The Man Who Counted Infinity
Short Stories from Science, History and Philosophy
The aim of the writings collected in this series is to present some key scientific events, ideas and personalities in the form of short stories that are easy and fun to read. Scientific and philosophical concepts are explained in a way that anyone may understand. Each story may be read separately, but at the same time, they all band together to form a wide-ranging introduction to the history of science and areas of contemporary scientific research, as well as some of the recurring problems science has encountered in history and the philosophical dilemmas it raises today.
CONTENTS
NUMBERS
A mathematical melodrama 15
What is randomness? 18
When our sense of probability deceives us 23
The man who counted infinity 28
The hermit of the Pyrenees 33
Is marriage a mathematical operation? 36
A mathematical intrigue at the Swedish court 41
Worshippers of mathematical infinity 46
The man who believed machines could think 51
Chaos and the butterfly effect 56
ATOMS
Searching for the beginning of time 63
The priest who came up with the Big Bang 69
How black holes are born 74
The origins of continents and oceans 79
In search of the perfect machine 84
How to release the energy of atoms? 89
What are quantum particles telling us? 94
What can we know about the world of atoms? 99
MOLECULES
Cannibals, insomnia and mad cow disease 107
EPO – The story about 2550 liters of powdered urine 113
Cell police 118
The Black Death pandemic 122
When a new, unknown disease breaks out 128
A deadly virus from the heart of Africa 134
Malaria 139
The child prodigy who became the father of cybernetics 144
Statistics against poverty and disease 149
The Pasteurization of heretical ideas 154
LIFE
What wiped out the dinosaurs? 161
The afterlife of Henrietta Lacks 165
A Russian Indiana Jones 170
Creating a second paradise 175
Alexander von Humboldt – adventurer and scientist 179
Feral children 184
The war of images 190
Hobbits from the isle of Flores 195
Lucy, more precious than diamonds 201
Paracelsus – Martin Luther of medicine 206
No more bananas? 210
The bioethics of conception 215
BRAIN
How can I tell you're not a robot? 223
The man with no memory 228
She's blind, but she sees 233
How babies learn languages 238
Why people are exceptional readers 243
Watching the birth of a new language 248
Pseudo-patients in psychiatric hospitals 253
Most submitted to authority 258
Too much safety can be dangerous 263
What does the peacock's tail say? 268
Who really makes the decisions in our minds? 274
Mirror neurons 279
Brain plasticity 282
The invention of permanent innovation 287
Are rewards bad for innovation? 292
Einstein and Freud: the meeting of two universes of knowledge 297
Why dessert comes last 303