|
Hubert Reeves, one of France's most distinguished researchers
and a well-known science writer, offers a unique examination
of the evolution of our universe, from the Big Bang through
successive stages of rising complexity. Looking to the farthest
horizons of our expanding universe, Reeves describes the
increasingly organized structure of matter. Our species'
climb up the ladder of complexity has produced great art
and literature in addition to all the remarkable products
of modern technology.
There is also a more sinister progression:
our compulsion to build increasingly destructive weapons.
The birth of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos is just one point
on this macabre spiral. Our intelligence has given us the
ability to create and destroy -- will our intelligence be
the means of defusing the bomb, and dismantling these destructive
forces? The author advocates neither blind optimism nor
bleak pessimism, but rather hope, and a belief that delight
is the antidote to despair.
The Hour of Our Delight, winner of
the prestigious Prix Blaise Pascal, has sold more than 200,000
copies in its French edition. It is being published now
for the first time in English.
Hubert Reeves is Director of Research
at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in
Paris. Canadian by birth, he received his Ph.D. in nuclear
astrophysics from Cornell University where he studied with
Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, Philip Morrison, and Ed Salpeter.
Reeves is the author of numerous books, including Atoms
of Silence (MIT Press), which has been translated into
eleven languages.
|
