The Pursuit of Destiny: A History of Prediction - Hardcover

Halpern, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0738200956 ISBN 13: 9780738200958

Publisher: Perseus Books, 2000

Synopsis

In The Pursuit of Destiny, physicist Paul Halpern brings a scientist's eye to questions of time and fate, tracing the history of forecasting from its roots in ancient mysticism to its development as a modern science. As Halpern explains, the desire to foretell the future is an integral part of what makes us human. Newtonian mechanics offered the tantalizing possibility of describing nature as a clockwork mechanism, but twentieth-century scientific discoveries, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Einstein's flexible concepts of past, present, and future, undermined this rigid notion. Scientists today grapple with formidable barriers to knowledge, hoping to extend prediction's frontiers. Drawing on modern theories of complexity, chaos theory, quantum theory, and relativity, Halpern explores the latest methods of scientific, social, and technological forecasting. How much of the future is inevitable? When are predictions most likely to succeed? Does time even exist? An intriguing look at the potential limits to our ability to forecast, The Pursuit of Destiny is an eloquent testament to our very human need to try.

About this title

From the Author:

A far-reaching chronicle of our quest to predict the future
the Pursuit of Destiny is a history of the science of forecasting, from its roots in ancient prophecy to the latest anticipatory schemes. From Chaos Theory to the Kabbala, and from Neural Networks to Numerology, no avenue of prediction is unexplored. Time travel paradoxes, and questions of determinism and fate are offered special looks. The book culminates in an exploration of astronomers' efforts to unravel the far future of the universe. How much of our destinies might we know in advance? Are we masters of fate or merely its servants? The Pursuit of Destiny offers intriguing possible answers to these riddles.

Synopsis:

A fascinating journey from the oracles of the past to the predictive machines of the future. . In The Pursuit of Destiny , physicist Paul Halpern brings a scientist's eye to questions of time and fate, tracing the history of forecasting from its roots in ancient mysticism to its development as a modern science. As Halpern explains, the desire to foretell the future is an integral part of what makes us human. Newtonian mechanics offered the tantalizing possibility of describing nature as a clockwork mechanism, but twentieth-century scientific discoveries, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Einstein's flexible concepts of past, present, and future, undermined this rigid notion. Scientists today grapple with formidable barriers to knowledge, hoping to extend prediction's frontiers. Drawing on modern theories of complexity, chaos theory, quantum theory, and relativity, Halpern explores the latest methods of scientific, social, and technological forecasting. How much of the future is inevitable? When are predictions most likely to succeed? Does time even exist?

An intriguing look at the potential limits to our ability to forecast, The Pursuit of Destiny is an eloquent testament to our very human need to try.

About this edition

• Publisher: Perseus Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0738200956
• ISBN 13: 9780738200958
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272