Galileo's Finger

Galileo's Finger is quite simply the best introduction to modern scientific concepts that has ever been written. Taking its cue from C. P. Snow's remark that 'not knowing the second law of thermodynamics is like never having read a work by Shakespeare', by reading this book you will become literate in modern science. The ten great ideas it introduces with brilliant imagery range from natural selection through quantum theory to curved spacetime. Never before have these core ideas of modern civilization been presented in so accessible and engaging a manner.

Why Galileo's finger? Galileo, one of whose fingers is preserved in a vessel displayed in Florence, provided much of the impetus for modern science, pointing the way out of medieval ignorance. In this brilliant account of the central ideas of contemporary science, Peter Atkins celebrates the effectiveness of Galileo's symbolic finger for revealing the nature of our universe, our world, and ourselves.