussion of elegance in science, and how it is different from the usual definitions given for elegance in general. The author then gives a few examples to try to illustrated his point ranging from the mathematical, theoretical, and experimental.
The book covers the beginning of modern physics up to Newton. It moves on to heat. Then looks at electricity and light. The book covers the nervous system including the brain. Finally, it looks at genetics. In an epilogue the author tells on how elegance should not be seen as necessarily pointing to truth in science.
I found the book to be disappointing. Glynn is just not successful to my mind in painting a good picture of beauty in science. He never really provides a general discussion on elegance and its importance in science.
I really don’t have any recommendations for this book. Maybe for some one looking for snapshots in the history of science, but if I were a potential reader I would look elsewhere.
The book covers the beginning of modern physics up to Newton. It moves on to heat. Then looks at electricity and light. The book covers the nervous system including the brain. Finally, it looks at genetics. In an epilogue the author tells on how elegance should not be seen as necessarily pointing to truth in science.
I found the book to be disappointing. Glynn is just not successful to my mind in painting a good picture of beauty in science. He never really provides a general discussion on elegance and its importance in science.
I really don’t have any recommendations for this book. Maybe for some one looking for snapshots in the history of science, but if I were a potential reader I would look elsewhere.
did-not-finish
October 26, 2016This book had a lot of potential, but it just gets sooooo bogged down in boring-as-fuck biographical details of 18th century scientists.
I absolutely loved the description of Galileo's experiments. I can't believe I never actually knew what they were. It's kind of amazing when you think about it. The specifics are usually not actually covered in your high school science class.
The first fascinating bit was how he actually measured speed. Measuring speed is not that easy if you really stop to think about it. Galileo tied catgut at specific places along his famous inclined planes. When the heavy bronze balls were rolled down the planes, they would hit the strings and make a sound, sort of like a primitive musical instrument. So he would roll the ball down the slope and continue to adjust the strings until the sounds made fell in line with a song with a very strong rhythym. It was easy to measure the distance between the strings, and now he knew the amount of time passed within each section, because it corresponded to the lengths of the notes in the song.
The experiements that led to the concept of inertia were also quite clever. Again he rolled balls down one inclined plane and up another. The ball always rolled back up to its original height (especially as you reduced friction more nad more). This was true even if you decreased the slope of the second inclined plane...but that meant to get to the same height, the ball would have to travel a farther distance. Follow this as a thought experiment and you don't even need the real inclined plane to tell you that if the incline was zero degrees (i.e. a flat surface), the ball would go on forever.
If the book were just made up of all these fascinating tidbits, I might have actually finished. But the next chapter had about 10 pages of the Life and Times of Count Rumford and all his travels about Europe and machinations to gain favor with this king or that duke, or whatever...and then about one page about his actual scientific discovery...which I already forgot.
No thanks.
I absolutely loved the description of Galileo's experiments. I can't believe I never actually knew what they were. It's kind of amazing when you think about it. The specifics are usually not actually covered in your high school science class.
The first fascinating bit was how he actually measured speed. Measuring speed is not that easy if you really stop to think about it. Galileo tied catgut at specific places along his famous inclined planes. When the heavy bronze balls were rolled down the planes, they would hit the strings and make a sound, sort of like a primitive musical instrument. So he would roll the ball down the slope and continue to adjust the strings until the sounds made fell in line with a song with a very strong rhythym. It was easy to measure the distance between the strings, and now he knew the amount of time passed within each section, because it corresponded to the lengths of the notes in the song.
The experiements that led to the concept of inertia were also quite clever. Again he rolled balls down one inclined plane and up another. The ball always rolled back up to its original height (especially as you reduced friction more nad more). This was true even if you decreased the slope of the second inclined plane...but that meant to get to the same height, the ball would have to travel a farther distance. Follow this as a thought experiment and you don't even need the real inclined plane to tell you that if the incline was zero degrees (i.e. a flat surface), the ball would go on forever.
If the book were just made up of all these fascinating tidbits, I might have actually finished. But the next chapter had about 10 pages of the Life and Times of Count Rumford and all his travels about Europe and machinations to gain favor with this king or that duke, or whatever...and then about one page about his actual scientific discovery...which I already forgot.
No thanks.
March 18, 2017
Despite the title, this is more a book of science history than of philosophy of science, which was a bit of a surprise for me. But as it happens, I like science history as well. Elegance is not so much defined as shown by example, but each elegant experiment or solution is given a reasonably complete historical and human context, and it certainly held my attention. Only at the very end is there any discussion of the risks of being misled by an elegant but wrong solution, and that is very brief.
December 30, 2024
Frankómetro: 79%
Pudo haberse llamado: The Perfect Ecuation
Lo Recomienda:Sheldon Cooper
Te gustará si te gustó: Short History of Time
No solamente se trata de resolver problemas. Para llegar de un lugar A a un lugar B, la ciencia ofrece cientos de soluciones. Pero no todas son iguales. Los parámetros de eficiencia, costo y velocidad, tan necesarios, se suman a uno extrañamente revelador: la elegancia científica.
A lo largo de los siglos, los científicos han vivido a la caza de explicaciones, mecanismos, teorías y leyes. Una y otra vez, un patrón misterioso parece asomar: en muchos casos, mas mejores soluciones son, también, las más simples. La explicación del fenómeno parece superar la primera evidencia de repitibilidad, y rasgar la tela del universo cuyas leyes, también, prefieren lo simple a lo complejo.
Así que ponte el cinturón y prepárate para un repaso de algunos de los más importantes descubrimientos e inventos de la historia de la humanidad, desde soluciones médicas en la antigua Grecia hasta las más modernas máquinas de combustión, pasando por las leyes de Newton y los movimientos planetarios, en busca del patrón definitivo: el de la elegancia.
Interesante lectura para científicos y legos por igual, y un brillante faro de divulgación para todo el mundo.
Pudo haberse llamado: The Perfect Ecuation
Lo Recomienda:Sheldon Cooper
Te gustará si te gustó: Short History of Time
No solamente se trata de resolver problemas. Para llegar de un lugar A a un lugar B, la ciencia ofrece cientos de soluciones. Pero no todas son iguales. Los parámetros de eficiencia, costo y velocidad, tan necesarios, se suman a uno extrañamente revelador: la elegancia científica.
A lo largo de los siglos, los científicos han vivido a la caza de explicaciones, mecanismos, teorías y leyes. Una y otra vez, un patrón misterioso parece asomar: en muchos casos, mas mejores soluciones son, también, las más simples. La explicación del fenómeno parece superar la primera evidencia de repitibilidad, y rasgar la tela del universo cuyas leyes, también, prefieren lo simple a lo complejo.
Así que ponte el cinturón y prepárate para un repaso de algunos de los más importantes descubrimientos e inventos de la historia de la humanidad, desde soluciones médicas en la antigua Grecia hasta las más modernas máquinas de combustión, pasando por las leyes de Newton y los movimientos planetarios, en busca del patrón definitivo: el de la elegancia.
Interesante lectura para científicos y legos por igual, y un brillante faro de divulgación para todo el mundo.
May 16, 2020
Excellent book
November 30, 2014
I very much enjoyed this book about "elegance" in science. As a physicist, I am mostly familiar with elegance in a mathematical setting, and it was refreshing to see some non-physics, non-math settings for elegance. I particularly like the evolution of our understanding on color vision, for example, and learned that the simple tri-color system I had learned about has been superseded by a better theory (at least when it comes to why we see the colors we do after the brain processes the information). For anyone interested in great scientific ideas, this book provides an abundance of great examples.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews