Life is simple : how Occam's razor set science free and shapes the universe
Title:
Life is simple : how Occam's razor set science free and shapes the universe
Author:
McFadden, Johnjoe, author.
ISBN:
9781541620445
Personal Author:
Edition:
First US edition.
Physical Description:
vi, 376 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
General Note:
"Originally published in 2021 in Great Britain by Basic Books London"--Title page verso.
Contents:
Introduction -- Part I: Discovery. Of scholars and heretics ; The physics of god ; The razor ; How simple are rights? ; The kindling ; The interregnum -- Part II: The unlocking. The heliocentric but hermetic cosmos ; Breaking the spheres ; Bringing simplicity down to Earth ; Atoms and knowing spirits ; The notion of motion ; Making motion work -- Part III: Life's razors. The vital spark ; Life's vital direction ; Of peas, primroses, flies and blind rodents -- Part IV: The cosmic razor. The best of all possible worlds? ; A quantum of simplicity ; Opening up the razor ; The simplest of all possible worlds? -- Epilogue.
Abstract:
Centuries ago, the principle of Occam's razor changed our world by showing simpler answers to be preferable and more often true. In Life Is Simple, scientist Johnjoe McFadden traces centuries of discoveries, taking us from a geocentric cosmos to quantum mechanics and DNA, arguing that simplicity has revealed profound answers to the greatest mysteries. This is no coincidence. From the laws that keep a ball in motion to those that govern evolution, simplicity, he claims, has shaped the universe itself. And in McFadden's view, life could only have emerged by embracing maximal simplicity, making the fundamental law of the universe a cosmic form of natural selection that favors survival of the simplest.
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