Immortal Ideas

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We live in the greatest scientific age of all time, yet we livein the most innumerate of times. Our science writers need toinspire us with the beauty and power of their art, the same stirringsplendor found in literature and music. We need writerslike Shelley whose description of the mundane water cycle inthe final stanza of "The Cloud" can rouse a class from somnolence.We need to touch people with the profound beauty commonto art and science. This is my motivation!Today we have journeyed to a distant place far removedfrom C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures where he described howart and science speak mutually incomprehensible languages.Now the world is even more fractured - we need to be healed.Each chapter is built around a single idea that's common toart, science, and, nature. The last chapter is a summary of theprevious nine. Although this book is nonfiction, sections ofeach chapter and the climax are developed by two semihistoricalcharacters: one from the Iliad, the other from theOdyssey - the two blessed men of Odysseus. The older isEpius the engineer/scientist who with the sanction of Odysseusbuilt the Trojan horse and ended the war. The younger isPhemius the poet/minstrel compelled to entertain the suitors inOdysseus' absence. On his return the hero slew the suitors butspared and blessed Phemius as a man inspired by god. Bothscientist and poet have been alive for three millennia, interactingwith history's great ideas through famous men and women.