Posted on 11/19/2006 7:46:14 PM PST by SunkenCiv
In 1676, Isaac Newton explained his accomplishments through a simple metaphor. "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," he wrote. The image wasn't original to him, but in using it Newton reinforced a way of thinking about scientific progress that remains popular: We learn about the world though the vision of a few colossal figures... "The main difference today is there are so many people working on these deep problems," the physicist Brian Greene said recently. In one 15-page span of his best-selling book "The Elegant Universe" (1999), Greene mentions 24 scientists whose work prefigured a rich period in the development of string theory, the dominant idea in theoretical physics for the past 20 years. Faithfully untangling these various threads makes it harder for any writer to create a linear narrative of discovery, in which a few key influences on one scientist lead to a singular insight... Illuminating those overlooked sources of fascination may be an important part of the genre's future. "The science biography ... is critical in an era when science gets ever farther afield from everyday experience," Greene said. "Our human link to that is through the process of discovery, through human stories, so that remains an element that I think has to be preserved." If our discoveries no longer come from the realm of giants, the science biography may have to be constructed to a more human scale as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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