Jim Holt

"A collection of essays on philosophy, mathematics, and science, and the people who pursue them"--

Excursions to the Edge of Thought

When Einstein Walked with Gödel

Like any collection of us says some are more enjoyable than others. The book doesn’t nice job of balancing enough technical detail to put meat on the bone without so much that you have to be a subject matter expert to take something away. Casual listening is an audiobook with the perfect way to enjoy this one.

Brock

Matthew Zabel

Jeremy Cote

Note: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

I thought this was a great collection of essays. I wasn't familiar with Holt's work beforehand, but he is a very good writer. I liked the diverse topics and had a fun time reading each one. I think Holt strikes a nice balance between depth and overview. If there was one thing I didn't find as great for the book, it's the cover and the title. They don't really encompass the whole book in my opinion. Still, I highly recommend the book to anyone who loves good science writing.

From Jim Holt, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Does the World Exist?, comes an entertaining and accessible guide to the most profound scientific and mathematical ideas of recent centuries in When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought. Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction—and whether the universe truly has a future.

When Einstein Walked with Gödel Excursions to the Edge of Thought

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