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The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century
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The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century
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by John Brockman
Sales Rank : 57331
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Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition May 14, 2002
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375713425
ISBN-13: 978-0375713422
Product Dimensions:
8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
Product Review
Scientists love to speculate about the direction research and technology will take us, and editor John Brockman has given a stellar panel free rein to imagine the future in The Next Fifty Years. From brain-swapping and the hunt for extraterrestrials to the genetic elimination of unhappiness and a new scientific morality, the ideas in this book are wild and thought-provoking. The list of scientists and thinkers who participate is impressive: Lee Smolin and Martin Rees on cosmology; Ian Stewart on mathematics; and Richard Dawkins and Paul Davies on the life sciences, just to name a few. Many of the authors remind readers that science has changed a lot since the blind optimism of the early 20th century, and they are unanimously aware of the potential consequences of the developments they describe. Fifty years is a long time in the information age, and these essays do a credible and entertaining job of guessing where we're going. --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
Agent Brockman has collected 25 of his writers to discuss the future of science in their respective fields of study. Several of these writers surpass ordinary trend spotting to entertain some rather pulse-quickening ideas completely beyond the kin of the so-called dominant paradigm. And some are of a magnitude to radically advance the nature of humans' interaction with each other, the planet and beyond. The neurologist Robert Sapolsky, for example, posits that sadness will take its place alongside AIDS and Alzheimer's as the most notorious medical disasters of the next half-century. Brockman, who is also an author-editor (The Third Culture; The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years, etc.), divides his collection into two parts: the future in theory and the future in practice. Theoretical topics include cosmology, what it means to be alive, the nature of consciousness and the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. Mars exploration, DNA sequencing, neuroscience, child rearing and the like are addressed in the practical half. These essays can be quite technical, intended as they are to make the latest scientific information available for cross-disciplinary research. The intellectual adventures collected here point to a future that is dazzlingly bright, at least to the eyes of these unorthodox thinkers. The general public, for whom these essays are also written, should be similarly bedazzled.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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