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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $19.95

Format:
Hardback
128 pp.
129 mm x 196 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199603367

Publication date:
April 2011

Imprint: OUP UK


On Being

A scientist's exploration of the great questions of existence

Peter Atkins

In this scientific 'Credo', Peter Atkins considers the universal questions of origins, endings, birth, and death to which religions have claimed answers. With his usual economy, wit, and elegance, unswerving before awkward realities, Atkins presents what science has to say. While acknowledging the comfort some find in belief, he declares his own faith in science's capacity to reveal the deepest truths.

Readership : All interested in the deep questions of nature, the origin of the Universe, life, what happens after death, and what science has to say about it all.

Prologue
1. Creation
2. Evolution
3. Birth
4. Death
5. Ending
Epilogue

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Peter Atkins is Fellow of Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He is the author of almost 60 books, which include the world-renowned textbook Physical Chemistry (published in its ninth edition in November 2009). His other textbooks include Inorganic Chemistry: Chemical Principles and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. He has also written a number of books for a general readership, including Galileo's finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science, The Periodic Kingdom, Molecules, and The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction. He has been a visiting professor in France, Israel, New Zealand, and China, and continues to lecture widely throughout the world.

The March of Unreason - Dick Taverne

Special Features

  • A personal statement of belief from renowned author Peter Atkins about the ability of science.
  • Each chapter explores a grand theme, such as Origins or Death, to show what science has revealed about the topic.
  • Written with wit, irony, elegance, and a rigorous exposition of science.
  • Explores issues such as the significance of evolution, our personal origins, the physiology of death, and the far ends of the Universe.