This Idea is Brilliant

Resumen del libro

The latest volume in the bestselling series from Edge.org dubbed the world's smartest website by The Guardian brings together 206 of the world's most innovative thinkers to discuss the scientific concepts that everyone should know.

As science informs public policy, decision making, and so many aspects of our everyday lives, a scientifically literate society is crucial. In that spirit, Edge.org publisher and author of Know This, John Brockman, asks 206 of the world's most brilliant minds the 2017 Edge Question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?

Contributors include: author of The God Delusion RICHARD DAWKINS on using animals' Genetic Book of the Dead to reconstruct ecological history; MacArthur Fellow REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN on scientific realism, the idea that scientific theories explain phenomena beyond what we can see and touch; author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics CARLO ROVELLI on relative information, which governs the physical world around us; theoretical physicist LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS on the hidden blessings of uncertainty ; cognitive scientist and author of The Language Instinct STEVEN PINKER on The Second Law of Thermodynamics ; biogerontologist AUBREY DE GREY on why maladaptive traits have been conserved evolutionarily; musician BRIAN ENO on confirmation bias in the internet age; Man Booker-winning author of Atonement IAN MCEWAN on the Navier-Stokes Equations, which govern everything from weather prediction to aircraft design and blood flow; plus pieces from RICHARD THALER, JARED DIAMOND, NICHOLAS CARR, JANNA LEVIN, LISA RANDALL, KEVIN KELLY, DANIEL COLEMAN, FRANK WILCZEK, RORY SUTHERLAND, NINA JABLONSKI, MARTIN REES, ALISON GOPNIK, and many, many others.

Biografía del autor

John Brockman(Boston, 1941) es un empresario cultural con una amplia trayectoria en el campo del arte, la ciencia, los libros, el software e Internet. En 1960 sentó las bases de los entornos cinéticos intermedia aplicables al arte, al teatro y a los negocios mientras asesoraba a General Electric, Columbia Pictures, el Pentágono, la Casa Blanca... En 1973 creó su propia agencia literaria y de software. Es fundador de Edge Foundation 1 y editor de Edge, aclamada página web donde los pensadores más destacados, líderes de lo que él llama Tercera Cultura , analizan la ciencia más vanguardista. Es autor y editor de varios libros, entre ellos: La tercera cultura (1995); The greatest inventions of the past 2000 years (2000); Los próximos cincuenta años (2002) y The new humanists (2003). Goza del privilegio de haber aparecido en la primera página del Science Times (1997) y del Arts x{0026} 38; Leisure (1966), ambos suplementos del New York Times.