Customer Reviews

The Day the Universe Changed

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book describes the evolution of scientific beliefs and ideas, and how they have intertwined throughout history to present day. His refreshing writing style is clever and humorous, displayed in an amazing presentation of the history of paradigm shifts in regard to invention and scientific discovery. He brilliantly ties together various scientific notions and explains them in their historic contexts, and shows the interconnectedness of scientific ideology in a way that is truly stunning to the "acolyte" connectionist thinker.

Having read Burke's previous efforts, I was prepared to be entertained and amazed at how seemingly unrelated thoughts and developments came together to move history and innovation forward - but this book exceeded my expectations! Another reveiwer commented (accurately) that Burke gives religion a pretty rough time, it must also be said that he gives an incredible perspective on how much impact religious thought impacted people's freedom to think, and how those places tolerant of fresh thinking attracted (and benefitted from) thinking people.

The same is shown to be true of political freedom, economic freedom, and, well, you get the picture...freedoms made great differences.

Burke does a fabulous job of providing meaningful context to innovation and innovators. He also demonstrates that a lot of innovation was not pursued, but rather occurred almost by accident - two things sitting next to each other for the first time, and someone decides to combine them!

If you don't read any of his other books, be sure to read this one! I have only one bit of advice when reading it - pace yourself - it is much too good to rush, so savor it...

Psychologists tell us that people often tend to see patterns and connections in situations where none really exist. At first, I had reservations about Burke's book for this very reason. But I found the book informative, intelligent, and a real pleasure to read. The author is very pesuasive in his thesis that unexpected connections and new knowledge really alter the human condition and our understanding of the universe. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in intellectual history, the history of technology, science, and medicine, or the relationship between political economy and the human condition.

Because the scope of Burke's book is so wide, brevity is a must. For this reason, some important connections had to be stated only in general terms, without deep explanations that may be necessary for a reader who is not already familiar with many major figures and events of the past. But no one should be intimidated. You can still enjoy the book, even if you do not already have the knowledge of technological and scientific history. Another challenge that is posed by the wide scope of this project and the subsequent terseness that it requires, is that 1) some statemets are subject to dispute because of their breif nature and generality; 2) a number of relevant causes and connections remain unexplored. I do not think there is a way around this. For example, Burke unequivocally states that John Locke supported slavery. This is debatable. True, Locke had invested in a slave-trading company, but his political philosophy rejected slavery in principle, allowing it only in the very special circumstance of prisoners of war. (Locke believed, for whatever reason, that prisoners of war could rightly be killed, and therefore if they chose to live, their captor could enslave them.) Also, Burke makes much of Locke's defense of private property, ignoring, as many authors have done before him, the fact that by "property" Locke meant to include all of these: life, liberty, and estate. And by "estate" Locke meant what we mean by private property today. But explanations of this sort, while providing a more balanced picture, would take up too much of the book, whose time span includes millenia of technological history!

I think that a greater challenge is posed by the complex nature of technological progress itself. Burke explores some connections and remains silent about others. This makes the methodology a little weak. For example, he practically argues that the weather was responsible for the industrial revolution, which began in Great Britain in the eighteenth century. I do realize that it is the unexpected and unusual connections that are the focus here. Still, I was left wondering, what about other factors?

I also have a difference of opinion on the philosophy of science. I do not think the universe really changed that much, perhaps not at all, based on the discoveries we as the human race made through the centuries. Only our understanding of the universe has undergone changes. Furthermore, not every understanding is equally valid. Some are much more scientific and accurate than others. The universe did not really change because Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter and Newton the 'laws' of all mechanical motion. What changed is the level of our scientific sophistication in regards to the question, How does the universe work? Also, I do not think that Burke's optimism about making science a true item of public domain is altogether justified. On the last two pages of the book he seems to suggest that the general public should dictate which direction science shall take, and what in the end counts for science. This is an interesting populist move. But one should not deceive himself. Science is not that democractic. One does not establish validity of scientific theories based on a vote. As to the direction that science will take, well, that is likely to be decided by scientists, corporations, and all those unexpected connections and unintended consequence that are so important in history, as Burke himself demonstrated.

I enjoyed the book a great deal. Everybody should read the chapter on medicine as soon as they get a chance. It makes you feel grateful for what you have in an economically advanced country. Finally, "The American Internet Advantage" owes much to the spirit that is also the spirit of this book--the spirit of exploration, perseverance, and strange connections.

Michael Hart

I disagree with earlier reviews saying that there is no cohesive message. Burke's message is more about how history happens, than history itself.

Burke turns history on it's ear by looking at the way things happen. How they change history in directions people would never have thought of. Kinda makes you wonder what we are doing today that will change tomorrow.

This book deals with paradigm shifts and how they changed the way we have looked at the world. Burke takes a subject like "Perspective Drawing" and shows how it changed the world fo science and architecture by providing a basis for measuring.

The last chapter of the book is the best and should probably be read first. In this chapter Burke summarizes the changes in science that have happened over the past 2500 years and how the paradigms control what scientists see and study. (Interestingly enough he never uses the word "paradigm" but refers to the lens through which we view the world as a "structure.")

Unfortunatly, the book lacks the editing that would have made it a great book. Burke is too wordy, and will use three paragraphs to discuss a point that was adequately covered in the first one. This lack of concise writing dilutes the impact of Burke's ideas so that it is hard to pick out the significance of the events.

