Doubt and certainty : the celebrated academy debates on science, mysticism, reality, in general on the knowable and unknowable, with particular forays into such esoteric matters as the mind fluid, the behavior of the stock market, and the disposition of a quantum mechanical sphinx, to name a few

Doubt and Certainty is a book on science--physics, mostly--and philosophy by two academic physicists: Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan. The back cover credits Sudarshan with discovering the first theory of the weak nuclear force; Rothman also appears to be an active researcher. The book is a whimsical report of an imaginary gathering in which some of history's greatest thinkers (along with some lesser lights) meet to argue about time, entropy, creation, matter, cosmology, mathematics, etc. As a non- specialist in most of these areas, I found the descriptions of the scientific thought to be fascinating. As one who feels that the scientific community often gets too big for its britches, I took guilty pleasure in the candid portrayal of show more the disagreements that have existed and continue to exist among scientists on seemingly basic questions.

I dock this book one star because, after a while, the lighthearted nature of the writing begins to grate a little. show less