Ebook: Beyond reason: 8 great problems that reveal the limits of science

"Temporary barriers to understanding are sometimes swept away by knowledge, each advance revealing new vistas. But some barriers appear to be permanent. Author A.K. Dewdney explores these grand limitations that stand like granite walls around our scientific and technological enterprise. These are not the barriers of ignorance, but knowledge. It is perhaps only ignorance that prevents us from traveling through time; certainly no theory yet prohibits the possibility. Yet the presence of chaos in our atmospheric system implies rather strongly that we shall never predict the weather much better than we do now."

"Beyond Reason explores these barriers and the theories that give them form and substance. We shall apparently never travel faster than the speed of light, nor shall we ever build a perpetual motion machine that performs useful work. After laying the foundations of each theory, illuminated by stories of the scientists who discovered them, A.K. Dewdney then goes on to ask "What if?" Is there a way out? Are there no secret passages through these walls?"--Jacket.  Read more...