Fire in the Equations by Kitty Ferguson
Experience is not all, and the savant is not passive; he does not wait
for the truth to come and find him, of for a chance meeting to
bring him face to face with it. He must go to meet it, and it is for
his thinking to reveal to him the way leading thither. For that there
is no need of an instrument; well, just there begins the difference.
-Henri Poincaré
What is the book about as a whole?
Science and religion are both means to discover the truth or attain what is true. Kitty Ferguson entangles the reader into a fascinating discovery and inquiry between the connections that science and religion share. The end is not to have a winner and a looser, it's just to deeply understand both of them and to have a broader conception of the universe that we inhabit. Also, she encourages the reader to question more and not take everything as certain or as truth. "How do we know what we know is true?"
Insights and notions acquired from the book
Questions
Favorite quotes
Science and religion are both means to discover the truth or attain what is true. Kitty Ferguson entangles the reader into a fascinating discovery and inquiry between the connections that science and religion share. The end is not to have a winner and a looser, it's just to deeply understand both of them and to have a broader conception of the universe that we inhabit. Also, she encourages the reader to question more and not take everything as certain or as truth. "How do we know what we know is true?"
Insights and notions acquired from the book
- In order to embark on discovering truth we have to assume the following:
- The universe is rational.
- The universe is accessible.
- The universe has contingency to it.
- There is such a thing as objective reality.
- Tolerance is necessary because everyone is equally right, we cannot proof or disproof who is right and who isn't.
- The observer creates reality by observing.
- Few of us would abandon the scientific quest.
- We all choose how to look, where to look; the scientific method is a point of view.
- Theory is a legitimate channel for a point of view in science.
- Theory predicts and experiment tests.
- There is no possible way to escape viewing reality from certain point of view.
- Beauty in physics implies simplicity, elegance and mathematical consistency and creativity.
- "The Book of Nature us written in mathematical characters".- Galileo
- Anything can be taken as conclusive.
- The beginning of the universe we encounter is unexplainable.
- Every galaxy in the universe is increasing in distance from every other galaxy.
- Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other by means of gravitational attraction.
- Entropy can only increase in any closed system.
- We need faith on science, on God or on mathematics and logic. They just are.
- It's possible to accept two explanations of something at once.
- Leap of faith that we can know anything at all.
Questions
- Can we know anything?
- Why do we exist?
- What's the origin of our universe?
- Can God exist without believers?
- Can our point of view affect what we find?
- What are our spectacles of reality? Do they influence our judgment?
- Is truth beautiful? Is beauty subjective?
- Where did mathematical consistency come from?
- How can we know when we've found ultimate truth? How can we prove we've discovered it?
- Is there an influence in our perspective from the intellectual climate or surroundings?
- Why do we have to leave God outside science?
- Why worry about the unknowable?
- Does the soul exist? Where does it begin and where does it end?
- Is there a Theory of Everything?
- Is God a complete explanation?
- What if God chose to not give us an explanation or a grasp of truth?
- Can we believe in science and in God at the same time?
- Were did the process of evolution come from?
- Is there life outside our universe?
- Is there a universe because of our existence?
Favorite quotes
- "Nature fills us with delight and awe. It moves us profoundly in ways that are difficult to express or assess and leads us to ask questions science may never be able to answer". -Kitty Ferguson
- "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"- Stephen Hawking
- "...truth-a truth which has a reality on its own, and which is revealed only partially to any one of us".-Penrose
- "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"- Stephen Hawking
- "Different interpretations and speculations are possible, but we must admit, whichever interpretation is ours, that we cannot prove that the other interpretation is wrong."-Kitty Ferguson
- "Ultimate reality, whatever that turns out to be, is the end of the quest. Paradoxically, it must also be the beginning. We must ask whether there is anything about our universe, about ourselves, that we can take for granted—any fundamental we can use as a starting place for the exploration of everything else. If it is difficult to find such a ¨still point¨—and we shall find that it is indeed difficult—then the quest for ultimate truth must begin with a leap of faith. Not faith that we are capable of complete understanding. Faith that we can know anything at all." -Kitty Ferguson
- "Perhaps the most significant difference between science and religion is that science thinks that on this quest we are entirely on our own. Religion tells us that although we who seek the truth may ride an imaginary horse, Truth also seeks us."-Kitty Ferguson