The Scientific Sublime Popular Science Unravels the Mysteries of the Universe

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom.

In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science.

In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?

Alan G. Gross is a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar. His specialty is scientific communication. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Science and co-author of Communicating Science, The Scientific Literature, The Craft of Scientific Communication, Science from Sight to Insight, and The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities.

Chapter 1: Isn't Science Sublime?

Part I: The Physicists
Chapter 2: Richard Feynman: The Consensual Sublime
Chapter 3: Steven Weinberg: The Conjectural Sublime
Chapter 4. Lisa Randall: The Technological Sublime
Chapter 5. Brian Greene: The Speculative Sublime
Chapter 6. Stephen Hawking: The Scientific Sublime Embodied

Part II: The Biologists
Chapter 7. Rachel Carson: The Ethical Sublime
Chapter 8. Stephen Jay Gould's Books: The Balanced Sublime
Chapter 9. Stephen Jay Gould's Essays: Experiencing the Sublime
Chapter 10. Steven Pinker: The Polymath Sublime
Chapter 11. Richard Dawkins: The Mathematical Sublime
Chapter 12. E. O. Wilson: The Biophilic Sublime

Part III
Chapter 13. Move Over, God