John Maddox (1925–2009)

A year ago, a book entitled "The End of Science" by John Horgan claimed that there was nothing of significance left for science to uncover. It was not a "Hal's Pick" because I thought it was seriously mistaken, echoing the smug predictions of a century ago, just before the revolutions of quantum mechanics and relativity blew the lid off of classical science. Now John Maddox, for twenty three years the editor of Nature, has published a refutation of Horgan's thesis. Maddox organizes his thoughts into three categories: Matter, Life, and Our World. In each of ten chapters, he describes what he sees to be the outstanding problems and the likely means by which they might be attacked. I particularly enjoyed the clarity of his descriptions of the current status of the science involved - not surprising, considering his responsibilities at Nature. The future will likely prove his predictions wrong, but I don't think it will disprove his larger point, that science has an promising future. This should be an inspirational book for students of science.… (más)