Burke also will spend great amounts of time on the buildup to a world changing idea, but then short change the big event. For example, he discusses the various views and discussions that led up to Issac Newton's work, but then simply says in a single paragraph that Newton's work was so dramatic that it stopped scientific progress for 100 years. I'd like to dig into that!

I recommend this book despite its flaws. Understanding how we reached science's position today shows that there were other ways of looking at the world that we cut off along the way.

This is a review ONLY of the abridged CD audiobook read by the author James Burke. Relative to the book and the video series, each of which have ten chapters, the abridged CD audiobook is missing chapters 4, 6 and 8. In addition, the 3rd CD has sections out of order. The 3rd CD order is:

Chapter 9, Part 2
Chapter 10, Part 3
Chapter 10, Part 4 (the end)
Chapter 10, Part 1
Chapter 10, Part 2
Chapter 9, Part 3
Chapter 9, Part 1

If you copy the content of the three CDs to your iPod you can rearrange the parts as necessary, but the order as it stands is totally confusing.

I happen to think the The Day The Universe Changed video series (previously not available commercially except for a school/library version for $750, but now available at modest cost) is the finest series ever created, and the accompanying The Day the Universe Changed: How Galileo's Telescope Changed The Truth and Other Events in History That Dramatically Altered Our Understanding of the World (Back Bay Books) book is nice because it echoes the videos without repeating the exact same content. But this CD audiobook is missing three of ten chapters and has the last two chapters scrambled. It cannot really be recommended.

*This is a book to be read and enjoyed by those with only a cursory knowledge of history, science or art. The author offers a breezy, descriptive yet very informative explication of the seven events that he considers have "changed the universe."
If "changing the universe" means the way we as humans look at or perceive the universe then he succeeded admirably. The events cited - evolution, perspective, relativity or heliocentric astronomy - changed the way we thought not only of our species but ourselves and our beliefs. It is only natural that so many of these advances accompanied the Industrial Revolution which accompanied a scientific and political revolution that allowed backward Europe to dominate the world.

Many of these transformations were invoked by heroes who shall forever remain unknown. Some of these are still affecting us. Comparing the TV series and the book is difficult but it is apparent that the book followed the excellent series - not the other way around. There are excellent maps, charts, pictures and diagrams throughout and the cover shot sums the book.

This is how history should be written. Period. Brilliant, witty, yet with a serious, driving philosophical point.

There is a very simple lesson here, but many people resist it, as it can be very a difficult one to take to heart: the only way people can change the world is if they first recognize that it can be changed. To change the world, one must first change his perspective on it and himself. And to change oneself, one must admit that he is not perfect.

We often find it very hard to admit when we're wrong, especially about the things that seem to define us, because redefining oneself can be an extraordinarily painful and confusing thing. But only though this painful process of discovery can we hope to advance, for real progress and growth only comes about by questioning and changing the hard parts of ourselves.

There's more, of course, but you'll have to read to find out the rest. This is an ideal graduation gift; I am giving my copy of this book to my sister and plan on buying another to replace it.

This review is based on the first American edition, which was published as a companion to the PBS program, "The Day the Universe Changed". I am assuming that the book is identical with the original British edition.

This is another in the series of excellent popular science and technology books by James Burke. The title is a little misleading, though, in that it does not deal with a specific day, rather with the overturning of paradigms (although the term paradigm is never used in the text). The book is lavishly illustrated, in the mold of the books that are companions to PBS series. (In this regard, I do not know if the original edition is also as lavishly illustrated.)

Each chapter begins with a view of the world before "The Day the Universe Changed", for instance, a world in which the sun revolves around the earth and the sun, moon, planets and stars each reside on Celestial Spheres. The book then shows how this view was changed by the observations of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler, then how Galileo and then Newton synthesized this data into a new view of the heavens. The same sort of approach is given to chemistry, medicine, geology, biology and other fields. The main theme of the book is that the view of the universe is not static. While Newton's view of light prevailed for over 200 years, it was eventually changed by Einstein. The book shows how the retrieval of the philosophy of the Greeks from the Arabs started these changes. It shows how many factors interact, for instance and how the development of perspective drawing and printing affected the development of science.

The last chapter of the book is the most thought provoking. It proposes that there is no objective truth, but that what we see as truth is actually a construct of the current structure of thought and that "truth is relative" to this structure. The "truth" of an earth-centered universe was framed by the prevailing structure of reality. When this structure was changed by the development of experimental data and scientific thought, the view of the universe changed, but Burke maintains there is no basis to believe that the "scientific" view is any more valid. "The truth is relative." Fortunately, one can skip this chapter and view this book as a history of the evolution of the ideas of physics, chemistry, geology and biology, which it is.

In view of the current controversy over intelligent design, the chapter on the changes in the geological interpretation of the earth and how it spawned the theory of evolution is particularly enlightening. It draws into clearer perspective why the theory of evolution and the geological view of an earth that is billions of years old is such a threat to the paradigm believed by fundamental Christians.

After you read this book, you will look at the world in a whole new way.It outlines on how random the pace of discovery of new ideas and technology really is. If you want to be really challenged intellecually, then go no further. Mr. Burke has done an outstanding job. I just wish that I could afford the DVD that is based on this book.