Exploring questions for the ages solved by strokes of genius
“Dare to think!” This was the catch cry of the Enlightenment over 300 years ago when the breakaway from religion towards a more secular society began. Isaac Newton led the Scientific Revolution which transformed society for the next 300 years with progress not yet dreamed of. Stephen Hawking exemplified the secular face of the new society by not only revealing a new cosmology but linking the very large scale theories of Einstein’s relativity with the small scale quantum mechanics. Yet what was the mind set of Newton’s age compared to Hawking’s age? What were the changes in society and philosophy during those 300 years and were they all linked to science? What revelations has science given us today that Newton did not know? What would have changed his mind set?
This book represents a slice of history, philosophy of ideas and even reality mixed with their personal lives and of course, mathematics and science evolving over those 300 years. Revealed are the truly astonishing stories of five of the greatest scientific thinkers who ever lived…
Yet some were also great philosophers providing rich insights into the cosmos. Their stories class them as true founders of scientific revolutions, battlers with feats of endurance, and triumphs to rise to great heights. Through the personal tragedies of Curie and Hawking to the intellectual battles fought by Einstein, Newton and Leibniz these five scientists inspire us.
It is hoped that everyone - students , science enthusiasts or anyone who feels left behind in understanding the astonishing insights of the cosmos will be rewarded in reading about -not only the science - but the lives and times of these great people and the great knowledge they left to help us solve the riddles of the universe.
Shortly after Hawking’s passing in 2018 it was reported that some of his inspiring words were beamed towards a black hole: “Be brave, be determined, overcome the odds – it can be done”
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Read more testimonials“C. C. Hagan’s How Great Thinkers transformed our Ideas is one of the finest syntheses of history, science, philosophy, and theology written in the last thirty years.”
Lecturer in History
The Great Thinkers
Newton
Isaac Newton lived at a time when England was full of political and religious upheaval. Newton was said to be the greatest thinker of his time – the leading scientist and mathematician in the 17th century, regarded in awe since. Newton is famous for having seen an apple fall from a tree before havin...
Leibniz
His big achievements were the invention of the calculus independently from Newton – both are credited with the invention of calculus despite the intense dispute between them fought out in the corridors of the Royal Society. Newton himself was then President of the Royal Society – today’s modern lega...
Curie
It was early 1899. On the forest floor in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) lay a pile of ‘waste’ black rock called Pitchblende which had already been mined for uranium. A wagon full of the black rock mixed with pine needles and dirt was now arriving at Marie Curie’s makeshift laboratory – a shed in ...
Einstein
Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 and grew up in Munich. He was educated under the German system of Bildung meaning ‘formation’ under which physics, mathematics and philosophy were blended to allow “the individual to mature into independence and responsibility” (See next Chapter, Einstein’s ...
Hawking
Stephen Hawking was born 8 January 1942 on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death (and close to the anniversary of Newton’s birth ) into an interesting family who lived in North London. Although his father was a doctor, he came from a line of Yorkshire farmers (like Newton’s family – farmers do sp...