Product Description

By the author of "The Cambridge Quintet", John L. Casti's new book continues the tradition of combining science fact with just the right dose of fiction. It is part novel, part science - wholly informative and entertaining. In the fall of 1933, the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomed its first faculty member, Albert Einstein. With this superstar on the roster, the Institute was able to attract many more of the greatest scholars, scientists, and poets from around the world. It was to be an intellectual haven, a place where the most brilliant minds on the planet, sheltered from the outside world's cares and calamities, could study and collaborate and devote their time to the pure and exclusive pursuit of knowledge. For many of them, it was the 'one, true, platonic heaven.'Over the years, key figures at the Institute began to question the limits to what science could tell us about the world, pondering the universal secrets it might unlock. Could science be the ultimate source of truth; or are there intrinsic limits, built into the very fabric of the universe, to what we can learn? In the late 1940's and early 1950's, this important question was being asked and pondered upon by some of the Institute's deepest thinkers. Enter the dramatis personae to illuminate the science and the philosophy of the time.Mathematical logician Kurt Godel was the unacknowledged Grant Exalted Ruler of this platonic estate - but he was a ruler without a scepter as he awaited the inexplicably indefinite postponement of his promotion to full, tenured professor. Also in residence was his colleague, the Hungarian-American polymath, John van Neumann, developer of game theory, the axiomatic foundations of quantum mechanics, and the digital computer - stymied by the Institute's refusal to sanction his bold proposal to actually build a computer. One of Godel's closest friends figures large in this story: Albert Einstein, by common consensus the greatest physicist the 20th century had ever known. And, of course, the director the Institute, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, must by necessity be key to any story that focuses in on this time and place.Author Casti elegantly sets the stage and then masterfully directs this impressive cast of characters - with able assists by many 'minor-character' icons like T. S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, Freeman Dyson, and David Bohm, to tell a story of science, history, and ideas. As we watch events unfold (some of which are documented fact while others are creatively imagined fiction), we are witness to the discussions and deliberations of this august group...privy to wide-ranging conversations on thinking machines, quantum logic, biology as physics, weather forecasting, the structure of economic systems, the distinction between mathematics and natural science, the structure of the universe, and the powers of the human mind - all centered around the question of the limits to scientific knowledge. Imaginatively conceived and artfully executed, "The One True Platonic Heaven" is an accessible and intriguing presentation of some of the deepest scientific and philosophical ideas of the 20th century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2081430 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .41" h x 5.14" w x 7.52" l, .38 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Mathematician Kurt Godel, atomic physicist Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein are among the cast of Casti's new novel (after The Cambridge Quintet), a speculative recreation of the debates that took place in the late 1940s at the Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study. The book, which Casti describes as "scientific fiction," is composed mainly of dialogues between the scientists and mathematicians as they ponder the limits of human logic. These discussions aren't entirely abstract; the professors consider the philosophical and psychological implications of nascent computer technology and the atom bomb, among other inventions. Casti laces the book with descriptions of the IAS, the "platonic heaven" of the title, where the best thinkers of their day are able to do their research and talk to one another free from the other responsibilities of academia. T.S. Eliot, the lone poet spending "a term in Princeton" with the scientists, makes a cameo appearance during one of the afternoon teas at which the researchers gather daily. Casti knows his subject and explains it lucidly; the discussions of physics and math are reasonably accessible and quite engaging. But his attempts to make the scientists into characters rely on stiff, cliched descriptions ("Eliot's poetic soul cringed at this interchange"), and the conversational framework is stilted: "Oppenheimer turned to Eliot and asked in a resonant directorial voice, `Well, Tom, I see that Pauli and Weyl haven't yet managed to reconcile themselves in the realm of physics. What do you think about the aesthetic differences between the poet and the physicist?'" The book doesn't quite succeed as fiction, but readers eager to explore the principles of theoretical physics and math may appreciate Casti's reconstruction of the great debates.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Imagine a physics textbook in which the great scientists suddenly come to life as unpredictable characters sauntering down shady streets as they debate cosmic theories. Just as he did in The Cambridge Quintet (1998), Casti blends real science with compelling fiction. In this narrative--set in 1948 at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (IAS)--Einstein pits his formidable mind against the disquieting paradoxes of quantum physics, while Kurt Godel contemplates the possibilities for time travel in a relativistic universe. But when a restless John van Neumann begins to lobby for funds to launch a computer project of unprecedented scope, IAS conservatives bristle, resentful of the irreverent genius who would pollute their realm of pure theory with an electronic machine. Most readers will finally care less about van Neumann's maneuverings than about the ongoing dialogue between intellectual pioneers pondering the expanding horizons and eventual limits of human science. Thanks to Casti's daring imagination, we are allowed to intrude on the exclusive world of IAS and listen in on the profound conversations of its brightest luminaries. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
John Casti