No Easy Answers: Science and the Pursuit of Knowledge - Softcover

Franklin, Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822959682 ISBN 13: 9780822959687

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007

Synopsis

In No Easy Answers, Allan Franklin offers an accurate picture of science to both a general reader and to scholars in the humanities and social sciences who may not have any background in physics. Through the examination of nontechnical case studies, he illustrates the various roles that experiment plays in science. He uses examples of unquestioned success, such as the discoveries of the electron and of three types of neutrino, as well as studies that were dead ends, wrong turns, or just plain mistakes, such as the \u201cfifth force,\u201d a proposed modification of Newton's law of gravity. Franklin argues that science is a reasonable enterprise that provides us with knowledge of the natural world based on valid experimental evidence and reasoned and critical discussion, and he makes clear that it behooves all of us to understand how it works.

About this title

About the Author

Allan Franklin is professor of physics at the University of Colorado. He has twice been chair of the Forum on the History of Physics of the American Physical Society and has served two terms on the executive council of the Philosophy of Science Associatio

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822959682
• ISBN 13: 9780822959687
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272