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Title: Science and Hypothesis by Henri Poincare ISBN: 0-486-60221-4 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1952 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Personal view from a crucial era
Comment: Poincare wrote the essays in this book about a hundred years ago, in 1905. That was the landmark period after Maxwell and before special relativity. I was fascinated to read this snapshot from such an exciting era in scientific thought.
This first-person view is set in the era when the all-encompassing ether was still considered seriously. People had recent memory of debates about whether electrons were real. There was no unification of rays from uranium and radium with cathode rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet.
The intellectual seeds of modern science had been sown, though. Experiments with ultraviolet foretold Einstein's photoelectric effect. Lorentz had already stated some of the invariants that led to relativity. Probability was just entering mainstream scientific thought, preparatory to statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and Heisenberg.
As Poincare covers the science of his day, he does so in the style of his day. He is quite unashamed in describing the British scientific temperament as boldly intuitive, but informal and sometimes spotty. By contrast, he describes the French as rigorous and inclusive, although maybe a bit too staid. Not just the science, but the social attitudes of the day come through in the pleasant little book. If you study the history of science and are partial to primary sources, I recommend this highly.
Rating: 5
Summary: Memoirs of a critical era
Comment: Poincare wrote these essays in 1905. That was a period of transition in science, after Maxwell but just before relativity. I find it exciting to look back into the thought of that era - ether was still a going hypothesis, and the rocky start of the electron was still fresh memory. His discussion of geometry echoes Abbott's Flatland, published not too long before. His physics had not yet unified the different radiations of uranium, radium, and light. Lorentz had only recently showed invariance under velocity, one of the cornerstones of relativity; other notes presage Einstein's photoelectric effect. I am fascinated to see modern science germinating in Poincare's world.
I am equally fascinated by his contrasts British with French temperament. The British are drawn as intuitive and somewhat brash, but lacking in clear explanantions and unity. French thought is described as mathematically rigorous, but perhaps staid - certainly not the way we discuss science today. This is a wonderful note in the history of science, and in the mind of a great mathematician.
Rating: 5
Summary: great book---both pop sci & thought-provoking
Comment: it is philosophy,precisely it is positivism(with slightly revised)! people who like read Henri Poincare might compare his with Ernst Mach.
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Title: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Louis Galison ISBN: 0393020010 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Value of Science : Essential Writings of Henri Poincare by Henri Poincare ISBN: 0375758488 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 02 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Science and Method (Key Texts (South Bend, Ind.).) by Henri Poincare, Andrew Pyle, Bertrand Arthur Russell ISBN: 1890318825 Publisher: Saint Augustine's Pr Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Isaac Newton by James Gleick ISBN: 0375422331 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Poincare's Philosophy: From Conventionalism to Phenomenology by Elie Zahar ISBN: 081269435X Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company Pub. Date: 09 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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