Sunday, November 04, 2007

Well worth a read

I'm currently working my way through Discarded Science, a wonderful journey through the evolution of our current ways of thinking and reasoning about life, the universe and everything. I'd come across many of the events described before, for example during my physics degree or reading copious scientific journal and watching programs over the years (e.g., the Hollow Earth and Flat Earth notions), but it's nice to have them all brought together in one easily digestible book. Even if your strong suit isn't science, this book is well worth a read.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I hope it makes the strong statement that science isn't about proving anything: it's about disproving the incumbent theories. I can't remember who said that first, but I'm sure I heard Feynman say it on more than one occassion.

I wonder how many of our current beliefs will appear in a 22nd century version?

2 comments:

Michael Neale said...

Its a damn shame that the earth isn't hollow. If it was, then once you got to the hollow bit, there would be no gravity (not hard to calculate why), and you could just float across to the other side.

Mark Little said...

Gravity is a myth: the Earth sucks.