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This is one of the many books on various disciplines of science which I bought between 2001-3.  I bought this one in December 2001, but I didn't actually read it until March 2006.  In this well-written volume on particle physics, Kane does more than the regular review of the particles that physics now considers make up the known universe.

He portrays an understandable history of discovery that clarifies some of the conceptions that seem muddled in either technical writing or the popular magazine portrayals of physics and theories of the universe.  And Kane does not rest on the bare presentation of the chronological story of discovery.  He evaluates each new level of discovery in light of the meaning for our understanding of the universe and how that contributes to our practical lives.

He deals with implications from these discoveries for our concepts of knowledge, how we learn, how we organize this new information, and how we integrate knowledge from this minute particle level of existence to our macro level of participation in the world around us.  This book in a good contribution to the philosophy of knowledge, Epistemology.

Kane deals with concepts of understanding and verification procedures, which provides some reference points for epistemology on the wider basis.  This is particularly pertinent in our current post-information age, when the various disciplines seem scattered and separated, due to the simply overwhelming volume of all that is known, all there is to know now, and all that this knowledge has pointed out needing to be yet investigated.

He addresses some points related to the boundaries and abilities of mythical, or religious, or mystical, points of view and the seemingly similar ideas presented nowadays by theoretical physics.  This should be helpful for clarifying processes of knowing and validity of claims to knowledge.

See related reviews and articles on this site:
The Awe of Scientific Discovery
A Real-Science Time Travel Plan!
Supersymmetry:  Microperceptions in a Theory of Everything
Weird Physics

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OBJ

First review notes written 13 March 2006
Edited 24 September 2007
Finalized as an article 11 December 2007
Reviewed on Amazon 4 March 2009

Orville Boyd Jenkins, EdD, PhD
Copyright © 2007 Orville Boyd Jenkins
Permission granted for free download and transmission for personal or educational use.  Other rights reserved.

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