| Edition |
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. |
| Description |
xxix, 543 pages ; 24 cm |
| Note |
Published in U.K. with different subtitle: Convergence : the deepest idea in the universe. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Preface. Convergence: "The deepest idea in the universe" -- Introduction. "The unity of the observable world" -- Part one. the most important unifying ideas of all time -- "The greatest of all generalizations" -- "A single stroke unifies life, meaning, purpose, and physical law" -- Part two. the long arm of the laws of physics -- Beneath the pattern of the elements -- The unification of space and time, and of mass and energy -- The "consummated marriage" of physics and chemistry - The interplay of chemistry and biology: "the intimate connection between two kingdoms" -- The unity of science movement: "Integration is the new aim" -- Hubble, Hitler, Hiroshima: Einstein's unifications vindicated -- Part three. "The friendly invasion of the biological sciences by the physical sciences" -- Caltech and the Cavendish: from atomic physics to molecular biology via quantum chemistry -- Biology, the "most unifying" science: the switch from reduction to composition -- Part four. The continuum from minerals to man -- Physics + astronomy = chemistry + cosmology: the second evolutionary synthesis -- A biography of Earth: the unified chronology of geology, botany, linguistics. and archaeology -- The overlaps between new disciplines: ethology, sociobiology, and behavioral economics -- Climatology + oceanography + ethnography -> myth = big history -- Civilization = the orchestration of geography, meteorology, anthropology, and genetics -- The hardening of psychology and its integration with economics -- Dreams of a final unification: physics, mathematics, information, and the universe -- Spontaneous order: the architecture of molecules, new patterns in evolution, and the emergence of quantum biology -- The biological origin of the arts, physics and philosophy, the physics of society, neurology and nature -- Conclusion. Overlaps, patterns, hierarchies: a preexisting order? |
| Subject |
Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge.
|
|
Science -- History.
|
|
Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. (OCoLC)fst00976129
|
|
Science. (OCoLC)fst01108176
|
| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
|
| Other Form: |
Online version: Watson, Peter, 1943- Convergence New York : Simon & Schuster, 2017 9781476754369 (DLC) 2016059734 |
| ISBN |
9781476754345 hardcover |
|
1476754349 hardcover |
|
