Science and the Modern World
Alfred North Whitehead
Modern English Edition
First published 1925 · Lucid Classics edition 2026 · 239 pages
Original and Lucid edition, side by side
Original text
The progress of civilisation is not wholly a uniform drift towards better things. It may perhaps wear this aspect if we map it on a scale which is large enough. But such broad views obscure the details on which rest our whole understanding of the process. New epochs emerge with comparative suddenness, if we have regard to the scores of thousands of years throughout which the complete history extends. Secluded races suddenly take their places in the main stream of events: technological discoveries transform the mechanism of human life: a primitive art quickly flowers into full satisfaction of some aesthetic craving: great religions in their crusading youth spread through the nations the peace of Heaven and the sword of the Lord.
Lucid Classics
The progress of civilization is not simply a steady drift toward better things. It can look that way if you map it on a large enough scale. But broad views of that kind hide the details that hold the whole process together. New epochs surface fairly suddenly, when measured against the tens of thousands of years over which the full story runs. Hidden peoples step abruptly into the main current of events. A technological discovery rebuilds the machinery of human life. A primitive art flowers into full satisfaction of some hunger for beauty. Great religions, in the heat of their crusading youth, push the peace of Heaven and the sword of the Lord through whole nations.
Original text
The theory of relativity has justly excited a great amount of public attention. But, for all its importance, it has not been the topic which has chiefly absorbed the recent interest of physicists. Without question that position is held by the quantum theory. The point of interest in this theory is that, according to it, some effects which appear essentially capable of gradual increase or gradual diminution are in reality to be increased or decreased only by certain definite jumps. It is as though you could walk at three miles per hour or at four miles per hour, but not at three and a half miles per hour.
Lucid Classics
The theory of relativity has rightly drawn a great deal of public attention. But for all its importance, it has not been the topic at the center of recent interest among physicists. That place belongs without question to the quantum theory. The striking thing about this theory is that some effects which look as though they ought to grow or shrink by smooth degrees turn out, in fact, to grow or shrink only by certain definite jumps. It is as if you could walk at three miles an hour or four miles an hour, but not at three and a half.
Contents
- Preface
- The Origins of Modern Science
- Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought
- The Century of Genius
- The Eighteenth Century
- The Romantic Reaction
- The Nineteenth Century
- Relativity
- The Quantum Theory
- Science and Philosophy
- Abstraction
- God
- Religion and Science
- Requisites for Social Progress