- Hörkassette
- Verlag: HarperAudio; Auflage: Unabridged (6. Mai 2003)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0060554851
- ISBN-13: 978-0060554859
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 17,6 x 11,2 x 3,4 cm
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 2.152.980 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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Isaac Newton
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Amazon.co.uk
It is a brave writer who tackles a biography of the world famous pioneer mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton and James Gleick has acquitted himself superbly well in his new bookIsaac Newton. Accolades to Newton were piling up even during his early lifetime in the 17th century when such fame was usually confined to royalty, popes and archbishops and certainly not to ordinary mortals born in 1642 of yeomen stock in deepest rural England. According to Gleick, Newton was the first person whose attainment "lay in the realm of the mind" to have a state funeral and be buried in Westminster Abbey. A Latin inscription proclaimed his "strength of mind almost divine" with "mathematical principles peculiarly his own" and declared that "mortals rejoice that there has existed so great an ornament of the human race"--not bad for a farm boy from Lincolnshire.
Sensibly, Gleick, a well-known American science writer and author of the acclaimed Chaos, focuses a great deal on how such a transformation could happen to anyone with such humble beginnings at that time in British history. There is no doubt Newton's innate talent and genius but he was also lucky in that he had excellent schooling and through the intervention of a relative he was able to go to the University of Cambridge and went on to stay there most of his professional life. His mother supplied him with "a chamber pot; a notebook of 140 blank pages... a quart bottle and ink to fill it, candles for many long nights, and a lock for his desk". Try sending your child to university so equipped today.
Of course the critical achievements of Newton's life were in his scientific achievements and here is the real problem: how to explain them for the general reader when even academic mathematicians today find much of the detail of Newton's work hard to comprehend. This is largely because Newton did not have today's familiar technical language or standard units of measurement available to him; he really was exploring terra incognita and feeling his way. But this is exactly what Gleick manages to get over so well and there is so much more. Aside from it being an eminently accessible biography, illustrations, extensive notes, bibliography and index make this an invaluable source for anyone who wants to enter the wonderful and arcane world of Sir Isaac Newton. --Douglas Palmer -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Amazon.com
As a schoolbook figure, Isaac Newton is most often pictured sitting under an apple tree, about to discover the secrets of gravity. In this short biography, James Gleick reveals the life of a man whose contributions to science and math included far more than the laws of motion for which he is generally famous. Gleick's always-accessible style is hampered somewhat by the need to describe Newton's esoteric thinking processes. After all, the man invented calculus. But readers who stick with the book will discover the amazing story of a scientist obsessively determined to find out how things worked. Working alone, thinking alone, and experimenting alone, Newton often resorted to strange methods, as when he risked his sight to find out how the eye processed images:
.... Newton, experimental philosopher, slid a bodkin into his eye socket between eyeball and bone. He pressed with the tip until he saw 'severall white darke & coloured circles'.... Almost as recklessly, he stared with one eye at the sun, reflected in a looking glass, for as long as he could bear.
From poor beginnings, Newton rose to prominence and wealth, and Gleick uses contemporary accounts and notebooks to track the genius's arc, much as Newton tracked the paths of comets. Without a single padded sentence or useless fact, Gleick portrays a complicated man whose inspirations required no falling apples. --Therese Littleton -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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159 von 164 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
What a Piece of Work is Isaac Newton
23. Mai 2003
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I'm not a mathematician; I'm not even much good at arithmetic. Once when trying to count backward from 100 by 7's I started with 97, went to 93, and gave up. Of course I was lying in a hospital bed, but even at my best I wouldn't have gotten far. I tell you this because I approached "Isaac Newton," by James Gleick expecting to read the introduction, pick up a few bits-and-bobs, and bail out. What a surprise to find myself reading even while walking to the bus stop. Thank you, Mr. Gleick for a fascinating biography that doesn't bog down in numbers, but still imparts the scientific information salient to Mr. Newton's life.
Isaac Newton was a piece of work. A scientist, but also a student of biblical prophecy; a chemist, but also an alchemist; a public figure as well as something of a recluse; a fountain of learning who refused to publish. Isaac Newton was a man of his times, and Mr. Gleick points out the very interesting paradox that Newton lived in a pre-Newtonian world. Of course he would be filled with contradictions. Even so, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Newton's contemporary and a philosopher/mathematician in his own right who found himself at odds with Newton by independently inventing differential and integral calculus, told the Queen of Prussia that "in mathematics there was all previous history, from the beginning of the world, and then there was Newton; and that Newton's was the better half."
If you would like a better understanding of the laws of nature we take for granted, and an understanding of the life and times of the complicated man who formulated them for us, then I recommend this highly readable (and mathematically understandable) biography.
65 von 72 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
The Greatest Scientific Genius
9. Juli 2003
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
First off, let me say that I am a great admirer of Isaac Newton. Einstein is who he is and deserves every accolade put upon him but, in my opinion, humankind has never produced a scientific genius as great as Newton. He understood the world in a way that has never been equaled before or since.
That being said, let me also say that this is a very good biography of Newton. It is brief so it is easily digestible by anyone. Still, what is lacks in depth it makes up for in coverage. We get glimpses of many parts of Newton's life, from his obsessive questioning and scientific investigation of the plague/fire years through his hiding-in-plain-sight years at Trinity through the renown of his London years as President of the Royal Society and Warden of the Mint.
Gleick also does not shy away from the less understandable parts of Newton's nature--his hypersensitivity to criticism, his theological struggles and his relentless alchemical investigations. Though, as this biography makes clear, even his ability to achieve his well-known and -respected triumphs in mathematics and physics really defy understanding. Let's face it, there is something about genius that is beyond any kind of clarity for those of us not touched by it.
Anyone interested in a quick look at an amazing man should read this book. I would also suggest taking the time to follow the many endnotes that Gleick has provided. Unlike many notes of this type, these are very readable and add to the text, though some probably could have been added right to the body of the text without much interruption of the flow. In any case, Gleick has written a fine book about a true genius.
42 von 47 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Figure Newton
24. Mai 2003
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I though Galileo's Daughter was the best book I read last year, and this one is a close second. Only James Gleick has the self-confidence and skill to synthesize the life of Newton down to 191 succinct and fascinating pages. The average author, full of himself, would probably write about 1,191 pages and you wouldn't be able to lift the book. This is a masterpiece of time, space, light and color. A reader in motion will tend to remain in motion. It was just great, I read it in one sitting. I hope this starts a trend!
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