Background
Park, David Allen was born on October 13, 1919 in New York City. Son of Edwin Avery and Frances (Paine) Park.
(Tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 year...)
Tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. This book is about the 'grand contraption' we've constructed through the ages in an effort to understand and identify with the universe.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FGVYTAA/?tag=2022091-20
( The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's at...)
The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. No other book has provided as coherent, compelling, and learned a narrative on this subject of subjects. David Park takes us on an incredible journey that illuminates the multitude of elaborate "contraptions" by which humans in the Western world have imagined the earth they inhabit--and what lies beyond. Intertwining history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the physical sciences, this eminently readable book is, ultimately, about the "grand contraption" we've constructed through the ages in an effort to understand and identify with the universe. According to Park, people long ago conceived of our world as a great rock slab inhabited by gods, devils, and people and crowned by stars. Thinkers imagined ether to fill the empty space, and in the comforting certainty of celestial movement they discerned numbers, and in numbers, order. Separate sections of the book tell the fascinating stories of measuring and mapping the Earth and Heavens, and later, the scientific exploration of the universe. The journey reveals many common threads stretching from ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks to peoples of today. For example, humans have tended to imagine Earth and Sky as living creatures. Not true, say science-savvy moderns. But truth isn't always the point. The point, says Park, is that Earth is indeed the fragile bubble we surmise, and we must treat it with the reverence it deserves.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691130531/?tag=2022091-20
(The short Heroic Age of physics that started in 1925 was ...)
The short Heroic Age of physics that started in 1925 was one of the rare occasions when a deep consideration of the question: What does physics really say? was necessary in carrying out numerical calculations. In many parts of microphysics the calculations have now become relatively straightforward if not easy, but most physicists seem to agree that some questions of principle remain to be resolved, even if they do not think it is very important to do so. This situation has affected the way people think and write about quantum mechanics, a gingerly approach to fundamentals and a tendency to emphasize what fifty years ago was new in the new theory at the expense of continuity with what came before it. Nowadays those who look into the subject are more likely to be struck by unexpected similarities between quantum and classical mechanics than by dramatic contrasts they had been led to expect. It is often said that the hardest part of understanding quantum mechanics is to understand that there is nothing to understand; all the same, to think quantum mechanically it helps to have firm mental connections with classical physics and to know exactly what these connections do and do not imply. This book originated more than a decade ago as informal lecture notes OP, prepared for use in a course taught from time to time to advanced undergraduates at Williams College.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3642749240/?tag=2022091-20
Park, David Allen was born on October 13, 1919 in New York City. Son of Edwin Avery and Frances (Paine) Park.
Bachelor of Arts, Harvard, 1941; Doctor of Philosophy, University Michigan, 1950.
Instructor, Williams College, 1941-1944; operations research on radar countermeasures, Harvard University and England, 1944-1945; instructor, University of Michigan, 1950; member, Institute Advanced Study, Princeton, 1950-1951; member of faculty, Williams College, 1952-1988; professor physics, Williams College, 1960-1988, emeritus, since 1988; senior visiting, Cambridge (England) University, 1962-1963; visiting lecturer, U. Ceylon, 1955-1956, 72; visiting lecturer, Massachusetts Institute Technology, 1966; visiting professor, U. North Carolina, 1964.
( The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's at...)
(Tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 year...)
(The short Heroic Age of physics that started in 1925 was ...)
(The short Heroic Age of physics that started in 1925 was ...)
("What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it i...)
(Book by Park, David Allen)
Fellow American Physical Society. Member International Society for Study Time (president 1973-1976).
Married Clara Justine Claiborne, August 18, 1945. Children: Katharine, Rachel, Paul, Jessica.