Prometheus, 1994, 427 pp, ISBN 0-87975-853-8. page views.

About the Book and the Editor

Martin Gardner, author of numerous books on science, mathematics and philosophy, has assembled thirty-four brilliant essays by eminent philosophers, scientists and writers that deal with fundamental aspects of modern science.

As Gardner makes clear in his preface, his intent is not to teach the reader science or to report on the latest trends and discoveries. "Rather, the purpose of this book is to spread before the reader, whether his or her nterest in science is passionate or mild, a sumptuous feast of great writing - absorbing, thought-provoking pieces that have something to say about science and say it forcibly and well."

Gardner's entertaining biographical commentaries make Great Essays in Science a rich store of good reading and an informal history of the men and ideas that have shaped our culture and transformed our everyday lives.

Contents

• Preface
• The Sphinx, by Francis Bacon
• Recapitulation and Conclusion, by Charles Darwin
• The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy, by John Dewey
• Nonmoral Nature, by Stephen Jay Gould
• The Problem of Being, by William James
• What Makes a Woman Beautiful? by Havelock Ellis
• The Sacred Beetle, by Jean Henri Fabre
• The Logic of Elfland, by Gilber Keith Chesterton
• Can We Know the Universe? Refeöctions on a Grain of Salt, by Carl Sagan
• The Colloid and the Crystal, by Joseph Wood Krutch
• The Barbarism of "Speicalisation", by José Ortega y Gasset
• Science and Culture, by Thomas Henry Huxley
• Science and Literature, by John Burroughs
• Science and Beauty, by Isaac Asimov
• Automation, by Ernest Nagel
• Other-Worldly Life, ba Jonathan Norton Leonard
• Physics in the Contemporary World, by J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Religion and Science, by Alfred North Whitehead
• Proteus, by John Dos Passos
• An Essay on Bird-Mind, by Julian Huxley
• The Decline of Determinism, by Arthur Stanley Eddington
• Science in the Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
• The Sunless Sea, by Rachel Carson
• The Nuptial Flight, by Maurice Maeterlinck
• The New Source of Energy: Science and Ultimate Truth, by H. G. Wells
• Success, by Laura Fermi
• The Gestapo in Science, by Samuel Goudsmit
• Pan's Pipes, by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Dreams of Death of Beloved Persons, by Siegmund Freud
• The Science to Save Us from Science: The Greatness of Albert Einstein, by Bertrand Russell
• E = mc², by Albert Einstein
• Seven Wonders, by Lewis Thomas