Coming of Age in the Milky Way

Rating:
Summary: The more we know, the more we see how little we know
Review: In charting the place of mankind in the universe Timothy Ferris explores as different topics as history, evolution, physics, mathematics, cosmology, theology or philosophy and that from the Big Bang over the Greeks to the end of the 20th century.
Within this tour-de-force I would like to emphasize a few extremely important statements.
First, the importance of Godel's incompleteness theorem:'there is not and never will be a complete and comprehensive scientific account of the universe that can be proved valid'.(p. 374)
Secondly, the killing of the 'monstrous' philosophy of determinism (Einstein's belief) by quantum physics:'Quantum indeterminacy ... celebrates the return of chance to the fundamental affairs of the world.' (p.291)
Thirdly, the all importance of symmetry in the gauge field theory with force as a medium to maintain the invariance and particles as messengers of symmetry.
When one reads a book about the fate of mankind in (or and) the universe, one encounters nearly always approaches from new angles. Timothy Ferris' book is in that league.
I have only one small remark: the short personal biography of Einstein is not correct.
Not to be missed.
I also recommend strongly the works of Lee Smolin and Richard Dawkins.

Rating:
Summary: A good history of the sciences and Astronomy in particular.
Review: This book is an excellent tour through history of astronomy and astronomers quest to uncover our place (and time) in the universe. Ferris goes into quite a bit of detail and does not treat his readers with kid gloves. There are many interesting anecdotes about various astronomers and Ferris sometimes gives mini biographies of the more interesting/eccentric of them. Ferris starts with the greek astonomers such has hypocratus, goes through copernicus, kepler, galileo, newton, and then onto the astronmers of the last 200 years. But in his final section, he also talks about how the geosciences, and the theory of evolution began to give us a better perspective of where we fit in the universe not just in space but in time. The last chapters are devoted to the cutting edge of science - quantum physics. Ferris reports discoveries up to the point practically that this book was published! All in all, a good read for anyone interested in science and particularly in Astronomy.