The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

When young children first begin to ask 'why?' they embark on a journey with no final destination. The need to make sense of the world as a whole is an ultimate curiosity that lies at the root of all human religions. It has, in many cultures, shaped and motivated a more down to earth scientificinterest in the physical world, which could therefore be described as penultimate curiosity.These two manifestations of curiosity have a history of connection that goes back deep into the human past. Tracing that history all the way from cave painting to quantum physics, this book (a collaboration between a painter and a physical scientist that uses illustrations throughout the narrative)sets out to explain the nature of the long entanglement between religion and science: the ultimate and the penultimate curiosity.

• | Author: Roger Wagner, Andrew Briggs
• | Publisher: Oxford University Press
• | Publication Date: Jun 15, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 496 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0198839286
• | ISBN-13: 9780198839286