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In May 1997, acclaimed science author John
Casti led a dozen gifted writers to a remote Swedish village
called Abisko, far above the Arctic Circle, to discuss the
nature of scientific truth. Their discussions and debates
focussed on one major question: How do the stories that
scientists tell each other, and the public, affect the way
they do their science? This book is the outcome of that
lively meeting of minds. Each chapter is by a noted scientist
who writes, or science fiction writer who practices science,
and the cast includes John Barrow, Greg Bear, Ian Stewart,
Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, and John Casti himself. In
this fascinating look behind the scenes of science, eleven
of the world's top scientist-authors examine the phenomenon
of science as storytelling.
As these authors demonstrate, the tales
scientists tell each other are often even more mysterious
or fanciful than those they tell the public. Many of these
tales are called "thought experiments," and their
purpose is to focus and encapsulate large amounts of knowledge
into short, pithy pictures that capture the essence -- and
the shortcomings -- of a scientific theory. Nevertheless,
some of these tales -- such as "Schrodinger's Cat"
and "Hilbert's Infinite Hotel" -- have worked
their way into the public consciousness, almost to the point
of being household words.
Mission to Abisko is a must-read
for anyone curious about our perception of scientific "truth."
John L. Casti is a faculty member of
both the Santa Fe Institute and the Technical University
of Vienna, and the author of numerous popular science books
such as The Cambridge Quintet, Virtual Worlds,
and Five Golden Rules.
Anders Karlqvist is Director of the Polar
Research Secretariat of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
and an adjunct professor at the Royal Institute of Technology
in Stockholm.
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