Bøger af Joseph Mani

Religion has been the biggest divisive force in history. This book examines the irrational and harmful beliefs of religious people, which lead to religion becoming a destructive force. Religion can be and has been a force for good too. What are the aspects of religion that make it meaningful? Does God exist? The book details the scientific and philosophical arguments adduced for God's existence and how valid they are. In the last section, we look at five luminaries of science who either had close encounters with religious establishments or had strong views on religion and God. We look at the lives of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hawking, not so much as scientists, but as human beings with their own kinks and idiosyncrasies. The author brings to this book his extensive knowledge of physics, philosophy, religion and the behavioural sciences.

In this book we look at the lives of nine eminent scientists - Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Curie, Bose, Einstein, Raman, Feynman and Hawking - not so much as scientists but as human beings, their family lives, their religious beliefs, their values and their idiosyncrasiesLittle known facts: - Copernicus had a doctorate in Church Law and was a senior official of the Catholic Church till his death - Einstein invented a new type of refrigerator; Curie could not afford to buy even 1 gram of the element she discovered - Curie and Einstein thought of suicide; Hawking attempted suicide - Newton waited at tables and cleaned rooms of rich classmates to pay his college fees; Curie could not afford a full meal during her student days. - Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Bose were deeply religious; Einstein and Raman were pantheists; Curie was an agnostic; Feynman and Hawking were atheists - Curie's died of her own discovery; her notebooks are still radioactive and will remain so for the next 1500 years - Newton spent the last thirty years of his life in alchemy, Bible studies and catching and putting to death counterfeiters; Einstein spent the last thirty years of his life in a lonely, frustrating attempt to develop the Unified Theory, abandoned and even ridiculed by his fellow scientists. - Curie's and Hawking's parents were highly educated; Newton's parents were illiterate - E = mc2 is not Einstein's full equation; and its negative counterpart led to the idea of antimatter